A Chicago tactical unit police officer, Pierre Tyler, was acquitted on May 17 of the 2021 fatal shooting of the mother of his child.
A Cook County jury found Officer Tyler, 32 not guilty of the charge of first-degree murder in the death of 29-year-old Andris Wofford after just four hours of deliberations.
Evidence cited in the trial included security camera foot
age of Tyler walking into Wofford’s home before neighbors reported hearing the two arguing and “loud muffled bangs” before the home went silent. The same camera showed Tyler leaving the home later.Tyler testified on May 17 that Wofford pointed his gun at him and when he tried to push it away, the weapon fired and hit Wofford in the head.
According to The Chicago Sun-Times, Tyler did not call for help following the shooting or tell anyone about it and the gun has not been found.
In his “emotionless” testimony, Tyler described an argument with his girlfriend that lasted hours before she was shot in the face.
He claimed that Wofford got a hold of his gun that he had left out on a table because she was angry that she believed he “concealed his marriage to another woman.”
Tyler said, “As her arm goes up, the firearm goes off [and] her body falls in a forward-falling motion. At that point, I was shocked. I can barely move.”
He added, “In that moment, panic set in. I felt nobody would believe me” that he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger.
He continued to explain that he then attempted to cover up the fact that he had been in her home. “I began to make a series of stupid, bad decisions in my panic,” he said.
Wofford’s body was found by her family the next day after they grew concerned that she didn’t pick up her children the night before like she was supposed to. In fact, Tyler drove Wofford’s mother to the apartment where her daughter was dead and never told her about the fatal argument.
Tyler’s mother said, “My heart goes out to the family of my granddaughter, but this was not going to fall on my son. This is a horrible situation. I’ve got a granddaughter with no mother. But I knew my son.”
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