About a month later, on December 12, 2019, Ryan Remington, a 32-year-old police officer in Arizona, used his standard-issue service weapon to execute a wheelchair-bound elderly man by shooting him nine times in the back and side. Richard Lee Richards was a career criminal who died from gun wounds inflicted by the trigger-happy officer. In cold blood, Remington ended the life of an elderly man attempting to steal a toolbox at the Tucson Walmart store.
Remington was dismissed from his job with the Tucson Police Department following the incident. On August 2022, Remington was charged by a grand jury for “recklessly” killing Richards, in the wake of which he was fired from his position with the Tucson Police Department. During a shoplifting episode on November 30, 2021, body camera footage revealed that Remington discharged 9 rounds at the fleeing suspect’s back and side.
As stated in a report, when a store employee asked to see Richards’ receipt for the toolbox he was carrying, Richards whipped out a knife and replied, “Here’s your receipt.”
As seen in the footage, Richards makes a run for it from Walmart in his wheelchair and races towards the parking lot of Lowe’s. Two officers spotted him and approach him with caution, asking him to stop.
“He’s got a knife in his other hand,” a person screams in the body camera footage. Without any prior warning, Remington shoots the elderly man in a wheelchair who was minding his own business.
The Richards family’s attorney, Rick Resch, said they are content that the officer will be held accountable for his actions.
“It has been a long and difficult past nine months for Mr. Richards’s family, but they are relieved that former Officer Ryan Remington has been indicted and will face the prospect of justice for the shooting and killing of Mr. Richards,” Resch stated.
In Arizona, manslaughter is classified as a class-two felony, with a minimum of seven years in prison. The phrase “recklessly causing the death of another person” is used to define it.
In the meantime, the police officer’s legal team is preparing to fight the charge.
“Manslaughter doesn’t even fit,” Remington’s lawyer Mike Storie said. “I don’t want to get into legal arguments, but it’s a legal fiction. So I’ll be very interested to read the grand jury transcript and find out what went on in that room when I was not present.”
The lawyer continued, “He did have a taser, but in his mind, he couldn’t use it because he didn’t feel he had the proper spread to deploy it, with the wheelchair between him and Richards.”
Mayor Regina Romero is pleased that the bad cop will be prosecuted for his unlawful actions.
“Now that the Grand Jury has issued an indictment and Ryan Remington will face criminal charges, it is a matter for the courts to adjudicate,” the Tucson mayor tweeted.
The manslaughter trial of Officer Ryan Remington is scheduled to begin on October 24, 2022. If convicted, he could face up to 21 years in prison.
