POLICE BRUTALITY WATCH: ACTIVIST GROUP SLAMS OFFICER'S FATAL SHOOTING OF MENTALLY ILL BLACK MAN (1711 hits)
TEXAS--The activist Dallas group Mothers Against Police Brutality slammed officers’ fatal shooting of a mentally ill man during the weekend.
Police said Saturday that Jason Harrison, 38, charged at officers with a screwdriver in hand, prompting two officers to open fire. In a news release Monday, the group said they “are saddened and outraged over this latest mishandling of a person with a record of mental illness.”
The group asked if officers even waited “30 seconds” before they fired. But Deputy Police Chief Gil Garza said Saturday that the encounter was “very very very brief,” and that the officers were protecting themselves.
The group drew comparisons between Harrison’s death and the shooting of Bobby Bennett, a mentally ill man, last year outside his mother’s Rylie home. In that shooting, Officer Cardan Spencer shot Bennett, who had a knife, within seconds of arriving at the scene. Spencer’s partner’s account of the incident — that Bennett came at them with the knife — was used to charge Bennett with aggravated assault of a public servant, a first-degree felony.
A neighbor’s surveillance video showed that the account was false, and Spencer was fired and indicted.
The Mothers Against Police Brutality news release omits that police possibly have video of the incident from a uniform-worn camera, but includes all other parts of the police description of the incident.
The group demanded that the officers are put on desk duty, and that the department takes their weapons until the internal affairs investigation is complete. Of course, the department takes officers’ weapons when they are administrative leave.
They also called for Chief David Brown to review training procedures that teach officers how to handle the mentally ill.
The group is led by Collette Flanagan, the mother of a man who was fatally shot by a Dallas officer last year. The officer was not indicted.
Questionable Shooting? Protesters Target DPD in Search of Answers
DALLAS — Mothers Against Police Brutality gathered outside of the Dallas Police Department on Thursday evening, and demanded answers. The group wants to see the video that captured the death of a mentally ill man.
“We want to know what is on that video; we want to see what was on that video,” Collette Flanagan, founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality said.
38-year-old Jason Harrison was shot and killed by two Dallas officers back in June. Police say Harrison was armed with a screwdriver and lunged at them. Officers John Rogers and Andrew Hutchins claimed they shot in self-defense. The shooting was caught on body-cams, worn by the cops.
According to autopsy results, Harrison was shot six times – twice in the back. Dallas PD reviewed the video, and in a statement released last month said: ‘..the autopsy accurately describes the wounds that would have resulted when the two officers were forced to discharge their weapons.’
The video is in the hands of the district attorney`s office, but has not been publicly released.
“These cameras that these policemen have are supposed to build relations and give transparency to the communities,” Flanagan said.
Both officers were placed on administrative leave, but are back on the streets. Now, these probing protesters are firing their shots at DPD.
“This death did not have to happen; something terribly wrong went down that Saturday,” protestor John Fullinwider said.
“We hold you guys to a higher standard than what you guys are giving us,” Harrison’s brother, David Harrison said.
