Police investigators appeal acquittal of officer in Soloman Tekah killing
Department for Internal Police Investigations says officer violated warning shot procedures, and acquitting him would create ‘real potential to endanger life in the future’
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) filed an appeal to the Haifa District Court on Sunday against a lower court ruling in April that found an off-duty police officer not guilty of reckless manslaughter over the death of an Ethiopian-Israeli teenager in 2019.
DIPI argued in its appeal that the police officer’s life had not been in immediate and actual danger, that his warning shot had therefore not been warranted, and that the manner of his warning shot had violated police procedures and severely endangered Solomon Tekah, 18, resulting in his death.
The internal police investigative unit argued in its appeal that upholding the Haifa Magistrate’s Court’s acquittal of the officer would establish a dangerous precedent of allowing a new, more dangerous form of warning shot to become accepted practice among police officers and citizens who bear firearms.
Tekah’s death sparked outrage in the Ethiopian-Israeli community, whose members have long complained of over-policing, and led to renewed accusations of police violence and discrimination against them, sparking riots around the country.
Tekah’s family criticized the magistrate’s court’s ruling when the verdict was delivered in last month, with his mother telling the media outside the court that justice had not been done.
Teka was killed in 2019 after he and four other youths began harassing and then attacking an off-duty police officer who had initially approached them himself to intervene in a confrontation between them.
The officer, whose name the courts have banned from publication and who was accompanied by his family, then backed away but Teka and the youths followed them and began throwing stones at the officer, which struck him in various parts of his body, including the back of the neck.
The police officer fired a warning shot into the ground just next to Teka, a fragment of which ricocheted up from the asphalt, hitting and killing him.
In the appeal, DIPI contended that police regulations do not permit firing warning shots at the ground and that the officer’s shot therefore violated proper procedure. It also argued that his warning shot had been aimed too close to Teka and had been likely to endanger his life.
The appeal also stated that the police officer’s testimony in court that he felt his life and those of his family were in danger contradicted the testimony he gave to DIPI when under interrogation, and contradicted other evidence and objective testimony of the incident.
“The appellant does not dispute that the defendant was in a complex situation with a certain amount of danger, because stones had been thrown at him by the youth and he was even injured by them, but it was not an immediate and actual threat to his life, and certainly not to his family,” contended DIPI.
Leaving the magistrate’s ruling unchallenged would be a “legal mistake” and would “establish a new norm that contravenes existing law, which has a real potential to endanger life in the future by those bearing firearms who want to use them for mere ‘warning shots,’ which are not supposed to be life-threatening,” DIPI said.
“The warning shot discharged by the police officer at the asphalt, which is a firm surface that would not absorb a bullet, close to the feet of the deceased, Solomon Teka, and the youths, was in violation of regulations and therefore was negligent and caused the death of the deceased, Solomon Teka,” DIPI added in a statement to the press.
