text: A Montana police officer pulled over an unarmed man for a traffic stop and shot him. Officer Grant Morrison testified to a jury that he feared for his life because the man was high on methamphetamines and was worried he was reaching for a gun, so he fired. 
   
   Video viewed by the jury showed Morrison shouting at Richard Ramirez multiple times to put his hands up before he fired three times into the car, killing him. 
   
   The jury cleared him of wrongdoing, and this week also saw the release of dash cam video showing Morrison breaking down moments after he fatally shot Ramirez. In the video, you can hear him breathing heavily as colleagues try to calm him down. At one point, Morrison starts crying and says, “I thought he was gonna pull a gun on me.” 
   
   You can watch the video here, via the Billings Gazette: 
   
   And you can watch the dash cam video of the shooting incident in question (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT): 
   
   [h/t Daily Dot] 
   
   [image via screengrab] 
   
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   Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A jury at a coroner's inquest determined Wednesday that a Montana police officer was justified in shooting and killing an unarmed man high on methamphetamine during a traffic stop. 
   
   Police video footage of the April 2014 shooting of Richard Ramirez by Billings Police Officer Grant Morrison, center in screen, is shown to a seven-person jury in Billings, Mont. on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015.... (Associated Press) 
   
   Police video footage of the April 2014 shooting of Richard Ramirez by Billings Police Officer Grant Morrison is shown to a seven-person jury, not pictured, in Billings, Mont. on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015.... (Associated Press) 
   
   Billings police officer Grant Morrison testifies during a coroner's inquest on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 in Billings, Montana. Morrison testified about the events leading up to his shooting of unarmed man,... (Associated Press) 
   
   Billings Police Chief Rich St. John explains his department's use-of-force procedures on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 during a coroner's inquest into the shooting death of an unarmed Montana man by a Montana... (Associated Press) 
   
   Julie Ramirez, left, consoles her mother, Betty Ramirez during a court inquest into the police shooting of Richard Ramirez in Billings, Mont. on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015. The unarmed man killed by Billings... (Associated Press) 
   
   The ruling came after Billings Police Officer Grant Morrison testified he feared for his life when he fired the three shots that killed 38-year-old Richard Ramirez. 
   
   The five-year police veteran said he became convinced that Ramirez had a gun after the man reached for his waistband during their 30-second encounter last April in a high-crime area of Montana's most populous city. 
   
   "I knew in that moment, which later was determined to be untrue, but I knew in that moment that he was reaching for a gun," Morrison said. "I couldn't take that risk. ... I wanted to see my son grow up." 
   
   The seven-person jury deliberated about an hour before delivering its decision. 
   
   Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said he does not expect to file any charges given the jury's decision. 
   
   Coroner's inquests are mandatory under Montana law whenever someone is killed by law enforcement or dies in custody. 
   
   The inquest was held as police killings of unarmed suspects in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City have heightened scrutiny of law enforcement nationwide. 
   
   Ramirez family members said they were disappointed by the ruling and intend to file a lawsuit against Morrison and the Billings Police Department alleging excessive use of force, said Julie Ramirez, a sister of Richard Ramirez. 
   
   Billings Police Chief Rich St. John said it was the fifth officer-involved shooting in his eight years as head of the department. Each shooting was ruled to be justified, he said. 
   
   "That tells us we're doing the right thing in the right way," St. John said. 
   
   Police video showed Morrison repeatedly ordered Ramirez and other occupants of the vehicle to raise their hands. Ramirez's actions were largely obscured in the video. But Morrison said Ramirez dropped his left hand to his side — out of the officer's view — and "started to jiggle it up and down" just before he was shot. 
   
   Morrison shot and killed another man in 2013. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in that case. 
   
   Ramirez's family wanted criminal charges against the officer and said Ramirez was a victim of racial profiling. 
   
   Another sister, Renee Ramirez, criticized the inquest as one-sided. She said testimony that her brother was a drug user was irrelevant. 
   
   All but three of the 15 people called to testify during the two-day inquest were from law enforcement. Several police officers spoke at length about their prior dealings with Ramirez and others in his family. 
   
   "I don't care what things my brother did in the past," Renee Ramirez said. "What does that have to do with shooting my brother?" 
   
   Billings Police Detective Brad Tucker, who investigated the case, testified Tuesday that Ramirez might have been trying to stash something when he was shot. A small amount of methamphetamine and a syringe were later found near Ramirez's seat. 
   
   An autopsy determined Ramirez had enough methamphetamine in his bloodstream at the time of the shooting to kill a person not accustomed to the drug, forensic pathologist Tom Bennett testified. 
   
   Twito defended the proceedings as a fair presentation of the facts. 
   
   "The videos speak for themselves," he said. 
   
   Morrison was placed on paid administrative leave immediately after the shooting and has since been assigned to a task force investigating prescription drug crimes, St. John said. ||||| Montana police officer Grant Morrison killed unarmed 38-year-old Richard Ramirez in April last year, when Mr Ramirez – high on methamphetamine at the time – reached for his waistband. 
   
   In the video the police officer can be seen walking away from the scene of the incident towards a patrol car recently arrived at the scene. The car’s dashcam is still running, capturing the events. 
   
   As he reaches the vehicle, officer Morrison suddenly appears to collapse just off the screen prompting other officers nearby to run towards him. One can be heard urgently asking: “Are you hurt?” 
   
   He is comforted by his fellow officers, who tell him: “You’re ok, I got you,” but officer Morrison can be heard sobbing and breathing heavily. 
   
   In a shaking voice, officer Morrison can be heard to say: “I thought he was going to pull a gun,” before breaking down even further and placing his head into his hands and pounding the bonnet of the patrol car. 
   
   “I don’t know what’s going on,” he says as he tries to reassures the officers comforting him. 
   
   Eventually, he noticeably pulls himself together and leaves the view of the dashcam to return home. 
   
   During a coroner’s court testimony on Wednesday officer Morrison, an officer for five years, said: "I knew in that moment, which later was determined to be untrue, but I knew in that moment that he was reaching for a gun”. 
   
   "I couldn't take that risk...I wanted to see my son grow up." 
   
   In another video shown to the court, officer Morrison can be heard asking the suspect to raise his hands six times before he opens fire, shooting into the vehicle containing the suspect three times. 
   
   The video does not show the actions of Ramirez, who was sitting in the back of a car with two others in front, at the time of the shooting, the Mail Online reported. 
   
   Officer Morrison claims that he saw Ramirez drop his left hand to his side – out of the officer’s view – and then “jiggle it up and down”. 
   
   Detective Brett Kruger, who investigated the shooting, testified that two cellophane bags containing a small amount of methamphetamine and a syringe were later found near where Ramirez had been sitting. 
   
   He had two outstanding warrants at the time of the shooting. 
   
   The court later found that officer Morrison, who was cleared of all wrongdoing in another shooting in 2013, was justified in his actions. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
target: – A Montana police officer who shot an unarmed man—and broke down crying afterward—was justified in pulling the trigger, a coroner's jury ruled this week. In a traffic stop last April, Billings police officer Grant Morrison pulled over a car with four people inside and repeatedly told them to raise their hands, the AP reports via Mediaite. When backseat passenger Richard Ramirez didn't raise them, Morrison warned he would shoot. Then he did. "I was getting very scared," Morrison told the jury, the Billings Gazette reports. "He shoved his hand down to his side and started jiggling it up and down." Methamphetamine and a syringe were later discovered near Ramirez's seat, and a toxicology test found a strong dose of meth in his system. Mediate has a police dashcam video of the shooting (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT); another dashcam shows Morrison breaking down afterward. "I thought he was going to pull a gun," says a visibly distraught Morrison, the Independent reports. "I don’t know what’s going on." But Ramirez's mother Betty says she still doesn't see why Morrison shot her 38-year-old son. "He was just a good person, and they didn't have to do that to him," she tells the Gazette. "I'm going to fight it. ... I'm not going to give up." A family friend says they saw the hearing as one-sided. The ruling is only a recommendation, but the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office says it likely won't seek charges. It wasn't Morrison's first such incident, either: In 2013, he fatally shot a man who ignored his orders and reached for what turned out to be a replica BB gun.