A cop goes into a home, no warrant shoots the man in the bed. But somehow he's avoiding jail time. Put it at full mass. [00:00:15] This is a sad story. Russell Mathis, a Georgia cop who entered Miranda Salomon's home without a warrant, shooting and killing the unarmed black man in his bed after startling him awake, was [00:00:34] spared prison time by a judge last month. The former DeKalb police officer will also be eligible to have his conviction sealed under Georgia's first Offender Act if he successfully [00:00:51] completes his ten year sentence after pleading guilty under an Alford plea in the 2022 killing of the 37 year old inside his Stone mountain home. The shooting was captured by police body cameras, but the videos have not been [00:01:07] released despite Selma's family demanding. So that typically means they are egregious. Okay. And the plea that he gave, he basically said, hey, you know what? I'm guilty, but I'm not saying I'm guilty because I did it. [00:01:22] I'm saying I'm guilty because there's a preponderance of evidence here that likely I may not be able to overcome the court. That's that's kind of how that works. So you so you don't have to really confess. To the crime. It's it's a it's a silly notion in court legal theater. [00:01:39] The shooting took place at 11 p.m. On November 4th, 2022, after DeKalb police. DeKalb police officers Matthews and Jordan Vance drove to Selma's home in response to a call of a stolen car on his property. The call was alleged on the car, excuse me, was alleged to have been stolen from a [00:01:59] dealership after a man named Mark Mirando took it for a test drive on August 24th, 2022 and never returned it, according to the pending lawsuit. Police said the stolen car was parked in the driveway of Selma's two story home, so they knocked on his front door, which they claim it just magically swung open when we knocked, [00:02:19] allowing them to enter the home. Two cops searched the first floor before making their way upstairs. No warrant where salmon was sleeping in his bedroom. The claim states that Mathis opened the door to the bedroom without announcing [00:02:36] himself, waking the black man up, firing six rounds, striking salmon four times and killing him. Police initially claimed that Mathis was in fear for his life because Samuel was reaching for a gun, but that turned out to be a lie. Police said that salmon threw a knife at Mathis, but that also [00:02:56] turned out to be another lie. It was not until more than a year later, after a grand jury indicted the two DeKalb County police officers, that the public learned the object was a phone. But even then, police tried to justify the shooting [00:03:13] by saying they found a gun in the room. However, the gun, which was holstered and away from salmon, was legally owned by the Black Mail. Both Mathis and Vance also tried to justify the shooting to Internal Affairs by claiming they entered the home without a warrant because they were acting [00:03:29] under exigent circumstances. Not in the law. There's no such thing, sir. To violate the right of of a domicile to a resident can't do it. Which they said it was allowed under the departmental policy. Departmental policy does not trump the constitutional rights [00:03:47] of the people you serve. But internal affairs investigators determined the shooting was not justified. That means you. You murdered somebody. That's what that means. The shooting was not justified based on their claims of exigent circumstances. [00:04:04] DeKalb County police policy states that warrantless searches are permitted where speed is essential to accomplish a lawful police action, a lawful police action. According to the pending lawsuit, Mathis was sentenced to two years of house arrest. [00:04:19] You heard me right. Mathis was sentenced to two years of house arrest, followed by eight years of probation after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter. This was on the 11th of February. He was also ordered to pay $4,700 [00:04:36] to Sami's family for funeral expenses, but he would not be required to wear an ankle monitor while on house arrest. Meanwhile, a lawsuit against Mathis and the other cop who entered Samuel's home remains pending. We're going to stay on top of that. Jasmine, what are your thoughts? [00:04:51] Yeah, I know we're out of time, so I'll keep it short. But I will refer back to something I said earlier. If you want to know who a country is, what they stand for and look at who they protect, look at their reasons for protecting the people that they choose to protect, and look at the way that they treat their victims. Look at the way that they they lied multiple times in in regards to this case. [00:05:11] And then whenever it was found out that the cop did act in a way that he should not have, and somebody ended up dying as a result, he just gets off with some probation and some house arrest. So that is who we are as a country. And the sooner we accept that, the better off we'll all be, [00:05:26] because then we can work towards actually fixing it instead of just fighting about whether or not this is who we are.