Authorities will not file charges for the shooting death of Peter Bernardo Spencer, a Jamaican immigrant from Pittsburgh. Spencer was a black man who had been on a weekend camping getaway with a co-worker and three other people who were white.
Eyewitness reports claim Spencer shot his AK-47 assault rifle into the sky while getting increasingly angry and erratic.
Investigators claim Spencer had been drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and taking psychedelic mushrooms at a remote cab like some of the others in the group.
Witnesses told investigators that the man began telling others “he was a god” and demanded their car keys and phones as they expressed concerns for their safety.
Investigators said that when Spencer allegedly pointed the rifle at his friend who invited him on the weekend getaway in the outdoors, that man drew a handgun and fatally shot him. The shooter told investigators he believed Spencer intended to kill him and the three other guests who hid from him.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Venango County district attorney Shawn White declared that the man, who was not identified, was justified in the shooting of Spencer, citing self-defense.
“He did not have to wait for a gunshot to fire at him,” White said of the shooter at Tuesday’s afternoon news conference. “He did not have to wait for a verbal threat.”
Spencer’s case drew international headlines since his December 11th death. His family believed he was the victim of what they called a “modern-day lynching.”
