More information about the criminal milieu of 29-year-old, 6′ 7″ Charles Smith continues to dribble out of Savannah, GA, in addition to what we previously covered here Handcuffed GA Man Killed by Police Had Extensive Criminal Record just three days ago.
A brief report by WOTC news discloses that:
At the time of Smith’s shooting on September 18 he was on active parole in effect since July 2013 for an aggravated assault conviction in which he had pleaded guilty to pistol whipping a man in 2009.
On September 1 of this year (so, less than 3 weeks prior to his death), Smith was behind the wheel of a stolen car equipped with fake license plates.
On September 5, four days later, Smith ran from police when they tried to pull him over in the stolen Lexus, during which Smith both ran red lights and engaged in speeding.
Translation: Smith was a man known to police to have a proven history of engaging in deadly force violence, as well as to be dangerously non-compliant when confronted by authority. Such knowledge would certainly go the Officer David Jannot’s reasonable perception of an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm when confronted by the armed, resistant Smith.
In addition, copies of the actual arrest warrants for Charles Smith that were outstanding at the time of his death have been released. For those of you (hopefully the large majority) who have never had the opportunity to see a real-life arrest warrant, I’ve embedded them below. They include seven–SEVEN!–warrants outstanding on a parolee for a variety of offenses including felonies:
40-6-395. Fleeing to Elude (Felony)
16-8-7. Theft by Receiving Stolen Property (Auto)
16-10-24. Obstruction of Officers
40-2-5. Acquiring license plat for purpose of concealing identify of vehicle
40-6-390. Reckless Driving [Note: This is a felony in many jurisdictions.]
40-6-20. Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device
40-6-72. Failure to Stop at Stop Sign
And here are the actual arrest warrants:
–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog (autographed copies available) and Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle). He also holds Law of Self Defense Seminars around the country, and provides free online self-defense law video lectures at the Law of Self Defense Institute and podcasts through iTunes, Stitcher, and elsewhere.
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