Officer gets less than 2 years for killing unarmed Black man

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A judge has sentenced a white Philadelphia police officer to 11½ to 23 months in prison in the 2017 fatal shooting of an unarmed Black motorist. It’s far less than the decades behind bars he potentially faced. Officer Eric Ruch Jr. shot and killed 25-year-old Dennis Plowden Jr. six seconds after arriving on the scene as Plowden sat on a sidewalk after crashing a car during a high-speed chase. Ruch was convicted in September of voluntary manslaughter and a weapons charge. The voluntary manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. But during Thursday’s sentencing, the judge said Ruch had demonstrated good behavior since he was charged and a longer sentence would not offer him any rehabilitation.