Bucks District Attorney Rules On Bensalem Police Officer Shooting
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Jen Schorn, the Bucks County District Attorney ruled that the January 24,2025 shooting by Bensalem police was justified. It was on that date that an armed felon fled from police after a car stop.
Zachiry Derrek Kerschner of Lehighton Pennsylvania was fatally shot after pointing a gun at police during a two hour stand off on Route 13. Five patrol officers were removed from the street and placed on administrative duty which is policy, Schorn said. All of the officers were exonerated.
The investigation found troubling facts surrounding Kerschner. He was a convicted felon with a long criminal history, Schorn said. In addition to this, his most recent arrest was Kerschner’s most recent arrest was in February 2024 for felony gun possession in Philadelphia where he served only three months of a 11 ½ to 23-month sentence.
The sentence meant he should have been incarcerated on the day he pulled a gun on Bensalem Police. Furthermore, the sentence imposed was significantly below what the Pennsylvania Sentencing Guidelines recommend for an individual with a prior criminal history who commits a firearms offense graded as a felony in the first degree. The standard recommended sentence would have called for a sentence of at least 5 years in a state correctional facility. After spending three months in jail following his arrest in Philadelphia, Kerschner entered a negotiated plea with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office on Aug. 14, 2024, and was sentenced to 11 ½ to 23-month sentence but was allowed to be paroled on that same date.
Alex Lloyd Gross File Photo-Delaware Valley News.com District Attorney Jen Schorn at an unrelated press conference in Bensalem.
To be eligible for parole, he would have needed to serve an additional 8 ½ months in a correctional facility. In Pennsylvania, paroling an individual before they reach their minimum is an illegally executed sentence. Had Kerschner served just the minimum amount of that sentence, he would have still been incarcerated on Jan. 24, 2025, and unable to possess two firearms, use illegal substances, drive with a suspended license and travel into Bucks County where he placed the lives of law enforcement and the community in jeopardy.
When Kerschner eventually stopped for police on Route 13 just south of Woodhaven Road, he told police he was not going back to jail and had guns in the car. He refused all efforts by police to deescalate the situation. Kerschner was under the influence of meth and had a gun in his hand with a live round jammed , at the time of the shooting, Schorn said.
All five officers acted within the permissible scope of Bensalem Township Police use-of-force requirements, and the use-of-force best practices guidelines adopted by all Bucks County Police Departments in November 2020, Schorn noted. “For the foregoing reasons, I therefore conclude that [the officers] were each legally justified in fatally shooting Zachiry Derek Kerschner,” Schorn wrote. “Since [the officers] were justified and therefore unequivocally have no culpability, our investigation is accordingly closed.”
The officers can be returned to full duty whenever Director of Public Safety Bill McVey wants to put them back on the street.