Four officers placed on leave for shooting
Four Chattanooga officers are on leave during a review of their involvement in a police shooting that killed a 17-year-old Sunday in Chattanooga, the Police Department said.
Sgt. Jeremiah Cook and officers Camy Barber, Christian Burgeson and Nicholas Wilde are on paid administrative leave, a news release from Chattanooga police said Friday.
David Mendez Lopez, 17, was shot and killed early Sunday after unsuccessful negotiation efforts by a SWAT team, a statement from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said. Police were called to the home on South Kelly Street on reports of a domestic assault and escorted other family members out of the residence.
Lopez pointed a gun at officers twice during the encounter and was not obeying verbal commands, police said. The second time, when Lopez reportedly emerged from a back door and appeared to show a gun, officers engaged and shot him, a release from the department said.
Statements from the Chattanooga Police Department about the incident do not mention Lopez died from the shooting.
Investigators are trying to determine why the situation escalated to a shooting, according to the TBI.
Lopez’s is the second fatal police shooting in Chattanooga within a month.
On Aug. 11, Roger Heard Jr. was shot and killed by police at a Chattanooga gas station while plainclothes officers attempted to arrest him on warrants. Of the three officers placed on leave for that shooting, two were returned to patrol after seven days; the third, who was shot during the exchange, returned to modified duty after 13 days.
Seven days is a standard period of leave for officer-involved shootings, department spokesperson Kevin West said in an email to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Cook, the sergeant, has been at the department since 2010, city records show. Barber joined in 2021, Wilde in 2020 and Burgeson in 2019, according to records.