(Memphis) New allegations have brought up old wounds in Memphis.
Former Memphis Police Officer Terrance Shaw shot and killed a 15-year-old while off duty a year ago. He never was charged in that case.
Now, Shaw is facing rape charges in Huntsville.
“Of course you hate it any time there is an allegation of a sexual assault as a prosecutor you hate to hear that our hearts go out to the victim there and it reopens wounds for the entire community for the homicide he was involved in here.”
Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich never charged former Memphis police officer Terrance Shaw in the death of 15-year-old Justin Thompson.
She said there just wasn’t enough evidence.
“Vince and I were talking about sitting in this very office where you are sitting with the victim’s mother and explaining to her that we had no choice that we had nothing that we could do to charge Mr. Shaw,” Weirich said.
Thompson’s mother was outraged hearing the man who killed her son is now charged with raping an ex-girlfriend in Alabama, a crime she believes could have been prevented if he’d been put away here.
“Amy Weirich wouldn’t give me answers,” Shirley Thompson said. “He’s a criminal. I think he belongs in jail. He should have been charged in the murder of my son.”
She wants the DA to take another look at her son’s case.
“Terrance has been lying from the start,” she said. “He’s a bad person.”
But Weirich said the cases are separate.
“Sitting here right now I’m hard pressed to see how this latest criminal event would have any correlation with the homicide here but every criminal case is open its very rarely that we ever say we`re done here,” she said.
Because it’s evidence, not emotions, she said, that drive the criminal justice system.
Shaw is out of jail on bond.
He will be in court on the rape charge in Alabama December 4th.
