Man releases officer-involved shooting video
Footage gives glimpse of shooting, moments after
Davonte Weatherford was shot by a Memphis police officer last year at a Frayser shopping center. A crowd gathered and people began protesting. The police department later denied access to the body camera footage.
But Weatherford, now 22, survived the shooting and released the footage himself, first on Facebook and then to The Commercial Appeal. Weatherford said he is looking for justice in the shooting and hopes to hire a civil lawyer that will work to get a settlement.
The video displays a brief glimpse of the shooting itself and a longer close-up of the moments afterward, where Weatherford is begging for help and spitting blood.
Weatherford told The Commercial Appeal he received the footage from a staffer of his criminal defense law office, The Claiborne Ferguson Law Firm, P.A.
Claiborne H. Ferguson, Weatherford’s criminal defense lawyer, would not confirm he gave the footage to Weatherford.
Police and Weatherford’s accounts of the shooting differ. On the footage, the officer can be heard saying Weatherford ran towards the police car pointing a gun towards the officer. That moment was not captured on video.
Timeline of the video
At 41 seconds into the video, an officer behind the wheel of a police cruiser can be heard shouting, “You run again, I’m going to kill you!” to Weatherford. Two seconds later, the officer appeared to fire two shots at Weatherford from his patrol car.
After the shots were fired, the officer is seen opening the door and stepping out the car pointing a gun at Weatherford who is already seen lying on the ground with his hands sprawling up before the officer shouts “Get on the ground, do not move!” repeatedly.
Another officer points a gun at Weatherford as he approached him while he is seen lying on the ground.
At 54 seconds, the officer who fired shots is heard shouting “Where is the gun? Where is it at?” Weatherford is seen pointing at the gun while on the ground.
At 1:08, an officer handcuffing Weatherford calls for an ambulance. Weatherford is heard repeatedly saying “I’m going to die y’all” and asking for help from the officers several times while lying handcuffed to the ground.
The officer tells Weatherford “you are going to live,” and another officer soon approaches Weatherford again pressing on his back telling Weatherford to breathe repeatedly.
According to an affidavit, Weatherford was charged with aggravated assault, evading arrest and theft of property $1,000 or less. There were no reported injuries of the officers involved in the incident.
He was later charged with unlawful possession of a weapon. The police department said Weatherford had a stolen handgun.
Weatherford’s lawyer, Claiborne H. Ferguson, told the Commercial Appeal on Friday that he was shot while running away from Memphis Police officers. On Sept. 12, 2017, The Commercial Appeal filed a public records request for body camera and dashboard cameras related to the incident at the auto parts store as well as the officer-involved shooting at the nearby shopping center. The request was denied. Karen Rudolph, a spokesperson for the Memphis Police Department told the Commercial Appeal on Wednesday, that the footage of the officer-involved shooting remains unavailable because the case is still ongoing.
The Commercial Appeal reached out to the Memphis Police Department several times to receive confirmation about the body camera footage, but did not get a response.
Details in the footage match previous reports from the Commercial Appeal in the shooting. In the video, Weatherford identifies both his name and age after the officer who fired shots at him requested it.
The officers involved in the shooting have not been identified.
Difference in claims during the incident
The video doesn’t show if Weatherford was waving or pointing a gun towards the officer while running. Later footage picks up the officer telling another officer the gun was pointed at him.
An affidavit from Sept. 9, 2017, said officers responded to a report of armed men at 6:23 p.m. at 2631 Frayser Boulevard near an auto parts store. When officers tried to detain people in the parking lot, they took off running. A witness at the time who worked at the nearby auto parts store described the two groups of people flashing guns “like a movie” prior to the officer-involved shooting.
On the night of the shooting, the police department released a statement: “Officers pursued, at which time one of the suspects reportedly turned and pointed a handgun at the officers.”
An affidavit released later said Weatherford was running towards the officer’s car, armed with a handgun before the officer shot, but the documents did not say Weatherford was pointing the gun or waiving the gun at the officer while running.
Weatherford disputes the claim that he waived or pointed a gun at the police officer prior to getting shot.
In an interview with the Commercial Appeal on Thursday, Weatherford said he left his girlfriend’s home that day after an argument before he walked into the area where the armed confrontation was reported.
Weatherford said he had an unregistered gun on him during the encounter and kept it in his pocket. Weatherford said his phone died and he was at the shopping center parking lot searching for someone he knew to get in contact with about a ride.
When he found that person, he said the group of people who were there got into an altercation and pulled out a gun. An argument ensued but did not turn violent.
Weatherford said that five minutes later, officers appeared and approached the group. While others ran, Weatherford initially did not.
“The other dudes had took off running. I just stood there,” Weatherford said. “I was thinking what am I going to run for, I didn’t do anything.”
Weatherford then said he started to run after he remembered he had an unregistered weapon, but was eventually cut off by the cop car. The police department said the .380 Jimenez pistol that was found at the scene was reported stolen in 2015.
Weatherford said he had no criminal charges prior to the incident and that he got the gun for “protection” and planned to get it registered “the week after.”
Court records confirm Weatherford had no local charges prior to the September 2017 incident.
Weatherford said he did not hear the officer say anything prior to the shooting. “All I was hearing was sirens. Only thing I knew was when I ran into his car, I had bounced off of it and I had stumbled a little bit. I saw him reach for his gun out the holster,” Weatherford said.
Despite the unanswered questions, the video offers additional insight into what happened.
Immediately after the shooting
A crowd gathered for hours around 6:30 p.m. that Friday evening. Some people quickly expressed outrage at what they saw as a needless shooting of a young black man.
People in the crowd expressed discontent with police officials briefing reporters. At another point, a man cued up the 1988 song by rap group N.W.A., “F--Tha Police,” and blasted it over the loudspeakers of an SUV as he drove slowly away, according to previous reports from the Commercial Appeal.
Weatherford told the Commercial Appeal that he “was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He also said the police account is “mixed up” and the person the police were looking for “got away” amidst the large crowd of men running.
“The person that they were looking for, they got away,” Weatherford said. “I was behind them, they had ended up jumping a gate and getting away.”
There was no Tennessee Bureau of Investigation involvement in the shooting inquiry because Weatherford did not die. Weatherford pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault, evading arrest and theft of property in Oct. 2017.
The Memphis City Council is discussing the idea of passing a resolution backing state legislation that would require the TBI to investigate every police shooting whether fatal or critical injury. The TBI has raised concerns about the additional workload of investigating non-fatal shootings.
The police shooting issue is on a City Council committee agenda for next Tuesday’s meeting.
Weatherford’s next court date is today.
Reporter Daniel Connolly contributed to this story.
Reach reporter Phillip Jackson on Twitter at @phillej_.