CINCINNATI (CN) – Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing took the witness stand in his own defense Friday, facing an intense cross-examination about his fatal shooting of unarmed black man Samuel DuBose.
Tensing shot and killed DuBose in July 2015, but his first trial ended in a hung jury. His retrial on charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter started last week.
Defense attorney Stew Mathews began by questioning Tensing about his employment history, which began with the Green Hills Police Department while he was in college.
After he withdrew from the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy, Tensing was hired by the University of Cincinnati, along with a number of officers, to help combat “a large problem with crime around the UC campus,” according to Tensing.
Mathews then showed the jury bodycam footage of several traffic stops made by Tensing before his encounter with DuBose, all of which involved black drivers.
In one of the stops, Tensing encountered a black driver with a suspended license and five outstanding warrants.
The footage showed Tensing loosening handcuffs and turning up the air conditioning in his police cruiser to make the man more comfortable, and also allowing a third party to pick up the man’s vehicle to avoid a tow.
Tensing also decided to re-cite the driver instead of taking him to the justice center.
The incident, used by the defense to humanize Tensing and reduce the appearance of any racial bias on the officer’s part, occurred a few hours before Tensing pulled over DuBose.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Seth Tieger asked Tensing about the stops he made that day, and whether they were racially motivated.
“Are you saying it’s a coincidence that everyone you stopped was African-American?” Tieger asked.
“Yes,” Tensing answered.
Tieger wanted to continue the line of questioning, and asked if it was true that Tensing had the highest racial arrest disparity among all UC police officers, but Mathews quickly objected.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Leslie Ghiz sustained the objection and called the attorneys up for a sidebar, after which Tieger switched tactics and questioned Tensing about his employment history.
Tensing became visibly upset when asked to describe the DuBose traffic stop, which the officer claimed “sent up a red flag for me … [because] the driver was not complying.”
DuBose refused to provide a driver’s license for Tensing, and then pulled his door shut when the officer tried to open it and remove the keys from the ignition.
“I thought I had a very good chance to reach in and turn the car off,” Tensing said on Friday. “I thought I could stop a pursuit right there before it happened. I reached in … and that’s when, in just a fluid motion, he turned the car on, went down to the center console and shifted his car from park and just put it into drive, extremely fast. He just mashed the accelerator to the floor at that point.”
Tensing began crying after that portion of his testimony, and said he was sorry before continuing on to describe the shooting.