On Thanksgiving, a so-far-unnamed police officer shot and killed Emantic "EJ" Bradford Jr. at the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover, Alabama; they believed was responsible for shooting two people in the mall. The explanation police offered was that Bradford had a gun (later revealed to be licensed and legal) and was seen fleeing the scene (witnesses later explained that Bradford attempted to usher people to safety).
Initially, police had reported that Bradford, at the time the suspected shooter, was dead, and that therefore the mall was again safe. Then they released an update that Bradford was likely not the shooter, and that the suspect was still on the loose. They’ve since released another update, saying that U.S. marshals arrested Erron Brown, the suspected gunman, on Thursday. Brown faces charges of attempted murder.
What all of these updates cannot change is that Bradford, a 21-year-old Army veteran and aspiring police officer, is still dead.
According to a statement released by Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis, the police will not release details, including whatever video may be available, to the public for now. (For context, cellphone videos have been circulating on to social media.) Understandably, Bradford’s family wants the police to release whatever video exists.
Bradford’s family is represented by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who held a press conference on Monday morning at which one person expressed the overall attitude toward the withholding of the footage, with at least one person in the crowd yelling, “Say no more! Release the damn video."
Mike McClure Jr., the Bradford family’s pastor, perfectly articulates why the video is such a big deal:
”My concern here is that the longer this goes on, it's like a powder keg. We need to as quickly as efficiently as possible conclude this investigation so we can restore the trust that was taken on Thanksgiving night when they defamed the character of [Bradford] and said that he was a criminal.”
The Root has done some excellent investigative journalism to determine what type of videos might be involved, and the degree to which they might have recorded what actually happened. For example, as Michael Harriot explains in his article, there are “seven surveillance cameras within 100 feet of where Bradford’s body was shown in cell phone videos obtained by The Root.” Video surveillance from surrounding stores (assuming they still have copies) have not yet been released to the public either.
Anonymous police officers also told the Root that, while officers have to adhere to department rules, including wearing body cameras, the responding officers might not have actually turned them on in time when responding to this emergency. The body cameras are not constantly recording. Thus, it’s possible the body cameras didn’t actually capture Bradford’s death, or the moments leading up to it.
An independent anatomical review of Bradford’s body, the results of which were released by Crump during Monday’s press conference, reportedly show that he was shot from behind three times: once in the head, once in the back, and once in the neck. Any of the three shots could have been fatal.
Why does this matter? Shots from behind suggest that Bradford was actually moving away from the officers, not towards them.
Crump stated:
"There is nothing that justifies [the officer] shooting EJ as he's moving away from him. You're not a threat when you're running away. If it was anybody else who shot somebody three times in the back, they'd be charged with murder."
Which goes back to the root of so much of the pain, frustration, and anger in this case: If Bradford had been a white man, would he have been shot three times, all in potentially fatal locations? Or would he have been hailed as a “good guy with a gun”? It’s fair to assume he would have at least been given the benefit of the doubt: We’ve seen white men who commit mass violence apprehended by police without loss of life.
Whatever video is available, and whatever it shows, the public deserves to see it. And Bradford’s family deserves to have their youngest son’s name and reputation restored, at the very, very least.