Approaching an SUV to go away for the day along with her attorneys, Karen Learn tapped her proper hand above her coronary heart, displaying appreciation to a crowd of supporters anxiously awaiting a verdict.
About 350 “Free Karen Read” supporters from throughout the nation crowded across the courthouse carrying varied shades of pink, holding indicators and belting out chants, because the jury within the homicide trial obtained the case Tuesday afternoon following closing arguments.
Allison Taggart, of Dedham, has been on the court docket for the complete case, forming a reference to Learn’s dad and mom and household. She sat within the courtroom for 2 days of testimony, and he or she stated supporters take a look at the defendant as a task mannequin.
“Women and little girls are watching Karen stand up for what she thought was right,” Taggart advised the Herald. “She believes she’s innocent, she believes she knows what happened.”
“They’re watching her take on the Mass State Police and the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office,” Taggart added. “It’s empowering. It’s an important thing to see.”
The primary day of deliberations drew folks from across the nation, together with Virginia, Tennessee, Colorado, and Michigan, although most supporters have been native.
Alli Riker, a local of Westwood, has lived in Virginia Seaside for the previous decade. She flew up from Norfolk, Va. to Windfall Tuesday morning, arriving on the courthouse round 1:30 p.m..
“This is going to take down a whole set of corruption, and it’s historic,” Riker advised the Herald. “I just felt like how you’d want to go to a Patriots game in the playoffs – you want to be here, you want to feel it, you want to support Karen.”
As temperatures stretched towards the 90s, dozens of supporters sat on folding chairs below tents and timber to remain cool, a block from Norfolk County Superior Courtroom in Dedham.
Sidewalks and a garden adjoining to First Church and Parish in Dedham have served as floor zero to the demonstrations after Choose Beverly Cannone, in April, permitted the prosecution’s plan to arrange a “buffer zone” across the courthouse.
The buffer zone units a fringe of 200 toes across the courthouse and the car parking zone behind the county Registry of Deeds throughout Excessive Road from the court docket in Dedham.
Prosecutors allege Learn, 44, of Mansfield, struck John O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer and boyfriend of two years, along with her SUV following a drunken argument and left him to die in a snowstorm in entrance of 34 Fairview in Canton within the early hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
Learn faces expenses together with second-degree homicide.
Protection attorneys counter that exterior actors killed O’Keefe and conspired with state and native police to border Learn for his homicide.
“It’s bittersweet,” Norwood resident Jessica Atkins advised the Herald, “because we’re all getting together for a person who is not guilty, and she’s being railroaded … but everyone’s here for the same reason: We’re all here to support Karen and get justice for John O’Keefe, Officer John O’Keefe.”
Atkins and her boyfriend Tom Cruise each known as Canton an “awful town.”
Cruise held an indication bearing supportive messages, “Not Guilty/FKR!” “Justice for Officer John O’Keefe, NOW!” and Finish the corruption!”
“They have to clean house,” Cruise stated of what Canton must do to restore its popularity. “They have to get out of the old regime and get new people in there who will do the right thing. They have to start fresh after this.”
