62-year-old William Bruce Ray, who is white, was arrested alive Tuesday afternoon by police in Wake County, North Carolina, despite pointing his shotgun at oncoming traffic and even firing a .22 caliber pistol at officers responding to the scene. According to local media, Ray threatened deputy D.R. Farmer with his shotgun before reaching for the handgun in his pocket, saying, “I got something for you.”
Sheriff Donnie Harrison told WRAL-TV that Farmer was able to subdue Ray peacefully, though Ray’s pistol did discharge into the air as he was subdued.
“The deputy luckily grabbed the barrel and pushed him back,” Harrison said. “Luckily, nobody got hurt. That’s the good thing. God was looking out for us… (Ray) was very fortunate that he didn’t get shot, very fortunate that anybody didn’t get shot.”
Ray was charged with two counts of assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm and is being held at the Wake County Jail on a $150,000 bond. Prosecutors say his charges may be upgraded to attempted murder. According to WRAL, Ray had been drinking. His neighbors told local media that he had a mental illness.
The treatment of Ray comes as the widely-shared videos of police killing Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philandro Castile in Minnesota, both of whom were black, have caused national outrage and protests. While both men were armed, Sterling never once reached for his gun during his final moments, and Castile told the officer who pulled him over for a broken tail-light that he had a firearm in his possession, which he had a license to carry. Unlike Ray, neither man became belligerent with police."
No comments:
Post a Comment