David Kassick was lying facedown on the pavement when he was shot by police officer Lisa Mearkle, prosecutors said.
Mark Pynes / AP
A Pennsylvania police officer has been charged with criminal homicide after she fatally shot an unarmed man in the back while lying on the pavement following a traffic stop.
Hummelstown Police Officer Lisa J. Mearkle, 36, was released on $250,000 bail after she was charged Tuesday in the death of 59-year-old David Kassick, the Associated Press reported.
Mearkle was suspended without pay from her job as a police officer on Wednesday, PennLive.com reported. The department told BuzzFeed News Mearkle had worked there for 14 years.
The confrontation between Mearkle and Kassick began on Feb. 2, when the officer stopped Kassick for expired license tags.
Kassick allegedly ran away from the traffic stop and headed to his sister's house nearby, PennLive.com reported.
Mearkle followed him, and is seen on video using a Taser on Kassick and telling him to show his hands, Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico Jr. told PennLive.com.
The Taser caused Kassick to fall to the ground, and he attempted to remove prongs from the device from his skin.
Mearkle told investigators she thought Kassick was reaching for a gun, and shot him twice in the back, PennLive.com reported. She tried to save him with CPR, but was unsuccessful.
However, investigators said Kassick clearly was not armed. Marsico said the video of the incident was the biggest piece of evidence that led him to charge Mearkle, PennLive.com reported.
"At the time Officer Mearkle fires both rounds from her pistol, the video clearly depicts Kassick lying on the snow covered lawn with his face toward the ground," Mearkle's arrest affidavit said, according to the AP. "Furthermore, at the time the rounds are fired nothing can be seen in either of Kassick's hands, nor does he point or direct anything toward Officer Mearkle."
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