U.S. | Wed Oct 12, 2016 | 3:09pm EDT

Virginia ex-cop gets 2-1/2 year sentence for black teen's shooting death

A former Portsmouth, Virginia, police officer was sentenced on Wednesday to 2-1/2 years in prison for the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager last year, a court spokesman said.

The ex-officer, Stephen Rankin, 36, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in August for shooting William Chapman II, 18, while investigating a shoplifting report at a Walmart store.

Portsmouth Circuit Court Judge Johnny Morrison denied a request by Rankin's lawyer that he remain free while his conviction is appealed, the spokesman said in a telephone call.

Rankin, who is white, was fired by the Portsmouth police department after his grand jury indictment. Prosecutors argued that Rankin had killed Chapman in April 2015 in what had amounted to little more than a parking lot fistfight in Portsmouth, about 175 miles south of Washington.

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