US Police Shoot, Kill Disabled Black Man

The incident that was caught on camera by a witnesses on Wednesday, shows four officers shoot dead 28-year-old Jeremy McDole, who was paralyzed from the waist down, Press TV reported.

The mobile footage shows one of the officers approaching the wheelchair-bound victim on a narrow street and shouting at him to put up his hands and drop a gun.

Shortly after, a gunshot can be heard and a person behind the camera is heard saying he was shot and bleeding.

Several other officers then appear in the video, shouting for McDole to “show his hands.”

Meanwhile, McDole who is struggling in his wheelchair, slumps over and falls to the ground, dead.

Police Chief Bobby Cummings, who claimed McDole was "still armed with a handgun," said during a news conference on Thursday that officers approached him and told him to put the weapon down. As McDole was removing the gun from his waist, officers "engaged him."

The victim’s mother Phyllis McDole, however, interrupted the briefing and said, “He was in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. There's video showing that he didn't pull a weapon.”

No gun, other than those belonging to the officers, is visible in the video footage.

The victim’s uncle, Eugene Smith, also said he was with his nephew about 15 minutes before shooting and he did not see a gun.

"He had a book bag, but I never seen a gun," he said. "It was an execution. That's what it was. I don't care if he was black, white, whatever."

Cummings vowed a “thorough and transparent investigation will be conducted” into the shooting  incident.

Mayor Dennis Williams also said at a press conference in the city on Thursday afternoon that a “better grasp of the details” of what happened would be established.

According to a spokesman for the mayor, the four officers involved in the shooting had been placed on administrative leave.
People gathered outside of Phyllis McDole's home for a candlelight vigil and expressed their frustrations about the shooting late Thursday.

The killing of several unarmed black men by white police officers in recent months and decisions by grand juries not to indict the officers triggered large-scale protests across the United States.

Large-scale demonstrations were held across the United States after a series of high-profile incidents of white police officers killing unarmed African-American men, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio; Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York and Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina.