A vigilante woman has been found guilty of murder after chasing down and shooting an elderly black man who left the scene of a minor car crash. Hannah Payne “acted like a cop” and pursued Kenneth Herring in her vehicle after seeing him hit a truck in May of 2019, according to the Daily Mail. That’s right: Payne wasn’t even involved in the crash.
Then 21-year-old cut Herring off, leapt out of her car and began punching him through his window before taking out a gun and killing him on a busy highway on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. The 62-year-old Herring was “unarmed and minding his own business,” according to prosecutors. “You don’t get the death penalty for committing a traffic offense.” In fact, witnesses say he looked to be in the middle of a medical emergency — perhaps even diabetic shock.
Payne was charged with two counts of felony murder, three counts of possession of a weapon during a crime, as well as one count of malice murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. It took 12 jurors just 90 minutes to convict Payne.
Here’s how Payne said the situation went down, according to the Daily Mail:
Payne took the stand on Monday, insisting that she never meant for her handgun to fire a bullet, and claimed he shoot himself during a struggle for the weapon.
‘I pulled it out and immediately started trying to just continue to push against the door with it — like push it away from him’ she testified. ‘He grabbed my hand with the gun in it.’
‘As he’s pulling it is when it — the trigger went off,’ she added. ‘After it went off, my entire body kind of fell backwards.’
As it turns out, that isn’t actually what happened. Shocking, I know.
But the state had used witness testimony and recordings to prove otherwise during trial, stating that Payne rather intentionally cut Herring off with her car, then jumped out and ‘very aggressively’ ran up to the man before yelling profanities at him.
She then allegedly began punching the startled man through his window, before withdrawing her weapon and threatening to shoot him twice, when she ‘immediately’ shot him.
‘She’s using deadly force; she wasn’t faced with deadly force,’ District Attorney Tracy Graham Lawson when she was initially charged for murder. ‘You cannot claim self-defense and use deadly force unless you’re not the initial aggressor — she is.
Payne, who was 21 at the time of the crash, “acted like a cop” according to prosecutors, when she tried to stop Herring from leaving the scene of the crash. She saw him hit an 18-wheeler and followed him, even though a 911 dispatcher told her to stay at the scene, 11 Alive reports. In the background of that call, police could apparently hear Payne saying, “get out of the car, get out of the car, get out of the fucking car.” Later, she picked up the phone and said, “he just shot himself with my gun.”
A detective testified that Herring was disoriented and thought someone actually hit him.
She pointed a 9 mm handgun at Herring and told him to return to the crash scene; her lawyers argued that an altercation ensued between the two and that’s when the handgun went off, according to 11Alive. He described the shooting as an act of self-defense and said Payne was a “Good Samaritan” for blocking Herring’s Dodge Dakota pickup with her Jeep Wrangler.
However, the district attorney pointed out that you can’t claim self-defense and use deadly force if you are the initial aggressor — which Payne was. It probably also didn’t help that she claimed the gun went off by accident and also that it was done in self-defense. I’m not a smart man, but it cannot be both.
Herring’s wife spoke to the press, according to the Daily Mail:
Herring’s wife, Christine, described the killing as as vigilantism and claimed there was a racial element to it, comparing the shooting to the death of Trayvon Martin.
She said at a press conference afterwards: ‘I know he was having a diabetic episode, because he don’t just run off the scene. I knew he was trying to get to the hospital.
‘I had a feeling about that. He was a hard-working man, he stayed true to himself. He’s not a violent man so I knew in the accident with her, it was not true.
She said her husband was not the aggressor as he could not get out of his truck because she had blocked him in.
‘I wondered why she followed him and did not do what the 911 operator said and get the tag number and stay back. I wondered why she followed him all the way, blocked him in and killed him.’
‘They said she punched him in the face three times. She was trying to act like the police.’
Payne is set to be sentenced on December 15.