Plainclothes officers seeking a man at a funeral in West Virginia fatally shot him soon after he helped place his father's casket in the hearse, witnesses say
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- Two law-enforcement officers fatally shot a man wanted by the US Marshals at his father's funeral.
- The officers were said to have called out Jason Arnie Owens' first name before quickly opening fire.
- Witnesses who talked to the Associated Press disputed authorities' claim that Owens, 37, was armed.
Plainclothes law-enforcement officers fatally shot a man in West Virginia soon after he helped place his father's casket into the hearse at a funeral, shocking people in attendance, the Associated Press reported.
Two officers with a fugitive warrant as part of a US Marshals investigation pulled up outside a West Virginia funeral home in separate vehicles on August 24, the AP reported, and were said to have called out Jason Arnie Owens' first name just before opening fire.
The AP reported that witnesses questioned why authorities pursued Owens, 37, at the funeral in the first place and also disputed authorities' initial claim that he was armed.
"There was no warning whatsoever," Cassandra Whitecotton, a family friend, told the AP.
"They yelled Jason's name. They just said 'Jason' and then started firing," Whitecotton added. "There was no identifications they were US Marshals — anything."
It's unclear which law-enforcement agency the two plainclothes officers belonged to; the local outlet WVNews previously indicated that both federal and local law enforcement were involved in the investigation. It's also unclear why a fugitive warrant was out for Owens' arrest.
He received a prison sentence of three to 13 years in 2018 after fleeing from a sheriff's deputy, the AP reported. Prosecutors reportedly said he had tried to strangle the deputy, and he was released on parole in April last year.
At the funeral, Owens was said to have helped place his father's casket into the hearse before embracing his aunt. Witnesses told the AP that the two officers then pulled up, yelled Owens' first name, and fired.
Owens was apparently standing close enough to his 18-year-old son that blood spattered the teen's shirt, the AP reported.
Whitecotton told the AP that one of the officers' cars nearly hit her as the driver pulled up a side street.
"It about hit me, so I jumped back up on the curb and kind of looked at him like, 'What's your problem?'" she said.
A man wearing shorts and a T-shirt was said to have rushed out of the car. Another witness — Mandy Swiger, Owens' cousin — said she saw a white truck nearly hit her mom's car as the driver pulled into the funeral home's parking lot.
Swiger said one of the officers told funeral attendees to step back from Owens — and threatened to shoot — after he fell to the ground. There were conflicting reports from witnesses and law enforcement about whether the officers tried to render aid to Owens.
"We want to know why you would do this in front of his family," Swiger said, per the AP. "And what gives you the right to do that to an unarmed man?"
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed most of the information. It came from an Associated Press article that was published by The Washington Post; it was not the Post's own reporting.