“I just feel like there is no justice. A civil lawsuit don’t mean nothing compared to seeing him go to jail and off the police force,” said McNeil’s cousin, John McNeil, who attended the trial since it began Monday. “This is crazy.”

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys were surprised by the length of deliberation — a jury of six women and six men took the case around 12:50 p.m. Thursday and delivered their verdict at 1:30 p.m. Friday.

Defense attorney Jed C. Patterson said he expected a hung decision based on the 10-hour deliberation. Patterson and Baruch, with more than 30 years of experience between them, said they’ve never had a jury deliberate so long.

Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor said the amount of time it took to come to the decision showed the jury took the matter seriously.

“We recognize that they did take their time and viewed the evidence and came back with the verdict that they thought was reflective of their assessment,” Taylor said after court. “When you look at the totality of the case, starting with the approach and the actions that were done and then the response of using the firearm, we believed, again in the totality, that each of the steps that the officer took were not reasonable steps.”

Taylor’s office works closely with police to prosecute its cases. “Moving forward, the handling of this case, the verdict of this case should not and will not affect our working relationships,” she said.