Pennsylvania authorities announced this week that no charges will be filed in the death of a Black man who was fatally shot nine times during a hunting trip.
In a statement to The Daily Beast, an attorney for Peter Spencer’s family said that they disagree with the Venango County district attorney’s decision—but are “not surprised” by the outcome.
“This is the type of behavior we have seen from the [Pennsylvania] state police and Venango County district attorney from the outset,” attorney Paul Jubas wrote.
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He added that the family will hold a press conference about the decision next week.
Spencer, a Black Jamaican immigrant, was shot and killed Dec. 12 after his pregnant fiancée dropped him off in a remote area of Rockland County for a hunting trip with a friend and former co-worker, who is white, and four other men. Several hours into the trip, Spencer was shot by the co-worker nine times. The men claimed that it was self-defense.
District Attorney Shawn White said Spencer was “acting crazy,” firing off an AK-47, after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms on the trip. He was shot after pointing the gun at his friend and ordering another man to get down on the ground at gunpoint, witnesses said, according to White. At one point, he allegedly claimed he was going to “shoot up the place.”
“It was the last 10 minutes where his demeanor escalated to the point of no reasoning, loss of reality and absolutely no listening to trying to deescalate the situation,” White said, adding that authorities found the hallucinogen psilocin in his system.
The district attorney ultimately determined the shooting was justified under the state’s “stand your ground law,” the Castle Doctrine.
In a previous interview with The Daily Beast, Spencer’s mother, Icilda Hunter, questioned the group’s narrative of how the shooting unfolded.
“They said Peter was going crazy shooting at people in a crowd,” she said, adding that police had told her no one else got shot that night. “Nobody got hurt, but he is shot and killed dead?”
Hunter insisted her son was too afraid to even take pain medication and would not use illicit drugs. She added that it doesn’t make sense to her why he would randomly start shooting others if he had no way to leave the hunting grounds, which were owned by his friend.
Hunter told The Daily Beast that the coroner determined six gunshots had penetrated Spencer’s chest, two were found in his bicep, and the final one went through his mouth. However, the coroner could not figure out exactly how and from which direction the bullets entered Spencer’s body, she said.
Before he was killed, Spencer’s family and friends said that he was in the process of getting his trucking license.
“I'm just tired of not getting any answers from these people,” Hunter said.
