A 17-year-old Arkansas teen fired a gun at police before officers fatally shot him, according to a graphic dashcam video officials released Wednesday.
The five-minute video shows Charles Smith, 17, in a scuffle with an officer when he pointed his gun and fired before officers delivered the fatal shot.
Smith had been a passenger in the back seat of a car officers pulled over for speeding in North Little Rock around 1:00 p.m. Saturday.
A patrolman told the driver to get out of the car before asking, “You ain’t got anything crazy on you, do you?” followed by ‘”Why were you driving so dang-gummed fast, man?”
Officers searched the driver and the front-seat passenger before questioning and searching Smith. The officers asked Smith about weapons, marijuana, and the Nike Air Force 1 shoes he wore.
“How do you like them?” the officer asked him while conducting a pat-down.
The officer told Smith not to reach for something twice when the two suddenly began wrestling each other.
“I can’t go to jail,” Smith pleaded with the officer as police failed to tase him.
“Get your (expletive) hand out,” an officer ordered Smith, whose hands were not visible in the video.
“It’s a (expletive) gun,” the officer yelled shortly after ordering Smith to make his hands visible to the officers.
Smith then pointed the handgun at the officers while on the ground, fired it, and prepared to fire it once more when officers opened fire, killing Smith, according to the video.
North Little Rock Police Chief Mike Davis said in a statement that the department released the footage of the shooting to “dispel misinformation” that Smith had been unarmed when officers shot him.
“Since the incident, a great deal of erroneous information has appeared on social media outlets. … I want to make sure we clear that up today,” Davis said. “He was armed and we, in fact, had to take action because of that. I want people to see what happened.”
Davis added that the officers at the scene were not wearing body cameras and the department could release the names of the officers after they come up with a strategy to protect them.
KTHV reports that the other two men in the video, who police have not identified, are not in custody.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.