“I truly forgive him. I pray for him. And I pray that he gets off the police force,” Georgia Ferrell said of the police officer who shot and killed her son. “You took a piece of my heart that I can never get back.”
Handout / Reuters
Jonathan A. Ferrell was a 24-year-old former football player for Florida A&M University who worked two jobs and moved to North Carolina to be with his fiancée.
On Saturday, the car Ferrell was driving crashed into trees off a northeast Charlotte road. The wreck was so severe that Ferrell would have had to climb out of the back window to escape, the Associated Press reported.
An obviously shaken Ferrell walked about a half-mile to the nearest house and was "banging on the door viciously" to attract attention, police say.
The woman who lived there opened the door, and when she saw Ferrell, shut it and called police at about 2:30 a.m.
When officers arrived, Ferrell ran toward police, who attempted to stop him with a Taser. He continued to approach them when officer Randall Kerrick fired his gun, hitting Ferrell 10 times and killing him.
AP
"I truly forgive him. I pray for him. And I pray that he gets off the police force," said Georgia Ferrell, the victim's mother. "You took a piece of my heart that I can never get back."
Police determined the shooting was excessive and charged Kerrick with voluntary manslaughter. A police statement Saturday said the investigation showed "Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter."
