Mississippi authorities on Thursday released video showing the fatal shooting of a 1-year-old boy by a police officer in Senatobia in June, a case in which a state investigation found no criminal wrongdoing by the officer but the child's family says the footage shows the shooting was not justified, the Associated Press reported.
Source: Associated Press via The Reflector
The boy was killed on June 14 when a Senatobia police officer, Sgt. Hunter Foster, fired his gun into a moving vehicle while responding to a shoplifting call in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, about 40 miles (65 kilometres) south of Memphis, Tennessee. The child was seated on his mother's lap in the front passenger seat.
The Mississippi Attorney General's office said this week that its monthlong probe found Foster's use of force was appropriate. Foster's attorney, Martin Zummach, has said his client had “no choice” but to shoot at the vehicle because it was going to hit him, and that the footage vindicates his client.
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety released footage from the body-worn cameras of multiple officers, including Foster. The videos show the child's mother holding him as she and a friend run across the parking lot and enter their vehicle. Five officers approach the parked car with guns drawn. The car reverses away and crashes into a parked vehicle nearby as officers yell for it to stop, then accelerates forward as Foster steps toward it with his gun drawn. The wheels turn away from him, and he appears to put his hands on the hood as he jumps out of the way and fires, shattering the front passenger window.
Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney representing the family, said Foster was not in danger when he fired the shot that killed the child, and that the video shows that shot came from the passenger side of the car. He said the officers' response — running at the vehicle with guns drawn to apprehend alleged shoplifters — was excessive and reckless, and the family's legal team has called for a federal investigation. The boy's mother has previously denied that she and her friend stole diapers from the store, and they have not been charged, according to state and county court records cited by the AP.
“The word 'justified' has haunted me,” the boy's maternal grandmother, Veronica, said at a news conference on Thursday. “There's no justification for that.” She said she learned from news reports that the state had cleared the officer, and had seen parts of the video after it was leaked online on Wednesday, calling the lack of notice from the attorney general's office a “slap in the face” to the family. Crump said the boy would have celebrated his second birthday in early November.
Use-of-force expert John P. Gross said Foster should never have placed himself in front of the car and that a shoplifting accusation did not justify deadly force on a fleeing suspect. Former Baltimore police lieutenant Charles “Joe” Key said the driver appeared to use the vehicle as a deadly weapon and the shooting was objectively reasonable. Both views are reported as the experts' assessments, not findings.
The release of the video is the latest step in a case that has drawn protests and scrutiny in Senatobia since June. The state has concluded its criminal inquiry with no charges against the officer; the family's attorneys say they will keep pressing for accountability. In line with Awaaz Punjab's minor-safety rule, this report does not name the child victim.