Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch will drop a manslaughter charge against a white former police officer in the 2015 shooting death of an African-American man, concluding that the officer acted in self-defense, the Associated Press reports. The killing of Ricky Ball prompted protests in Columbus, a mostly black city of 23,000 in northeast Mississippi. Fitch said her office reviewed thousands of documents and decided there was not evidence to prosecute former officer Canyon Boykin.
Ball, 26, was shot to death after a traffic stop. He was a passenger and ran from the vehicle after it was stopped. Boykin said he fired his weapon while chasing Ball because Ball appeared to point a gun at him. A handgun was found near Ball’s body. Former Attorney General Jim Hood presented the case to a grand jury that indicted Boykin on a manslaughter charge in 2016. Boykin’s attorney, Jim Waide, said “There was absolutely no evidence it was anything but self-defense. It’s a tragedy when for anyone to die. Canyon was doing what he was sent to do and had to defend himself.” Columbus fired Boykin, saying he had broken department policy by not turning on his body camera, by inviting his then-fiancee to ride along without permission and by making derogatory social media posts about African Americans, women and disabled people.