Chapter 9 – Are We Nearing the End?
“When Haug testified, that was all I needed. His testimony was really all that mattered to me.” Juror #13 during deliberations At the time Juror #13 said that, I couldn’t have disagreed more with his sentiment. During the morning of June 10th, we heard from a couple of witnesses. The first was finishing testimony that had started the prior week. Russell Hicks, the assistant training officer during Officer Nelson’s academy training, testified about a variety of things related to what Nelson was trained on. He spoke about strategies for retaining one’s firearm and testified that Officer Nelson was explicitly taught to create distance from a suspect and tactically disengage if he couldn’t maintain control. Very importantly, he said Nelson was taught to give verbal warnings to a suspect before shooting, with repetition being key for these behaviors to become second nature. A particularly poignant statement he made was that officers would actually fail the test if they called