Boy, 15, Killed When Texas Cop Fires Into Car Full of Teens

Police erred in their initial statement about how the car was being driven
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 1, 2017 6:45 PM CDT
Boy, 15, Killed When Texas Cop Fires Into Car Full of Teens
Odell Edwards wipes away tears as he sits with his wife, Charmaine Edwards, listening to their attorney Lee Merritt talking about the death of their son, Jordan Edwards, in a police shooting Saturday in Balch Springs, Texas, in Merritt's law office in Dallas, Monday, May 1, 2017.    (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

A 15-year-old boy has died after a Dallas-area police officer fired into a car that authorities initially said was being driven in an "aggressive manner," the AP reports. However, the Balch Springs police chief later said his department incorrectly described why an officer shot at the vehicle. Jonathan Haber said Monday that video contradicted his original statement about the Saturday night shooting that killed Jordan Edwards, a high school freshman. Edwards and four other teenagers were in a vehicle leaving a party when an officer fired at them. Police first said the vehicle was backing up toward police at the scene "in an aggressive manner." But Haber said Monday that video shows the vehicle not reversing, but instead "moving forward as the officers approached."

Haber had said at a news conference Sunday that officers heard gunshots after responding to a call of drunken teenagers in a neighborhood. Attorney Lee Merritt, who is representing the boy's family, says the shooting of Jordan, who was black, brings to mind other deaths of black people in encounters with police. He says the car wasn't being driven aggressively and that the teens in the car weren't the ones police had been called about, and adds that the family wants the officer arrested and charged. Haber called Monday for time to let authorities complete their investigations. (More police shooting stories.)

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