BY MATT SLEDGE|
MSLEDGE@THEADVOCATE.COM
Officials on Wednesday released
footage from two encounters last year in which New Orleans Police Department officers
shot and killed suspects, the first time the department has released such
footage from the body-worn cameras officers began wearing in 2014.
The videos depict the fatal
shootings of Omarr Jackson, 37, in Central City in January 2015 and Jared Johnson,
22, in New Orleans East in April.
The officers involved in both
shootings have been cleared to return to active duty, and the District
Attorney’s Office has said it will not pursue charges in either case.
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Police Superintendent Michael
Harrison acknowledged that officers’ use of force has been an explosive issue
throughout the country in recent years. He said the release of the videos was
“a very deliberate attempt to be transparent and to be accountable.”
“These videos eliminate ‘he
said-she said’ arguments,” Harrison said. “This is cutting-edge policy.”
While the videos represent a
pioneering step for a department once mired in controversy over officers’
accounts of the Danziger Bridge and Henry Glover killings shortly after
Hurricane Katrina, which were not filmed, the Independent Police Monitor’s
Office and a police union official cautioned that no video can tell the full
story of a fatal shooting.
Both videos depict rapid, chaotic
encounters that happened at night under low lighting.
The fatal encounter with Jackson
began about 11 p.m. Jan. 7, 2015, near Josephine and LaSalle streets. The video
shows Officers Michael Bencik and Devin Ashmore as they stop a truck driven by
Jackson, whom police called a drug dealer known to the officers.
Bencik is seen checking the
identification cards of the vehicle’s three occupants. Police said the officers
spotted one of the vehicle’s occupants with a needle in his hand and ordered
Jackson out of the vehicle.
In the video, officers begin to
pat Jackson down, and he bolts from the scene. A single round of gunfire, which
police said came from Jackson, is answered by four shots, which police said
were fired by Bencik. Jackson was taken to the hospital, where he died.
Asked Wednesday whether the
shooting was justified, Harrison said, “You saw it for yourself. Yes.”
In the second incident, police
were alerted by a burglar alarm company to an armed robbery in progress at a
Dollar General store at 10600 Chef Menteur Highway on April 28.
Police said surveillance video
from inside the store, which they released along with the body-worn camera
footage, shows Johnson and Halbert Adams, 23, forcing female employees to open
a safe just after closing time. Police said in an incident report that a third
man, Spencer Banks, was waiting in the parking lot outside to act as a getaway
driver.
Officers who believed they were
reacting to an active hostage situation surrounded the building. Video from
Officer Clifford Thompson’s camera shows him edging around the building’s rear,
breathing heavily.
“They may be armed with automatic
weapons,” a woman’s voice says over a police radio. Another officer warns that
the suspects have just tried to leave through one door.
Suddenly, the video shows a
figure exit the rear of the store. Police said a silver glint that appears in a
split second of the video shows Johnson turning a gun toward Thompson.
Both Thompson and Officer Joshua
Carthon responded with approximately six shots each, according to Sgt. Regina
Williams of the NOPD’s Force Investigation Team.
Detective Ashley Boult wrote in
an initial report obtained by The Advocate last year that Johnson “fired
gunshots” at officers. But on Wednesday, police said they had determined that
Johnson never fired his gun, which was found near his body.
Neither officer in the video can
be heard ordering Johnson to drop his weapon. However, Public Integrity Bureau
Deputy Chief Arlinda Westbrook said she was satisfied that both officers were
justified in shooting him.
“You don’t wait to get shot
before you shoot. When a subject points a gun toward you, you have the ability
to use force,” Westbrook said. “They have a split second to make decisions.”
Westbrook said videos of both
shootings were played for family members of the men shot soon after the fatal
encounters, and she believes that helped reduce any potential for controversy
in the immediate aftermath of the shootings.
In each of the shootings, one of
the officers involved — Ashmore in one case, Carthon in the other — failed to
activate his body-worn camera. Both officers were disciplined for that
oversight, Westbrook said.
The release of the videos was
carefully choreographed. As the department played the videos to the media for
the first time Wednesday afternoon, members of the Public Integrity Bureau
provided a second-by-second commentary on the events transpiring on a
conference room screen.
Harrison urged the press to
“provide as much context for these videos as possible to avoid sensationalizing
the situation. ... This is what we face every day on the streets.”
The New Orleans Advocate filed a
public-records request in November for both videos, as well as the
still-unreleased full case files about the shootings. The release of the videos
was slowed by a federal judge’s mandate to the Police Department to create a
uniform policy for the release of such footage.
In February, the department said
it had finalized its video release process. Under the new policy, police will
first consult with the District Attorney’s Office, the City Attorney’s Office
and the NOPD’s Compliance Bureau, the office in charge of ensuring compliance
with the federal consent decree governing the department.
Ophelia Cooper, the mother of
Omarr Jackson, expressed anger and dismay over the release of the video of the
Central City shooting. She said she heard about the planned release on TV
Wednesday morning. That prompted her to call Westbrook and voice her
displeasure.
“I told her I was upset.” Cooper
recounted. “I said, ‘You’re unearthing wounds that we took months to heal. And
why so late?’ ”
Cooper said she is still grieving
her son’s death and counseling his five children. She said she now must shield
the kids, ages 13 to 19, from any fallout from the video’s public release.
Cooper said she believes the
release represents an invasion of privacy, and she suggested the Police
Department was trying to make itself look good.
Westbrook acknowledged Jackson’s
anger and said the officers involved in the shootings also expressed anxieties.
“Everyone has concerns about the
release of the videos,” she said. “These are not positive experiences for
either side.”
The department’s decision to
release the videos was backed up by the Office of the Independent Police
Monitor, which was created in the wake of the controversial Hurricane
Katrina-era shootings.
“OIPM applauds any steps the
administration takes to be more open and transparent with the public it
serves,” Deputy Police Monitor Ursula Price said in a statement. “Video
evidence is generally, and in both of these cases, very helpful in determining
safety, training and accountability issues.”
Price nevertheless said the
Monitor’s Office has not been given a final file to review on either shooting
and that videos do not necessarily answer questions about tactics, procedure or
training.
Police reform advocates aren’t
the only ones who say body-worn camera footage sometimes falls short. Capt.
Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, said he
worries that in the future the department might be too quick to release videos
before all the facts are known.
“The key is to remember always
that the video can be misleading, either way,” he said.
Still, Glasser said he had no
objection to the disclosure of the videos months after all the officers
involved were cleared. “I realize sometimes the officers aren’t exactly
thrilled by it, but this is the transparent environment that we work in,”
Glasser said.
Mike Perlstein of WWL-TV
contributed to this report.
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