pinkcheesegreenghost:

moralanarchism:

Versailles, MO — Nearly two years after Trooper Anthony Piercy was charged in the death of Brandon Ellingson, who drowned in the Lake of the Ozarks with his hands cuffed behind his back, the case has been closed. Predictably, the offending officer is getting off with less than a slap on the wrist.

For handcuffing a college student, negligently casting him into a lake, and watching as he drowned, Trooper Piercy avoided an involuntary manslaughter trial after pleaded guilty to a simple boating violation in June.

This week, Piercy was sentenced for his role in Ellingson’s death and he received just 10 days in jail. The judge referred to this insultingly low sentence of only 10 days as “shock time.”

According to the Kansas City Star, in addition to the “shock time” in the Morgan County jail, Judge Roger Prokes sentenced Trooper Anthony Piercy to two years of supervised probation and ordered him to complete 50 hours of community service. Piercy will serve time in jail in five, two-day increments with his first stint scheduled to begin Friday.

To Ellingson family and those who’ve been following this case, it is a kick in the teeth.

“Ten days is like a vacation,” Craig Ellingson said. “It’s a joke. … He knows he’s guilty and he’s damn lucky to get what he got.”

As the Star reports, Special Prosecutor William Camm Seay requested Piercy receive 30 days in jail and have his law enforcement certification revoked for life. Prokes, however, said the decision on Piercy’s certification was for the state, not him.

the prosecutor who declined to file charges against Piercy, had received a personal favor from the MHP three years earlier when the department declined to charge her then-18-year-old son with DUI.