Jonathan Ferrell

Jonathan Ferrell, 24, a former Florida A&M football player, was shot and killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Randall “Wes” Kerrick on September 14, 2013, after crawling from a wrecked car and banging on a nearby house's door seeking help; the resident, mistaking him for a home invader, called 911. Kerrick fired 12 rounds, striking Ferrell 10 times, eight while he was already on the ground; the two other responding officers did not fire. Kerrick was charged with voluntary manslaughter — the first Charlotte officer ever charged for an on-duty shooting — but a 2015 jury deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal after four days of deliberation, resulting in a mistrial. North Carolina's attorney general declined to seek a retrial, and the charge was formally dismissed. No one has ever been convicted in Ferrell's death.

Charlotte, NC · Mecklenburg County County

• 2013: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The car accident, Ferrell's approach to the house, and the shooting, per police dashcam footage and trial testimony.
• Kerrick fired 12 shots, striking Ferrell 10 times; the two other officers at the scene did not fire their weapons.
• Kerrick was arrested and charged with voluntary manslaughter within about 18 hours of the shooting, becoming the first Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer charged for an on-duty shooting.
• A jury of eight women and four men deliberated for four days before deadlocking 8-4 in favor of acquittal; Judge Robert C. Ervin declared a mistrial on August 21, 2015.
• North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper's office announced on August 28, 2015 that it would not seek a retrial, concluding a second trial was unlikely to yield a different result; the charge was dismissed.
• Kerrick resigned from the department and reached a separation agreement including approximately $180,000 in back pay.

• Whether Ferrell was charging at Kerrick, as Kerrick testified, or approaching in a manner that did not require deadly force, as prosecutors argued, was never resolved — the jury itself could not agree.
• Why the two other officers on scene, facing the same situation, did not fire their weapons was raised by prosecutors at trial but not resolved as a formal finding.
• The specific reasoning of the four jurors who favored conviction, versus the eight who favored acquittal, is not public, as with all jury deliberations.

• NBC News — “Judge Declares Mistrial For Police Officer Who Killed Jonathan Ferrell”
• NBC News — “Randall Kerrick, North Carolina Police Officer, Won't Be Retried For Killing”
• Slate — “Jonathan Ferrell shooting: How Charlotte avoided Ferguson's fate.”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs