Courtesy Parker County Sheriff’s Office/Handout via Reuters
Hours after former Texas police officer Roy Oliver was found guilty and sentenced for murder for killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards outside Dallas last April, the boy’s stepmother told reporters she believes the ex-cop deserves a far harsher punishment. Oliver was hit with a 15-year prison sentence for fatally shooting the unarmed black teenager last year. “He can actually see life again after 15 years and that’s not enough because Jordan can’t see life again,” Charmaine Edwards said Wednesday night. Edwards praised the prosecutors who brought Oliver to justice, but said she had hoped that same jury had sent him to prison for a longer sentence. Then an officer with the Balch Springs Police Department, Oliver had fired into a vehicle the teenager was sitting in when the driver failed to stop at officers’ commands. Oliver later claimed that he’d fired to protect his partner, Officer Tyler Gross, from the moving vehicle, though Gross himself testified at trial that he was not afraid for his life at the time. Prosecutors had pushed for a 60-year prison sentence.