West Virginia Police shoot and kill man at his father‘s funeral

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We’ve covered many police killings over the past years and without comparing tragedies, this one is incredibly enraging and even more challenging to understand.

According to WOWKTV, police officers in Elkins, West Virginia shot and killed a grieving man hugging his aunt at his father’s funeral. You read that correctly. Police shot and killed a man who was in the process of burying his father. There isn’t a whole lot of information about exactly why police came to the funeral but witnesses say the shooting happened out of nowhere.

The deceased man’s sister Evelyn Odell says she was hugging her distraught nephew Jason Owens minutes after he served as a pallbearer and placed his father into the hearse. Odell says Owens was literally shot dead while she was holding him and trying to comfort him.

“He [Jason] just took his dad out and put him in the car [hearse], carried the casket out, and he came over and I was hugging him, and next thing I know, somebody yelled ‘Jason!’ and then, you know, ‘boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,’” Odell said. “He didn’t have a chance to do nothing.”

She went on…

“I went to hug him because he was upset, and next thing I know they just yelled ‘Jason!’ and they ‘pow, pow, pow, pow, pow,’” Odell said. “I about got shot. I felt the compressions of the bullets. It was horrible.”

Can you f***ing imagine??? It is reported that Owens had a criminal past that included some sort of violence against a cop back in 2018 but none of that justifies killing a man, much less killing a man at a funeral, even less, killing a man at a funeral while he is in the arms of an innocent party! There is no way in hell that this is part of the official police protocol under any circumstances and someone is going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Harrison County Sheriff Robert Matheny says police were there because Owens had a warrant for his arrest and they “believed” he was armed. Regardless, how does serving a warrant automatically turn into gunfire and killing?

We’ll have more info as it becomes available.