Ray Tensing Arraigned On $1 Million Bond: Did Cincinnati Cops Lie To Protect A Brother Officer?

Ray Tensing was arraigned on Thursday morning on murder charges for the July 19 shooting death of Sam DuBose. A $1 million bond was issued. The University of Cincinnati shooting sparks a campus closure and concerns about riots on Wednesday. Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Deters shared the Tensing body camera footage of the shooting with the public during a press conference announcing the grand jury indictment of Tensing on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges.

Allegations that University of Cincinnati police officers lied about the details surrounding the Ray Tensing shooting of Sam DuBose, 43, surfaced quickly after the body camera footage was made public.

An analysis compiled after the entire 28 minute Tensing body cam was viewed (Deter shared 10 minutes of the tape during the press conference) reportedly shows that after the DuBose shooting, two other police officers repeated Officer Tensing’s account that he was dragged by DuBose, at least three times, one of these officers claims to have witnessed it occurring.

“I think I’m OK. He was just dragging me,” Tensing is heard stating on the recording.

“Yeah, I saw that,” an officer who is not standing in view of the body camera, said.

“I thought I was going to get run over. I was trying to stop him,” Tensing also said.

The University of Cincinnati Police Division’s information report identified the unseen UC police officer as Phillip Kidd. The report was written by officer Eric Weibel.

“Looking at Officer Tensing’s uniform, I could see that the back of his pants and shirt looked as if it had been dragged over a rough surface,” Officer Weibel also wrote.

Stew Mathews, Tensing’s attorney, maintains that footage from the body cameras of the officers who responded to the scene after Ray called for help will validate his client’s statements about the shooting.

“It’s an absolute tragedy that anyone would behave in this manner,” Joe Deters said during the press conference. “It was senseless. It’s just horrible. He purposefully killed him.”

Grasping what actually occurred in the Sam DuBose shooting video is extremely difficult until the footage is slowed down immensely. Tensing pulled the vehicle over because it was registered to a driver with a suspended license, and the vehicle’s front license plate was missing. When asked for his license, DuBose said that he had one, but he had forgotten to grab it before leaving the house. Officer Tensing asked the same question about producing the license multiple times in what appeared an effort to get DuBose to state whether the forgotten license was valid. He told the UC police officer that he did, indeed, have a current license, but his driving privileges had been suspended.

Ray Tensing, 25, spotted a bottle of gin in the car, but the presence of the booze was entirely legal because the bottle was still sealed — no allegations about driving while intoxicated were uttered during the traffic stop. When the Cincinnati campus police officer instructs Samuel DuBose to get out of his vehicle so he can go run his name through the system, DuBose turns the key in the ignition and starts his car while saying, “I didn’t even do nothing.”

Tensing claimed he was being drug by the car and pulled out his gun to protect himself. A single shot was fired, hitting DuBose in the head and killing him.

“Murder is the purposeful killing of another,” Stew Mathews said. “There wasn’t any purpose to kill this fella.”

[Image via Screengrab]