Audio, Video of Ryan Frederick Police Interviews Taken Shortly After Deadly Raid

Ryan Frederick is the 28-year-old Chesapeake, Virginia man facing murder charges for killing a police officer during a drug raid (see this wiki for more on Frederick's case). My prior coverage of his trial here.

I'll put up a series of posts today and tomorrow wrapping up the testimony portion of his trial. Closing arguments are on Monday.

For now, check out these two interviews with Frederick that were played in court last week. One is only audio of an interview taken a half hour after the raid. The other is video of an interview done a few hours later.

The prosecution fought like hell to keep these interviews from being admitted into evidence. And with good reason. They're damning to the state's case. The prosecution, remember, said in its opening statement that Frederick was "stoned out of his mind" and "in a blind rage" the night of the raid. The prosecution then elicited testimony from police informant Steven Wright and jailhouse informants Jamal Skeeter (who has since been thoroughly discredited) and Lamont Malone that portrayed Frederick as a cold, calculating killer, who was boasting to fellow inmates about bringing down a cop, and even disparaging Det. Jarrod Shivers' widow.

In the videos below, a frightened, repentant Frederick weeps and shakes. At one point, he vomits after contemplating that he'd just taken a life. According to the Virginian-Pilot, in one portion of the video not depicted here, Frederick "curled himself up into a ball and cried" when the detectives left him in the room alone. The audio interview in particular is incredibly wrenching.

It's worth panning back a bit here, and restating what caused all of this. Det. Jarrod Shivers his dead, his wife is widowed, and his kids are without a father.  Ryan Frederick, a man who had no prior record, and had a good job and a fiancee, has had to spend 23 of 24 hours every day for the last year locked up in a jail cell, and may spend the rest of his life in prison, because he mistakenly thought the people invading his home were criminal intruders who had come to kill him. This all happened because the police got word from a shady informant with felony charges pending against him that Frederick was growing a harmless plant in his garage. What an incredible waste.