Mississippi Officer Allegedly Shot An Unarmed Man And Let A Police Dog Mutilate His Groin
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/28/3793133/tupelo-mississippi-shooting/
The Tupelo Police Department in being investigated by Mississippi officials after one of its officers allegedly shot and killed an unarmed man and allowed a police dog to mutilate him. The incident occurred after the man ran from the officer during a routine traffic stop.
Antwun “Ronnie” Shumpert was driving a friend’s vehicle around 9:30 pm on Saturday, June 18 when he was pulled over by Tupelo Police Officer Tyler Cook, according to attorney Carlos Moore, who’s representing Shumpert’s family. The 37-year-old father of five immediately exited his vehicle and ran for unknown reasons.
In response, the officer released a K-9 who found Shumpert hiding under a nearby home. The dog attacked him, gashing a hole through his testicles and scratching him across his body. When the officer found Shumpert, he shot him four times.
According to Moore, Shumpert was also found with injuries to his face and teeth, indicating that there may have also been a physical altercation between him and the officer.
Shumpert was handcuffed and transported to the North Mississippi Medical Center where he died roughly five hours later.
“We believe the officer just went berserk,” Moore told ThinkProgress. “It was a modern day lynching.”
On Monday, Moore announced in a press conference that an eyewitness he interviewed said that Shumpert did not instigate violence. In fact, according to his attorney, Schumpert was voluntarily surrendering to the police and coming out of his hiding space when the K-9 violently attacked him in the groin, mutilating his testicles. While Schumpert was attempting to get free from the dog, the officer allegedly walked up and shot him four times — three times in the chest and one time in the stomach.
Cook has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, which has been handed off to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Moore said it’s unclear why Cook decided to use the K-9, but noted that he has a complaint on his record for using excessive force just two months ago.
“From my understanding, officers are allowed to use K-9s in a search for a suspected felon,” Moore said. “What we do know is that at the time that Mr. Shumpert was being chased, he was not a suspected felon. They didn’t even know his name. It was a simple traffic stop.”
The potentially harmful use of dogs by police departments has been well-documented. But the details of Shumpert’s attack are particularly gruesome.
“It whipped and mutilated and annihilated this man,” he said. “He tore his body to shreds, basically. It’s just horrible the way it was done.
Black lives, in fact, do not matter in Tupelo.
“If you’re going to release your dog and your dog gets to him first, why are you then going to turn around and execute him in cold blood?” he continued. “Your dog has already mutilated him. He could not have been a threat to anyone.”
Moore said that the Tupelo Police Department has not yet provided him or Shumpert’s family with an explanation for why the initial traffic stop occurred, why shots were fired, or why the K-9 was released. Shumpert’s friend and the owner of the vehicle who was in the passenger seat at the time of the incident told officers that there were no drugs or illegal items in the vehicle, according to Moore. The friend was interviewed by police but released without charge.
Representatives for the police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The head of the Tupelo-Lee County chapter of the NAACP has said that he is “in dialogue” with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the incident and that the federal agency will monitor the examination into Shumpert’s death.
In a press conference Monday, Moore demanded that the city appoint an independent police review board and that the police department ends its use of racial profiling and eliminates its quota system.
“My investigation has revealed that black lives, in fact, do not matter in Tupelo,” Moore said.
“Tupelo, you are no better than Ferguson.”