Bensalem police were justified in shooting an armed man after chase and 2-hour standoff, DA says
Zachiry Kerschner pointed a loaded gun at officers after leading them on a chase through multiple towns, and then waging a two-hour standoff with them at a gas station, police said.
Bensalem police were justified in shooting a Northeast Pennsylvania man who led them on a prolonged chase and standoff in January, during which he held a passenger in his vehicle hostage at gunpoint, officials said Wednesday.
Zachiry Kerschner, 30, was killed during a Jan. 24 confrontation with officers after he ignored their commands to drop a loaded handgun and instead pointed the weapon at them, according to Bucks County District Attorney Jen Schorn. He told the officers he “wasn’t going back to jail,” she said.
The officers’ actions were necessary to protect them and other members of the community from danger, the prosecutor said.
Bensalem police first encountered Kerschner just before 4 p.m. on the day of the shooting when they pulled his car over for a window-tint violation near the intersection of Route 1 and Old Lincoln Highway, according to a statement from Bensalem Township Director of Public Safety William McVey.
Kerschner and a passenger in the car, whom police did not name, refused to identify themselves and told the officers they had weapons in the vehicle. After nearly an hour of speaking with police, authorities said, Kerschner sped off, leading Bensalem officers on a 35-minute chase, during which he struck police vehicles and those of bystanders.
The pursuit ended at a Liberty gas station on Bristol Pike, police said. During the subsequent two-hour standoff with the officers who had surrounded his vehicle, Kerschner turned his gun on his passenger, ordering the person to stay inside the vehicle, according to Schorn.
The officers tried to negotiate with Kerschner, she said, at one point having his family members call him in an attempt to get him to surrender peacefully.
When the officers deployed tear gas, authorities said, Kerschner pointed his gun at them, sparking the fatal gunfire. Kerschner was taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His passenger was not harmed.
Inside the vehicle, officers found two loaded handguns.
An autopsy revealed that Kerschner had been intoxicated on methamphetamine and other illegal substances at the time of his death, Schorn said.
Kerschner, of Mahoning Township, Carbon County, should not have been free at the time of the standoff and subsequent shooting, she said.
Five months earlier, he pleaded guilty to felony gun possession in Philadelphia and was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months in jail. But he was paroled on house arrest after three months in custody.
Schorn said that was an “illegally executed sentence” that did not take into account his criminal history. He was unable to legally carry a gun at the time of his arrest because of felony convictions for theft and trespassing, court records show.
One of those convictions stemmed from a burglary he committed in 2015, in which he stole money and a handgun from his neighbor’s home, according to reports from the Times News, a newspaper published in Lehighton.
“This is concerning because it was by agreement that the sentence imposed upon Kerschner was one that allowed him to be in the community and supervised by an agency that is overtaxed with limited resources,” Schorn said.
In a statement, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said the assertion that Kerschner’s sentence was illegally executed was “flatly untrue,” because he was still under court supervision while on house arrest.
“I’m surprised any candidate for DA would claim that early parole from jail custody to house arrest custody with electronic monitoring is ‘illegal,’ or even unusual,” Krasner said, referencing the Republican’s election bid this fall. “I can only assume politics are interfering with DA Schorn’s judgment.”
Krasner, a Democrat, is running for reelection and seeking a third term in office.