Two police officers charged in connection to the death of George Robinson, a black man in Mississippi who died after a violent arrest in 2019, are off scot-free after a ruling by a Hinds County judge Thursday.
Judge Faye Peterson dismissed all charges against Desmond Barney and Lincoln Lampley, two police officers on trial for second-degree murder.
“There was nothing on its face that was illegal,” said Peterson, who is black. “The detention of a suspect is not a criminal act, and there was no proof presented that they were conspiring.”
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A grand jury indicted Barney and Lampley, along with officer Anthony Fox, in August, according to the Clarion Ledger.
The three officers, who are all black, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Peterson said she considered lessening the severity of the charges to manslaughter but found the facts of the case did not meet the legal requirement, prompting her to drop all of them with prejudice. The two officers cannot be tried again.
Fox is expected to appear before another county judge soon, though it’s unclear how Peterson’s ruling affects his case.
Bettersten Wade, Robinson’s sister, whose birthday was the same day as her brother’s death, said she was “not going to hate” the officers she considered responsible for his death.
“But I hate that it happened to my brother,” Wade said. “I would have rather seen him sitting in a jail cell, and I could go see him. But right now, I can’t even go see him because he lost his life.”
This comes after Barney, Lampley, and Fox, who served as patrol officers at the time, responded to an alleged “hand-to-hand transaction” between Robinson and a woman in early 2019, according to police.
Approaching Robinson’s vehicle, police noticed a large amount of money scattered throughout the car.
The indictment states the three officers removed Robinson from his vehicle, body-slammed him on the pavement, and repeatedly struck him in the head and chest.
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Mississippi’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Mark LeVaughn, who ruled Robinson’s death as a homicide, testified that the manner of his death was a result of multiple head injuries.
