HERE IS THE STORY FROM THE SON WHO WATCHED HIS FATHER’S MURDER
A man who played running back for the Cincinnati Bengals from 1978 to 1980 was shot and killed by a Kern County Sheriff’s deputy in front of his 19-year-old son.
It happened early Sunday at the Fastrip store, 2200 Nile St., in northeast Bakersfield.
According to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, a group of teenagers were outside of the Fastrip trying to get adults to buy alcohol for them. When deputies arrived, they approached 56-year-old David Lee Turner, who was leaving the store with his son.
Turner’s son was too shaken to speak with Eyewitness News on Sunday, but he told his sister what he witnessed.
“They asked my dad if he was the person buying alcohol for underage youth,” Jerrica Cor-Dova said.
According to Turner’s son, his father denied the claims, but deputies continued to question him. Turner then asked officers if he was being arrested. The deputies said no, and Turner grabbed his stuff and began to walk away.
“As he was walking away, the officers came up behind him and hit him in the back of the legs with a club, causing him to fall on his knees,” Cor-Dova said.
Turner’s son said the bag his father was carrying fell to the ground and the beer in the bag exploded. The next thing he heard was two shots being fired.
“My brother said he yelled my dad’s name, and my father was lying there still,” Cor-Dova relayed the story.
But according to the sheriff’s department, the shots were fired because one of the officers was hit over the head with the items in the bag. His son said that never happened.
“I know that there is a video recording, so we are relying heavily on the video recording from Fastrip,” Cor-Dova said.
Eyewitness News contacted Fastrip in an effort to obtain the surveillance video, but, due to the ongoing investigation, it cannot release the video.
The family is asking for answers.
“All we want is for justice to be served. We need some closure here. This is devastating,” Turner’s girlfriend Doralene Hicks said.
Deputy Welsey Kraft, the man who shot Turner, is currently on paid administrative leave as the investigation into the shooting continues.
Expect the usual departmental whitewash and coverup America has come to know as standard operation procedure from law enforcement.
