She needs like 20 years
Hannah Payne shot and killed Kenneth Herring after chasing him down while he may have been having a medical emergency while leaving the scene of a minor crash.
jalopnik.com
A
vigilante woman has been found guilty of murder after chasing down and
shooting an elderly black man who left the scene of a minor
car crash. Hannah Payne “acted like
a cop” and
pursued Kenneth Herring in her vehicle after seeing him hit a
truck in May of 2019, according to the
Daily Mail. That’s right: Payne wasn’t even involved in the crash.
Then 21-year-old cut Herring off, leapt out of her car and began
punching him through his window before taking out
a gun and killing him on a busy highway on the outskirts of
Atlanta, Georgia. The 62-year-old Herring was “unarmed and minding his own business,” according to prosecutors. “You don’t get the death penalty for committing a traffic offense.” In fact, witnesses say he looked to be in
the middle of a medical emergency — perhaps even
diabetic shock.
Payne was charged with two counts of felony murder, three counts of possession of a weapon during a crime, as well as one count of malice murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. It took 12 jurors just 90 minutes to convict Payne.
Here’s how Payne said the situation went down, according to the
Daily Mail:
As it turns out, that isn’t actually what happened. Shocking, I know.
Payne, who was 21 at the time of the crash, “
acted like a cop” according to prosecutors, when she tried to stop Herring from leaving
the scene of the crash. She saw him hit
an 18-wheeler and followed him, even though a 911 dispatcher told her to stay at the scene,
11 Alive reports. In the background of that call, police could apparently hear Payne saying, “get out of the car, get out of the car, get out of the fucking car.” Later, she picked up the phone and said, “he just shot himself with my gun.”
A detective testified that Herring was disoriented and thought someone actually hit him.
She pointed
a 9 mm handgun at Herring and told him to return to
the crash scene; her lawyers argued that an altercation ensued between the two and that’s when the handgun went off, according to
11Alive. He described the shooting as an act of self-defense and said Payne was a “
Good Samaritan” for blocking Herring’s Dodge Dakota pickup with her Jeep Wrangler.
However, the district attorney pointed out that you can’t
claim self-defense and use deadly force if you are the initial aggressor — which Payne was. It probably also didn’t help that she claimed the gun went off by accident and also that it was done in
self-defense. I’m not a smart man, but it cannot be both.
