Listen Live
HotSpot ATL Featured Video
CLOSE

When are police going to stop shooting Black men on sight?

Back in July 2015, 33-year-old Texas man David Collie was walking to a friend’s house from work in Fort Worth when he was shot in the back by authorities investigating an armed robbery. Collie is now paralyzed from his abdomen down as a result of the horrific encounter.

The policemen involved accused Collie of pointing a box cutter at them (of course), but dash cam footage recently made public doesn’t corroborate their story, Daily Mail reports. Although a box cutter was recovered 10 feet from where he was shot, Collie was seen walking away from the officers – not toward – and it’s unclear whether he ever had the box cutter in his hand. But let’s play devil’s advocate and say he did: Was it necessary for police to shoot him seconds after arriving to the scene, prior to any attempt at apprehending him?

Collie was charged with assault on a public servant, but a grand jury did not indict him, says the report. His attorney Nate Washington said at a press conference, where his client remained confined to a wheelchair, that police were searching for two shirtless Black men they suspected of robbing a gas station. Collie was walking to his friend’s house when police approached him in the patrol car, one firing his weapon ten seconds after getting out of his vehicle.

Collie wanted the footage made public, as it seems people were making comments to his mother that he “must have done something wrong.” According to his attorney, Collie hoped to make it clear he did nothing “to threaten an officer.”

“I wasn’t there that night. I do know what I saw. I know I never saw this man with a weapon. I never saw this man advance toward the officers. I know I saw him get shot in his back,” Washington said at the conference. “We want justice for David. We want change, but we also want peace and calm from the community after they see this video.”

The Fort Worth Police released this statement via Twitter on Tuesday of this week:

See the graphic footage above.

SOURCE: Daily Mail

WATCH: Black Man Paralyzed After Being Shot In The Back By Police  was originally published on globalgrind.com