Federal probe launched in lethal police taking photos of Black teen in Washington

US investigators opened a civil rights probe into closing month’s lethal taking photos of a Black teenager by a US Park Police officer in Washington.

Washinton,UPDATED: Apr 6, 2023 07:35 IST

A Black teenager was shot after officers from the Park Police and DC Metro Police responded to a report of a stolen car on March 18. (Representative image)

By Reuters: US investigators opened a civil rights probe into closing month’s lethal taking photos of a Black teenager by a US Park Police officer in Washington, they said on Wednesday, a day after physique digital digital camera footage prompted the sufferer’s family to call for the shooter to be prosecuted and fired.

Dalaneo Martin, 17, was shot after officers from the Park Police and DC Metro Police responded to a report of a stolen car on March 18. A youth, later acknowledged as Martin, was asleep inside the driver’s seat of the parked car when officers arrived, police said.

Bodycam footage, launched by police on Tuesday, confirmed officers approaching the car to tug the driving pressure out. One of the Park Police officers jumped into the once more seat and yelled, “Police, don’t move. Don’t move. Don’t move.” The driver then took off with the officer inside the once more seat.

“Stop man, just let me out. Let me go,” the officer is heard saying. “Stop. Stop or I’ll shoot.” Gunshots are heard hardly a second later.

Police said the driving pressure died on the scene and a gun was recovered contained within the car. The car crashed right into a close-by house and the officer jumped out of it, the footage confirmed.

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The officers’ faces have been blurred inside the video and none of them have been acknowledged by police.

“The loss of a life is always tragic but is especially heartbreaking when it involves a child,” the US Attorney’s Office in Washington said in an announcement asserting the federal investigation. It described the bodycam footage as “extremely upsetting.”

The D.C. Metropolitan Police directed inquiries to the Park Police, which could not be reached immediately for comment.

In one different violent confrontation captured on body-cam video, Memphis cops on Jan. 7 pummeled a Black motorist, Tyre Nichols, with kicks, punches and baton blows after a web site guests stop. Nichols later died from accidents sustained inside the beating.

That assault reinvigorated the nationwide soul-searching about police brutality and race that accelerated after the killing of George Floyd three years previously. Floyd, a Black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned his neck to the underside with a knee for better than eight minutes.

Jade Mathis, an authorized skilled for the Martin family, instructed the Washington Post that their preliminary response to the footage was tears that quickly turned to anger.

“But it was also relief because they have more answers than they had before,” the newspaper quoted Mathis as saying.

The authorized skilled said the family wants the officer who shot Martin to be acknowledged, prosecuted and terminated.

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Apr 6, 2023