Stalling and delay tactics exhausted, former cop Shannon Kepler ponders life in jail after his conviction for first-degree manslaughter, in the shooting death of his daughter’s black boyfriend

A white former police officer was convicted of first-degree manslaughter, wednesday, at the fourth attempt, for the 2014 fatal shooting of his daughter’s black boyfriend.
Ex-Tulsa law enforcement officer Shannon Kepler was sentenced to 15 years in prison after jurors deliberated for more than six hours and reached a verdict for a lesser charge late Wednesday in his first-degree murder trial.
Kepler was an off-duty and a 24-year police veteran at the time when he shot 19-year-old Jeremey Lake who was walking with his daughter Lisa Kepler on August 5, 2014.
His attorneys have previously said he was trying to protect his daughter, while Kepler claimed he fired in self-defense because Lake was armed with a semi-automatic weapon.
Police didn’t find a weapon on Lake or at the scene.

The friendship between Lisa Kepler [left], and Jeremy Lake [right], was fraught because her parents highly disapproved of her dating a ‘Black man’. It all ended when Shannon Kepler murdered Lake

Lisa Kepler was 18 years old when she met Lake while he was volunteering at a homeless shelter where she was staying and struck off a friendship.
She told the court her parents dropped her off at the shelter in July 2014 after she had been sneaking out at night and acting out. After a few weeks, Lake offered her a place to stay at the home he shared with his aunt, she said.

Self defense ploy failed Kepler [left]. The off duty cop killed the unarmed black teen who was walking with his daughter, told the court he shot Jeremey Lake [right], because he feared for his life

Newson6 reported that on the day of the shooting, Lisa Kepler and Jeremy Lake were passing out water bottles to the homeless before walking back to his aunt’s home, around 9.00 pm. She observed her father’s SUV parked out front and that he started asking her questions.
Lisa Kepler, said she was walking west of downtown Tulsa with her new boyfriend, Jeremy Lake, when her dad pulled up in an SUV.
“And he said, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ And I was like, speechless,” Lisa said.
She told authorities that her dad shot Jeremy at close range and killed him.
“I’m just so confused and lost,” she said, after the shooting.
For 18-year-old Lisa, her boyfriend of one week was dead: “Cause my dad was very angry,” she said.
“I was afraid he was going to do something, and he did, he shot him.”
“Jeremy was everything to me and he killed him,” Lisa said.
The victim, Lake, gave her a place to stay after she said her father kicked her out.
When police got on scene, they quickly realized their suspect was a fellow officer. They let him go, but it would be hours before Shannon turned himself in.
In the interim his wife Gina was arrested as an accessory for not helping police locate her husband, his car or his gun.

She said her father asked what she was doing in the neighborhood, but she couldn’t remember how she responded, she testified.

Shannon Kepler said he was trying to protect his daughter, because she was living in a crime-ridden neighborhood, However, Pam Songbird, Lake’s aunt said her nephew was reaching out to shake Kepler’s hand to introduce himself when Kepler fired his weapon.
The former Tulsa police officer then fled in his vehicle, court records show.
Lisa testified that her father was still in the car when he shot Lake. There was no struggle and it happened quickly, she said.

Jeremy and Lisa updated their Facebook relationship status the day Lake was killed

Kepler had led a charmed life in court as three previous juries Jurors in Kepler’s previous three trials deadlocked 11-1, 10-2 and 6-6, forcing the judge to declare mistrials.
Although they couldn’t decide on the murder charge, jurors in the first trial convicted Kepler of recklessly using his firearm.
During this last trial, both the defense and prosecution focused their closing arguments on Testimony of Lake’s younger brother, Mikey.
At the time of the incident, Mikey was 13 and witnessed what happened from the porch. He was even grazed by one of the bullets Kepler shot at his brother.
The prosecution argued during this case that the teen knew specific details about the color of the gun used to kill Lake. He also knew what Kepler wore when he shot Lake and which direction the SUV drove towards after the incident.
But the defense argued that the details the teen provided could not be depended on due to his age and the extensive media coverage the case had received.
Kepler’s lawyers also argued that it was not likely he would murder someone after serving 24 years as a police officer.  The jury thought otherwise