Megan Zumbuhl
Discussion Questions
1. In a 2018 trial in Minneapolis, a former police officer was found guilty of third-degree
murder and manslaughter for fatally shooting a woman in the alley behind her home. The woman
had made the 911 call to report what she thought was the sound of a woman being assaulted. When
the squad car came slowly down the alley, she approached the driver’s side to talk to the two police
officers. The officer in the front passenger seat was startled by her movement and shot her with
his service revolver. The officer was black, and the victim was white.
a. Do you think the officer should have been charged with a crime? Why or why not? With
what crime should he have been charged?
-Manslaughter is the killing of a human without malice aforethought, which was not present at
this time. Murder, however, is the unlawfully premeditate killing of one human by another, the
office didn’t plan on killing the woman therefore it was not premeditated. He could be charged
with involuntary manslaughter because that is the killing in “the commission of an unlawful act
not amounting to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without due caution
and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death.” This circumstance is that he
arrived on a scene prepared for someone being assaulted and was startled when being
approached.
b. Both officers had turned their body cameras on and off at the scene. Do you think the
verdict would have been different if they had had their body cameras on the whole time? Why?
-Yes, because then a jury could see if or if not, the officer intentionally shot the woman or
if he shot her because she had startled him. This kind of physical evidence can either do this
case very well like when trying to show it was an accident.
c. Do you think the verdict would have been different if the woman who was shot had been
black instead of white? Why?
-I do not believe that the skin color of the lady matters, I believe that media today may make
it a difference, but in this case based on the information given, the officer arrived to the scene
ready to find someone being assaulted, when being startled it could have been the assaulter but
instead was the woman who called.