The Louisville Kentucky Police Department released body cam footage of the shooting of a man armed with a knife and a saw, from Monday morning. Police were called to the scene, where the callers frantically told them about a man inside the residence with a knife and a saw. Police didn’t hesitate to resort to deadly force immediately, following their initial commands to “drop the knife.” The video disputed the officers’ claims that the man came at them while swinging a knife.
Darnell Wicker did not live at the residence in question. He was at his girlfriend’s house. She was identified as Anita Jones. It was her daughter Denita Jones who phoned police in reference to a domestic disturbance at the location. Toward the end of the video, one of the police officers on scene can be heard stating “He came outside – he came out the door and was holding a knife in his hand, he started kind of swinging it around a little bit and he kind of came at us and so we shot.” The body cam was attached to officer Taylor Banks. His partner on scene, Beau Gadegaard can be heard stating that his body camera was off. This statement contradicts what we can determine from the video.
The video shows an officer leave his cruiser and speak with the women on scene. Moments later, the two officers can be heard yelling “Drop the knife!” They opened fire on Wicker simultaneously, not allowing enough time for Wicker to comply with their commands. Jones’ statements also contradict the officers remarks. She said “They just ran up past him, around him, and just said, ‘Drop your weapon!’ Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! He had no chance to drop the weapon.” Her daughter Denita also stated “I was far enough over here that he ran beside me, pushed her out of the way, said, ‘Ma’am move!’ ran up, the other one went that way. ‘Put it down!’ Pop! Pop! Pop!”
The unfortunate aspect of this case is, that despite the overwhelming evidence that Wicker was not an immediate threat to the officers or people on scene, police are legally not obligated to provide a warning, rather they could have shot Wicker immediately upon exit from the residence.
This is a legal failure of the justice system. Police have to articulate that they are in fear that some deadly act will occur if they do not resort to the deadly force they used. If a subject is armed with a gun – even if it is not being pointed at anyone – police are legally allowed to kill you without warning. The warning in this case becomes secondary.
The primary problem with this case is the officer’s explanation of events. One of the officers stated on the video that Wicker “came at them.” This will ultimately be reviewed in an internal investigation.
Unfortunately for Wicker, just taking a simple step forward, whether a genuine threat or not, can and will be articulated in a police report as a hostile motion. The ability to hide behind articulation of events that otherwise reasonable people would see through, is how cops continually get away with murdering the population. While the Chief of the Louisville Police Steve Conrad has come forward stating that he has concern’s over his officer’s handling of the situation, you can rest assured that the IA division of the department will find this a justifiable shoot, despite the evidence to the contrary.
Sources: Cop Block.
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