$3.5M Settlement in Wayne Jones Case: 5 White VA Cops Beat a 130lb Homeless Black Man, Formed a Semi-Circle Around Him & Shot Him 23X, Murdering Him After a Jaywalking Stop on an Empty Street

‘You’re Walking in the Middle of [My] Street’ From [HERE] The family of a Black man who was shot 22 times by white police officers has reached a $3.5 million settlement with the city of Martinsburg, W.Va., according to Christopher E. Brown, the family’s attorney.

Wayne Jones, a homeless black man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was killed by white police officers after they stopped him for walking in the road in March 2013. The fatal shooting occurred in 2013 when Jones, then 50 and homeless, was stopped by police for walking in the street instead of on the sidewalk. The encounter escalated when Jones did not comply with an officer’s order to put his hands on the police car.

The case was dismissed three times before a federal appeals judge reversed the lower court last month in a powerful message against police use of deadly force.

Trump’s Justice Department also announced in April 2016 that it found insufficient evidence to pursue civil-rights charges against the officers.

Wayne A. Jones was walking down the street beside the sidewalk at 11:30pm on March 3, 2013. An Officer Lehman lurked behind him in his patrol unit watching Wayne as he was walking. As Wayne made a wide turn around a parked car, he immediately turned in towards the curb and continued walking. The video depicts Wayne stopping at an intersection and then crossing the street and ultimately stopping when the Officer pulled his vehicle over and exited.

A consensual encounter ensued where Wayne attempted to articulate where he was going and why he was not walking on the sidewalk. Lehman immediately wanted to turn the encounter into a warrantless search and seizure by making several requests and asking Wayne “Where are you going?” and “Do you have any weapons on you?” We know now that Wayne had a pair of scissors in his back pocket because of the Medical Examiner Report. Wayne responded “What is a weapon?”

At this point, one could only surmise that he wanted to know, from the officer, if a pair of scissors was considered a weapon; Regardless, we will never find out because immediately what started out as consensual was escalated to detainment and ultimately a murder. Wayne refused to be detained and asked the Officer “What did I do to you?” and “What do you want?” Over and over – He asked the question. Lehman never said Wayne was under arrest, he never accused him of a crime yet he continued to demand Wayne to put his hands on the vehicle. Wayne Jones refused and was subsequently tazed twice as backup officers arrived on the scene.

A chase ensued and Wayne ran onto the public library steps where the Officers chased him. Again Wayne exclaimed “What did I do to you?” What did I do to you?” With no answer, Wayne was punched in the side of the head, put into an illegal choke hold and thrown on the ground where a total of (5) officers placed Wayne on his stomach – beat him over and over, tazed him another two times while calling him a motherfucker and kicking him. Instead of cuffing Wayne, they continued to beat him and – someone yelled that he saw a knife[sic]; yet in the Police reports, some officers said that they didn’t see a knife and others couldn’t agree on what size the knife was. Furthermore – miraculously, multiple knives turned up on the scene after the fact and to date no knife has been physically produced.

At a point after the officers stated that they saw a knife – each officer, in unison, slowly backed away from Wayne, who lay motionless on his stomach after being horrifically brutalized. As an Officer Neely backed away, he instantaneously fired his weapon into the head of Wayne Jones and the other (4) officers followed suit. Totaling twenty-three shots, every bullet went into Wayne Jones body from the (5) officers. The Police Report clearly stated that Wayne was 5’9 and weighed 130lbs yet (5) officers who probably weighed 900-1000lbs could not subdue one 130lb individual without filling him full of holes equivalent to Swiss Cheese.

In the reports – each officer made a scripted statement that included “knife”, “fear”, and “noncompliance” summarizing that they felt in fear of their lives; however – the video tells a much different story. In fact, in Officer Staub’s video at around 23:30 he specifically stated that “He wouldn’t fucking do nothing so we all shot him” Additionally, Staub was the officer that was purportedly stabbed by the “phantom-throwdown” knife that multiplied into two knives underneath Wayne’s body after he was killed. Four different officers made materially false statements about the existence, location and the fact that they altered the crime scene and moved the knives[sic] which were never found to have any fingerprints, dna or other forensic evidence that would conclude that Wayne, in fact, possessed a knife or stabbed an officer. No knife was ever produced.

Several observations after watching all of the videos, make one wonder if they are even authentic, nevermind that the West Virginia State Police has already gone on the record and stated, after it was obvious that much of the audio had been doctored, deleted or otherwise maligned – that they had, in fact, made alterations to the video/audio which was released nearly (6) months after the murder. None of the timestamps on any of the dashcams are synched and most notably, none of the cruisers are ever facing a position which would shed any light on the actual incident despite it was 11:30pm and proper training and protocol is to position the vehicle’s headlights on the incident for maximum lighting. [MORE]

The Martinsburg District Attorney had a Special Grand Jury convened to hear the evidence against these (5) officers and just like Michael Brown, the Special Grand Jury refused to indict. The family of Wayne Jones, immediately retained counsel and sued the City of Martinsburg and its police officers who were involved in this crime. 

“I promised my mother before she died that we would continue to fight for justice,” said Bruce Jones, Wayne Jones’s 57-year-old brother and one of the beneficiaries of the settlement.

“The settlement makes me feel a little bit better, but until I can have a chance to have these cops prosecuted, I am still going to be pushing for justice,” he said.

In a statement, the Martinsburg Police Department stressed that the settlement is not an admission of guilt in the killing.

The settlement ends a seven-year legal battle after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled last month that officers who shot and killed Jones were not immune to the family’s lawsuit. The court’s ruling came in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in the custody of Minneapolis police.

“Although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives,” wrote Judge Henry F. Floyd, who referred to the police killings of Floyd in May and Michael Brown in 2014 in his ruling. He continued, “This has to stop.”

Though the protracted civil case has been settled, Jones’s family has another petition on appeal in state court that would impanel a grand jury to investigate the shooting, according to Brown, the family’s attorney.

“The fact that I could tell my client that we still have a shot at criminal prosecution made the figure very acceptable,” Brown said of the settlement. “My clients want the police who work there to lose their pension, lose their jobs and go to jail for murdering their brother.”

Jones’s family sued the city and the police officers alleging excessive use of force, but a district court judge initially found that the officers were protected from legal action by qualified immunity. The June ruling reversed that decision.