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White cop convicted in shooting death of daughter’s Black boyfriend gets 15 years

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A White former cop in Tulsa has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for fatally shooting his daughter’s 19-year-old Black boyfriend in 2014. A jury convicted Shannon Kepler, a 57-year-old ex policeman of first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Jeremey Lake. It was the fourth jury that Kepler had faced in the span of about a year, after three hung juries, reports the Associated Press. At the jury’s recommendation, Tulsa County District Court Judge Sharon Holmes handed down a sentence of 15 years in prison. She also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine. Kepler maintained that he shot Lake in self-defense in August 2014. The police veteran said he’d driven to Lake’s house out of concern for his then-18-year-old daughter Lisa Kepler, CBS News reported. He said his daughter, who had recently become romantically involved with Lake, had “run away from home” and he’d hoped to convince her to return. Lisa Kepler told jurors that her parents had kicked her out of the house and dropped her off at a homeless shelter in the days leading up to the shooting. It was there that she’d met Lake, who volunteered at the facility. She said she soon moved in with the teen and his aunt. On Aug. 5, 2014, Lisa Kepler and Lake returned home to find Shannon Kepler waiting outside in his SUV. After exchanging a few words with her dad, Lisa Kepler said she turned to walk into the house when she heard several gunshots. When she turned around, Lake was lying on the ground and her father had returned to his vehicle and driven off, she said. Kepler said he’d fired in self-defense because he saw Lake pull a semi-automatic gun out of his pocket. Police, however, did not find a weapon on Lake or at the scene of the crime. Several witnesses also testified that they had not seen Lake with a gun. The issue of race had been a central focus in Kepler’s four trials.

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