Thread by @megoconnor13

Police killed Jacob Harris. But his friends are serving decades in prison for it.

I've spent the past six months trying to unravel what really happened on the night of Harris's death—and what has happened to his friends and family members since then.
theappeal.org/phoenix-police…

I obtained personnel records, transcripts of police radio traffic, aerial surveillance footage of the shooting, and interviewed 9 people involved in the case.

A review of those records and 6,000 pages of documents from police, prosecutors, & civil lawsuits reveal the following:

Law enforcement officials have made false or inconsistent statements about the circumstances surrounding the shooting. A prosecutor falsely told a grand jury Harris "exchanged gunfire" with police. The Phoenix Police Department's own investigation proved that did not happen.

In a press release sent to reporters immediately after the shooting, police claimed Harris "pointed a gun" at officers. Kristopher Bertz, the officer who killed Harris, said himself that did not happen in an internal affairs investigation.

Aerial footage of the shooting shows Harris running away from police for all of two seconds before he is felled by a hail of gunfire. We are sharing footage of the shooting at his father, Roland's request.

A judge in the criminal case against Harris’s friends stated unequivocally that Harris did not turn toward Bertz.

“That did not happen,” said Judge Suzanne Cohen. “He did not turn as he was running and point the gun. His body is going in one direction and one direction only.”

Transcripts of police radio traffic show that officers were communicating on an encrypted messaging platform called WhatsApp on the night Jacob Harris was killed—but those messages have since been deleted.

“I have a void in my life that is never going to be filled,” Roland Harris said. “Jacob's son will never know him. His kids are never gonna get any father-daughter dances. He’s never gonna get a chance to walk his daughter down the aisle.” theappeal.org/phoenix-police…

Police records also raise serious questions about the department’s conduct prior to the shooting.

Officers had been surveilling Harris and his friends for over 12 hours at the time, believing them to be connected to a string of store robberies.

Police had many opportunities to stop the group throughout the day—but ultimately they chose to sit by and allow a to robbery occur.

Police didn’t seek to apprehend Harris and his friends until after they drove away. But police never alerted the group to their presence or gave them a chance to pull over. Instead, officers escalated directly to a high-risk maneuver that forced the car to a stop.

The Phoenix Police Department investigated itself and determined Bertz acted in accordance with department policy in killing Harris. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute, stating that Bertz did not “commit any act that warrants criminal prosecution.”

Instead, prosecutors decided to hold Harris’s three friends responsible for his death.

Arizona’s “felony murder” law allows people to be charged with murder if someone dies during the commission of a felony, even if they did not cause the death. theappeal.org/phoenix-police…

Jeremiah Triplett, Sariah Busani, and Johnny Reed—ages 20, 19, and 14 at the time—were in the car with Harris on the night of his death. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office charged them with first-degree murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, and burglary.

Busani and Triplett were held in jail on a $1 million bond for three years before finally being sentenced in the first few months of 2022. Busani was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Triplett was sentenced to 30 years. (Photos of Triplett and Busani provided by their parents)

Reed was held on a $500,000 bond and was ultimately sentenced to 15 years in prison—more years than he had even been alive at the time of his arrest.

Reed, who had just graduated from 8th grade the year before, has been incarcerated with adults for much of the last four years.

“You guys are taking my 14-year-old baby and signing his whole life off,” Reed’s aunt, Shawanna Chambers, said. Chambers raised Reed. “He’s a young Black boy. And we’re in poverty. They were never going to hold the police accountable for Jacob’s murder. It was going to be us.”

Reed has spent some of that time in solitary confinement in an attempt to separate him from the rest of the prison population because of his age.

For the last year, Reed’s family has been unable to talk to him except through email.

“I honestly want people to know we made a mistake, but that should never define who our characters are,” said Reed in an email. “We ain’t kill Jacob, we watched Jacob die before our eyes, that was our friend.”

Prison has been a painful adjustment, Reed said. “I’ve had to overcome depression and all kinds of things. I’ve been locked up in Solitary Confinement a few times, and that takes a whole different toll on your conscience. I really miss my family.” theappeal.org/phoenix-police…

Read the full story here: theappeal.org/phoenix-police…

This story would not have been possible without my incredible coworkers at The Appeal. Every single one of them did so much work to make this happen. Thank you @nickpwing, @EthanSCorey, @jerryiannelli, @molly_verde, @annafsimonton, @taramfrancis, @elizabethweill & @MaleciaWalker