'He's a black man with a gun': Emantic Bradford's shooting divides city of civil rights. Is American policing a racist murder machine?

Local police in Birmingham, a city whose name remains deeply symbolic of the civil rights struggle and fight against racial segregation, shifted their narrative multiple times about how Bradford had died. First, he was identified as the suspect in the shooting. Then they said he wasn’t the suspect but had brandished a gun. Then police backed off that claim too. The real shooter, meanwhile, remains at large. The entire incident is resonant of many recent cases of police shootings of young, black men, reinforcing a notion that they must behave differently than other races in America’s public spaces – merely to avoid being shot by law enforcement. As late night TV comic Trevor Noah noted in a passionate commentary on the case: “The second amendment is not intended for black people.”

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The shooting has left many beyond Bradford’s friends and family traumatised, especially those who witnessed the shooting. Rashad Billingsley, 18, an employee of the National Guard, had passed two police officers after walking up the stairs to Footaction shortly after 9pm. He was focused on a recently released pair of red sneakers. Before he could turn his attention to the shoes, he heard two gunshots, just 25 feet away from where he stood. Seconds later, he heard more, but is unsure how many. The teen ushered dozens into the back hallway of the Footaction, eventually helping tend to a 12-year-old girl shot in the back until paramedics showed up.

He was one of the last to leave the mall, walking out with the older sister and grandmother of the young girl who was shot. They saw a young black man lying on the ground, right outside Footaction, covered in blood. “Me and her sister were walking out and she [saw] him out of her peripheral vision and she started crying and you know, I put my arm around her so she couldn’t see the body,” he said, fiddling with his watch. Billingsley stares at the floor unable to speak. The muscles in his jaw clench. It was the first time he’d seen a dead body.

In the immediate aftermath, police did not reach out to Billingsley, he says. As of Tuesday Billingsley says they still had not reached out to him. Police actions in the wake of the shooting have come under heavy criticism. That night Hoover Police captain Gregg Rector described a physical altercation, an exchange of gunfire, and the death of a suspect engaged by police officers. By Friday morning, Hoover police would identify the dead man as “a 21-year-old male from Hueytown” in a statement.

The same day, hours later, police released his name as the shooter before backtracking. They accused Bradford of “brandishing” a gun – and then walked back that description. “This is not a change in the characterization of what he was doing with the gun at the time but rather an attempt to further explain it,” a city spokesperson explained in an email.

Four days after the 21-year-old’s death, in a joint release with the City of Hoover, police said the shooter “is still at large” though they provided no description, indirectly admitting they falsely accused Bradford. They offered sympathy to the family, but did not apologize in the statement.

The police officer involved in the shooting has yet to be identified by the city or police. “The officer is on paid administrative leave as per normal procedures in a case such as this. This officer has been employed by Hoover police department since 2017 but had several years of police experience prior to that,” the email stated.

The timeline as to what transpired, leading to the death of yet another young black man in America, is unclear as officials have released evolving, transforming narratives. “It is so troubling, when you think of all the black men across America who have been killed because they moved a certain way. They have a cell phone, it was dark and they couldn’t see,” said civil rights attorney Crump, before listing African American shooting victims whose families he has represented: Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Botham Jean in Dallas; and Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.

The veteran lawyer grew visibly angry as he referenced white, male mass shooters taken alive by police in recent years: Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland, Florida school shooter this year; and Dylann Roof, the man who killed nine African American worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. “When it comes to [Bradford], who several witnesses say was trying to help them escape, help them get out of harm’s way, help them get to safety, police [don’t] see a good guy with a gun, he’s a black man with a gun,” Crump said.

Though the Hoover mall is private property and prohibits firearms, gun laws in Alabama are a gray area. State law allows carrying a pistol on private property with a concealed weapon permit. According to Crump, multiple eyewitnesses have come forward, telling him many people inside the mall pulled out guns when the shots rang out. In the days between the shooting and changing narrative put forth by officials, multiple vigils and protests have sprouted up, demanding that officials “release the video”. According to the police, all available video footage is in the possession of the Alabama Law Enforcement agency for the duration of the investigation.

“Nobody has seen the video and that’s the problem because they lied already to this family about proclaiming to the world, assassinating his character while assassinating this person,” Crump told the Guardian... read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/28/hes-a-black-man-with-a-gun-emantic-bradfords-shooting-divides-city-of-civil-rights