A Dallas police officer shot and killed a 15-year-old boy Saturday night.
Police say they responded to a call about drunken teenagers roaming a neighborhood, and when they arrived they heard gunshots. According to the official account, police then observed a car “backing down the street toward the officers in an aggressive manner.” One of the officers fired at the car, striking high school freshman Jordan Edwards, who was sitting in the front passenger seat.
Edwards, 15, died a little while later at the hospital.
No charges have been filed against the officer yet, pending an investigation by both the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s Office.
The family attorney had disputed the sheriff’s account that the teens were driving “aggressively,” saying the car was backing out of a parking space after hearing gunfire and believing they were being fired upon.
Body cam footage of the incident has been turned over to the sheriff’s office.
The story has created a furor online. Threats have been directed at police in response to this shooting. Nearly a year ago the country went through a wave of retaliatory attacks on police officers after seemingly unjustified shooting of unarmed black youth. Fourteen officers were shot, five fatally, by a sniper during a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest.
