The Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department is expected to indict an officer who shot dead an Ethiopian-Israeli teenager earlier this year while off duty, the Haaretz daily reports.
According to the report, the officer will likely be indicted for negligent homicide, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.
PIID investigators determined the policeman had no reason to draw his gun, the report says, even though 19-year-old Solomon Tekah was throwing stones at him.
The officer, who has not publicly been named, has maintained he was trying to break up a street fight in the Haifa neighborhood of Kiryat Haim and was set upon by three youths who hurled stones at him, endangering his life. The officer says he fired a shot at the ground and the bullet apparently ricocheted up hitting Tekah.
The killing of Tekah sparked nationwide protests, which at times turned violent and saw damage to property. The incident immediately sparked renewed accusations of police brutality and racism toward the Ethiopian community. Days after the shooting, protesters across Israel blocked roads, burned tires and denounced what they said is systemic discrimination against Israelis of Ethiopian descent.
Ethiopian Israelis, family members and activists protest following the death of 19-year-old Solomon Tekah who was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer in Haifa’s Kiryat Haim neighborhood, July 1, 2019. (Meir Vaknin/Flash90)
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