Newly-released police bodycam video captures a dramatic standoff between cops and a suicidal Florida teenager who then shoots himself moments before police riddle him with bullets.
One of the bullets that struck 18-year-old Devon Gregory was from his own gun, the Jacksonville medical examiner announced, though coroners have yet to determine if that was the shot that killed the teen, First Coast News reported.
The 19-minute video, released late Thursday, shows Gregory asking cops to shoot him as he sits in the front passenger seat of a car during a traffic stop on San Juan Avenue.
Four Jacksonville cops — guns drawn — repeatedly try to calm him down.
But Gregory refuses to raise his hands and initially tells the officers he’s reaching for his cellphone.
The exchange grows increasingly tense.
“Hey, stop!” one of the officers is heard saying, according to video posted by WJXT-TV. “Stop reaching. Let me see your hands!”
“I love you, bro, I love you,” Gregory yells to his brother in the back seat of the car. “Tell my mama I love her too.”
“Hey, it’s alright, bro,” the cop says. “You’re fine. We don’t want to shoot you.”
“Shoot me. Shoot me,” the teen yells.
“I don’t want to shoot you, bro. I just want to see your hands with nothing in it.”
“I’m not putting my hands up,” Gregory says. “Kill me!”
“I don’t’ want to hurt you, man,” the cop says. “None of these officers out here want to hurt you.”
Gregory is heard asking the officers, “Why can’t you just let us go?
“Please leave me alone! Please,” he says. “Leave me, leave me.”
The teen suddenly pulls up his hand from between his legs and a gunshot is heard.
What follows next is a chilling fusillade of gunfire, with dozens of shots ringing out.
Police said all four officers were placed on administrative leave pending probes by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and state attorney general.
“This case continues to be investigated,” the department said in a statement, Florida Times-Union newspaper reported.
“However, we are proactively releasing the body-worn camera footage of the police-involved shooting as a result of the medical examiner advising that the suspect suffered from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Still, on Friday, Gregory’s family and two prominent civil rights leaders — the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bishop Tavis Grant — demanded that a special prosecutor review the case.
Gregory was black. It’s unclear what race the four officers were.
“There is something wrong, systematically wrong, with Jacksonville law enforcement, and Devon Gregory paid a very high price,” Grant said in a statement, First Coast News said. “He lost his life.”
“We need all bodycam, dashcam,” he said. “We need all witnesses subpoenaed and under oath. We need every officer involved in this shooting interviewed and sequestered. We need a gag order right now.”
The family is scheduled to hold a press conference on Saturday.
Source: NY Post
