The jury has been selected and the trial is set to begin for a Pennsylvania police officer who shot and killed a suspect while the suspect lay face down in the snow. Last February, police officer Lisa Mearkle, 37, shot and killed a suspect after she had immobilized him with her Taser.

Mearkle shot David Kassik, 59, and the entire incident was recorded on the video camera of Mearkle’s Taser. Her defense attorney’s fought hard for quite some time to suppress the video as evidence but was unsuccessful, according to Reuters. Her attorney’s stated that they didn’t want the public to see the video of the incident and form an opinion of the case and of Mearkle.

The judge in the case, however, Deborah Curcillo, ordered that the video could not be released to the media or the public until after the jury has had an opportunity to view it. Mearkle’s trial is being held in the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg. Her arrest and trial will, once again, bring into the public spotlight the violence first actions of police all around the country. The shooting of unarmed suspects has been of grave concern to the public of late. Many of these actions by police have been recorded on video and released.

Mearkle is a police officer with the Hummelston, Pennsylvania police department and the suspect, Kassik, was also from Hummelston. Kassik had a prior criminal record having served ten years in a federal prison for selling heroin. Hummelston is about ten miles east of Harrisburg.

The incident occurred after a traffic stop by Mearkle. Kassik fled the scene and headed toward his nearby home. Mearkle chased him down and applied the Taser to him. Mearkle’s defense is that she claims that Kassik was trying to remove the Taser prongs and trying to get to his feet. The video, however, clearly shows Kassik lying face down in the snow and convulsing from the Taser blast. The video then shows Mearkle firing her pistol at point blank range into Kassik’s back. Another few seconds elapse and Mearkle fires a shot, again, into Kassik’s back.