A disturbing body camera video has been released from the night that police in Marksville, Lousiana killed a 6-year-old boy and critically wounded his father.
The footage is from Nov. 3, 2015, the night when Marksville police officers Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse fired 18 bullets at a parked vehicle, leaving 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis dead and Chris Few, the boy's father, wounded. Few was unarmed during the shooting, and the officers were arrested for murder shortly after the incident.
During a court hearing on Wednesday, the video was introduced as evidence, and a judge ruled that the video should be made public, according to WAFB. Defense attorneys for the two officers argue that they were acting in self-defense, but the judge isn't buying it, especially after seeing the video.
The 14-minute video, District Court Judge William Bennett said, doesn't show that Few posed a threat to the officers when they started shooting at him, the AP reports. Bennett said, "That car was not being used as a deadly weapon at that time...I daresay it was not even close to being used as a deadly weapon at that time."
Originally, investigators claimed that the officers began chasing Few because of an outstanding warrant, but it was later revealed that Few didn't have any outstanding warrants, WAFB reports. The officers claimed that Few had rammed his car into Greenhouse's vehicle, which they used as justification for their claim of self-defense. However, there was no physical evidence that Few's car ever hit Greenhouse's.
KLFY reports that the video is from Marksville Police Officer Sgt. Kenneth Parnell III, who was at the scene but didn't fire since, he told the court, he didn't fear for his life. Of the 18 bullet cases found at the scene, investigators say that 14 were from Stafford and four were from Greenhouse.
About two minutes after the shooting stops in the video, an officer yells at Few, "Show me your hands, man!" But when officers approached the car, they realized that Few was slumped over his car door, holding onto his life. They also discovered that they had shot Mardis, who was hit five times and was declared dead at the scene.
Stafford was shocked when told of Mardis' death. "Don't tell me that, bro," he says in the video. He also says, "I never saw a kid in the car, man. I never saw a kid, bro."
Stafford's trial is set for Nov. 28, and Greenhouse's trial will begin in March.
