Post-Katrina police shooting death reclassified as a homicide

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Post-Katrina police shooting death reclassified as a homicide

Henry Glover’s body had been set on fire and left in a burned-out car after he was shot dead by police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Ten years later, the New Orleans coroner ruled Glover’s death a homicide, changing the classification from undetermined.

“It is my duty as coroner to determine the most accurate cause and manner of death based upon both investigative and autopsy evidence,” Orleans Parish coroner Dr. Jeffrey Rouse said Wednesday, the Times-Picayune reported. “If there is new evidence, it must be evaluated and previous opinions must be re-considered in its light.

After a review of all available evidence and a review of court transcripts, it is my obligation to reclassify the death of Henry Glover.”

The medical ruling comes years after Glover’s death and numerous trials for the officers involved in the incident. David Warren, a rookie New Orleans police officer, admitted to shooting unarmed 31-year-old Glover in 2005, saying he feared for his life. Warren had been found guilty of civil rights violations in 2010 and sentenced to serve 25 years in prison. Three years later, he was acquitted after an an appeals court granted him a second trial.

In 2014, another officer, Gregory McRae, was sentenced to serve 17 years in prison for burning Glover’s body. U.S. District Judge Lance Africk ruled that McRae set the car on fire in an attempt to cover up for other officers. “You did not merely burn a corpse, you, a law enforcement officer, burned a corpse to obstruct justice,” Africk said during the August 2014 hearing. McRae is appealing.

Glover had been shot by police and was picked up by a good Samaritan driving a car who tried to get him medical help.

It’s unclear what the legal ramifications will be of this new classification — Glover’s family wants murder charges filed against Warren, the Times-Picayune reported; the previous Orleans Parish coroner, Frank Minyard, had refused to classify Glover’s death as a homicide, saying there wasn’t enough forensic evidence left.

But the medical examiner’s classification is a medical and not legal finding, Rouse said in a statement. The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Warren’s attorney Rick Simmons said in a statement that a new trial because of the reclassification would be “fundamentally unfair,” WVUE reported.

“The coroner’s reclassification of Mr. Glover’s death as a homicide is not based upon any new evidence and has no effect on Mr. Warren’s prior acquittal,” Simmons said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/04/01/post-katrina-police-shooting-death-reclassified-as-a-homicide/