Two policemen in Phoenix , Arizona were forced to shoot and kill a man after he refused to set his gun down. They spent ten minutes trying to talk him into relinquishing his gun. He allegedly told the officers to shoot him before he raised his gun and the officers fired, killing him.
James Porter Garcia, 28, was sitting in his car when the police arrived. They were answering a call of 911 call report of aggravated assault.
The officers approached the car with guns drawn and a bystander recorded part of the exchange between Garcia and the police.
Garcia’s friend, Steven Merry said:
“They put the gun on his head like this and they’re still telling him not to move, to get his hand off a gun he don’t have and then they shot him again.”
The shooting has led to protests. If Merry is correct, the officers should be prosecuted, but if he isn’t, he should be prosecuted and be made to pay for any damages that occur during the protests. It would hardly be the first time a witness lied between their teeth. Remember hands up, Don’t shoot?
Officers spoke with Garcia for around 10 minutes before he reportedly asked to be shot, according to Department Spokeswoman Sgt. Mercedes Fortune, the Times reported.
Garcia “refused to drop the gun and lifted it toward officers,” Fortune told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an email.
The only video released by the department shows a handgun recovered from Garcia’s vehicle, the Times reported. The video was taken from the body camera worn by an officer who arrived after Garcia was shot.
Fortune said releasing the body camera video from the two officers who shot Garcia would jeopardize the investigation, the Times reported.
“What we want is the whole footage. Every single body camera. Every single cop who showed up. Everything from when they were driving to when they got there to when they killed him,” the director of a local activist group called Poder in Action, Viri Hernandez, said, according to the Times.