Rare conviction made in shooting by Virginia police officer

(AP) — Prosecutors in Virginia won a rare conviction of a white former police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teen suspected of shoplifting.

[...] the guilty verdict Thursday was for voluntary manslaughter, a lesser charge than the original first-degree murder count.

The outcome is typical of the rare conviction that follows a shooting by police, said Philip Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

In a similar case in Baltimore on Thursday, a jury convicted a police officer of assault for shooting an unarmed burglary suspect.

Rankin shot Chapman in the face and chest outside a Wal-Mart store last year after a security guard had called police to go after the young man.

Paul Akey, a construction worker who was nearby, said Chapman "went after the officer with throwing fists, and it looked like he knocked a Taser out of the officer's hands."

Criminal justice professor Stinson said on-duty officers kill about 1,000 suspects a year in the United States, but only 74 have been charged since 2005.