An off-duty police officer who shot and killed a teenager in Brooklyn last Sept 2 after a brief scuffle was indicted yesterday on charges of manslaughter in the second degree.
The officer, Roger Scheid, 26, was suspended immediately of the Department pending the outcome of the trial.
Yesterday’s indictment, by a King’s County grand jury, was the second this year involving a white police officer and a young black. (Torsney and Randolph Evans, 15. Torsney has since filed for disability retirement).
Three other New Yor City police officers have been charged with homicide in recent years. All five have been white and their alleged victims black or hispanic.
According to the police, Scheid, his brother and two women were driving through the Coney Island section last Sept 2 when his date pointed to a young black in a playground and said he had tried to rob her earlier that day.
Scheid confronted Frank Thompson, 18. According to police sources, Thompson pulled out a knife, slashed the police officer on the lower lip and ran off. Scheid cornered him in an abandoned building and ordered him to come out. The teenager was said to have lunged with the knife at which point Scheid fired six shots, two hitting him in the chest. He was dead on arrival at C.I. Hospital. The knife was found at the scene of the shooting.
In one of the earlier cases, officer Thomas Shea was acquitted in 1974 on charges of shooting to death Clifford Glover, 10, in South Jamica, Queens.
Last February, Officer William Walker was found not guilty in the 1974 shooting death of John Bradham, a 22-year-old Brooklyn College student.
In the only case to result in a conviction. Ryan was found guilty of beating to death Israel Rodriquez at a Bronx police station.
NYT Seigel 12/12/77
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