Man: Defending son from 'hoodlums' outside led to fatal shot

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A white homeowner who shot an unarmed black man after complaining of "hoodlums" in the neighborhood said Tuesday he thought the loud, armed people in the street were friends of his own troubled, drug-taking son until he expressed fear about them.

Chad Copley, 40, testified at his murder trial that he was defending his family by firing at men approaching the attached garage that served as his son's bedroom. The young man had returned home only a couple of hours earlier after being gone for about two weeks when a shouting crowd gathered around engine-revving cars in the street, Copley testified.

But Copley admitted under later questioning by prosecutor Patrick Latour that he lied to police nearly a dozen times, including false accounts of people racing on his small residential street and vandalizing property and saying he fired a warning shot before killing 20-year-old Kouren Thomas.


Source : Yahoo News