Black motorist's family after mistrial: 'Sam we are fighting for you'
CINCINNATI — Terina DuBose Allen stood alone with Sunday's chill and the setting sun at her back as she stared down at her brother's grave.
She needed these few minutes by herself. Out of the glare of the TV cameras, reporters, lawyers, jurors and even her three younger siblings.
There she stood, the oldest, vowing again to take care of her little brother.
"Sam we are fighting for you,'' she said to the bronze headstone marking Sam DuBose's life: son, brother, father, uncle, friend.
Allen and her three siblings visited their brother's Evendale, Ohio, gravesite after meeting with members of the media, during which they demanded Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters re-try former University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing on nothing short of a murder charge in DuBose's July 2015 death.
Judge declares mistrial in case of Ohio officer who killed black man at traffic stop
"We want murder to be the charge and if they are going to drop anything, drop manslaughter," Allen said, breaking down in tears. "My mother said she would rather a not guilty on the right charge, than a guilty on the wrong one.
"Because Sam deserves justice."
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Megan Shanahan declared a mistrial against Tensing on Saturday morning when jurors, after they deliberated 25 hours, could not reach a unanimous verdict. Jurors voted eight to four in favor of a voluntary manslaughter conviction, Deters said. At least three jurors were willing to find Tensing, a white man, guilty of murder in the killing of DuBose, an unarmed black motorist. It remained unclear whether there was overlap between juror votes on either count.
Deters said Saturday he would meet with his staff and base his decision on the likelihood of the success of a second trial. He said he would not be influenced by outside sources.
'I want him in jail'
The mistrial devastated the family: "We were holding onto hope and were able to keep going everyday until we got here. But 16 months after Sam was killed we are told: 'Nope.' "
Allen said she doesn't harbor hate toward Tensing, but wants justice served. And for her family that means Tensing must go to prison.
Deliberations in Tensing trial to continue Saturday
"I want him in jail. I'm disgusted that his parents get to spend Thanksgiving with him — the second one since Sam's gone and we don't get any justice either,'' Allen said.
"I'm sure Tensing's family loves him,'' she added. "We love Sam."
Allen praised Deters, calling the prosecution of the case "masterful,'' which left her even more perplexed about how the jury could not arrive at a guilty verdict.
Allen, who sat through the two-week trial, said she believed Deters proved Tensing purposefully killed her brother and that the defense did not prove Tensing killed DuBose in self-defense. She also argued that the evidence did not show that her brother was resisting arrest, nor was he speeding away from the traffic stop and did not drag Tensing, which the former officer claimed.
Allen stopped short of criticizing the jurors. But she said she can't help but wonder whether some implicit bias sneaked into the jury deliberation room. She was heartened by the jurors who "kept on fighting for Sam in there."
'He was so much more'
Allen said she wished the jurors could have seen DuBose as the jokester, the big-brother protector and peacemaker they and his friends knew him as. She said she wondered whether some felt sympathy for Tensing, but somehow couldn't connect with her brother as a human being.
His siblings recalled how they all grew up together in Cincinnati, playing board games, listening and making music and how family fellowship meant huge Thanksgiving homecomings filled with cooking, love and laughter.
Jurors begin deliberation in trial of campus officer
"The world knows him as this guy who died in Cincinnati," said DuBose's younger brother Aubrey, 36. "But he was so much more. So much more. So much better."
Allen said she is confident that a jury can be empaneled again that can weigh the evidence and arrive at a guilty verdict. She said she has not lost faith in the justice system.
"This is not justice denied," she said. "This is just justice delayed."
Follow Chris Graves on Twitter: @chrisgraves
Related:
Tensing testifies he feared being run over by Sam DuBose before shooting