Body camera footage captured the moment an undercover police officer shot and killed a man who police claimed was trying to carjack the officer in an alley near his home in Louisville, Kentucky.
Kentucky State Police released the video from a Louisville Metro Police Department officer involved in a shooting on June 19. Police said two officers from their fugitive unit were waiting in a parked car when they were accosted by a stranger.
The video shows a 21-year-old man approach the undercover officers in their vehicle when the door opened and the officer yelled, “Police!” before shots rang out.
The suspect fell to the ground and put up his hands after being ordered by the officer.
“What is your deal, bro?!” the officer asked the man.
After the officer reported to dispatch about the robbery, the man claimed, “I wasn’t gonna rob you.”
The Kentucky State Police identified the man as Mark Jaggers Jr.
The video shows a slow-motion version of the events and highlights the gun in Jaggers’ hand just before the shooting and also on the ground after the shooting.
KSP Capt. Paul Blanton said in a statement that Jaggers opened the door to the vehicle before the shooting.
On the day of the shooting, LMPD Interim Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel told reporters that police had been involved in a shooting and that they had provided the suspect aid immediately after the incident.
An attorney for Jaggers’ family claimed that the police were presenting a “false face and caricature of the truth” in order to “poison the minds of the public.”
Attorney Aubrey Williams said that the man was confronting a suspicious vehicle with tinted windows behind his home that had been there for a long time. Williams said that the location had often been used by people to “ditch” cars.
“This man did what I would have done,” Williams said at a press conference Friday.
Williams argued that the police account made no sense because Jaggers would have had to leave his girlfriend and children behind after stealing the car.
“Now, please tell me: when he hijacks the car, where is he going to take it? He’s going to hijack the car and drive off and leave his family there?” he added.
Williams disputed the police account that Jaggers opened the car door and instead claimed that the police officer pushed the door open and knocked the man down.
“I do not dispute that he had his gun out, as any sensible human being would do if he’s investigating a very suspicious car in his neighborhood, where you have crime proliferate,” Williams explained.
He went on to say that the officer should have gotten out of his car and confronted Jaggers in order to avoid the lethal incident.
“This is one of the most absurd situations that I’ve dealt with as a lawyer,” he concluded.
Here’s the graphic video of the altercation:
GRAPHIC: Body camera video shows undercover LMPD officer shoot, kill suspected carjakerwww.youtube.com
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