JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday released body camera video that shows the moments when police shot a 15-year-old suspect who was accused of opening fire into a crowd of people leaving a football game at First Coast High School last month.
The video, which contains graphic images that some may find disturbing, clearly shows the officers had several factors they had to deal with while attempting to apprehend the suspect.
Those factors included darkness, crowds of people and an armed suspect on the move.
The bodycam video begins after JSO officers pull over a vehicle during a traffic stop at the entrance to the First Coast High School parking lot. Multiple people were arrested on gun charges during that stop. But moments later, a fight broke out in the parking lot, and multiple officers run toward the crowd surrounding the fight.
The officers then begin to chase someone in a white shirt, later as 15-year-old Devonn Thompson. Investigators said that as officers were running toward the crowd of people to break up a fight, Thompson fired gunshots into the crowd. During the foot chase, officers fired multiple times at Thompson.
The foot chase ended at a gas station where Thompson went down after being shot in the hip and grazed in the forehead. According to the officers who took Thompson into custody, this handgun was tucked under his pants.
“You have to look at the totality of the circumstances,” said Tom Hackney a retired JSO director who was once involved in an officer-involved shooting.
Hackney reviewed the bodycam video and said the officers involved in this incident had split-second decisions to make despite the danger they themselves could have posed to innocent bystanders.
“The subject in this case starts firing and people start running. People are everywhere. So, you must weigh that as law enforcement officers. The immediate threat. Is he going to continue to cause that? And then you must also weigh at the same time, the threat that you are causing by into an area that you’re not sure of what the backdrop is,” he said.
It’s dark and innocent bystanders are everywhere, so officers must be accurate with their aim while shooting at an armed moving target. Hackney said this is when weeks of police training with firearms during various scenarios really helps.
“The training that is done is not only done from a static position but it’s done from seated positions. It’s done moving with targets in a combat course, just for this very thing,” Hackney said.
And it appears that training paid off because no officers or innocent bystanders were injured.
The gun Thompson allegedly used was reported stolen five days before the gun was used to fire into a crowd.
A forensics investigation matched shell casings at the scene to the same gun.
The officers’ use of lethal force is still under investigation.