On Monday, the police department of Balch Springs, Texas, changed its account of the shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards, who was killed by a police officer on Saturday. From the New York Times:
The Police Department in Balch Springs, Tex., said Sunday that the officer, whose name has not been released, fired on a car carrying the teenager, Jordan Edwards, a freshman at Mesquite High School in nearby Mesquite, Tex., because the car was reversing down a street toward the officer in an “aggressive manner.”
But Jonathan Haber, the police chief, told reporters at a news conference on Monday afternoon that video showed the opposite. He said the officer fired when the car was “moving forward as the officers approached,” according to The Associated Press. The Dallas County medical examiner’s report ruled the death a homicide caused by a “rifle wound” to the head.
The department’s updated statement says that officers were investigating a party Edwards was attending when they heard gunshots. They confronted the vehicle Edwards was in. “The vehicle then pulled forward as the Officer continued to approach the vehicle giving verbal commands,” the statement reads. “The vehicle continued the main roadway [sic] driving away from the Officer as an Officer shot into the vehicle striking the passenger.”
A spokesperson for the department told the New York Times that the officers involved in the incident were wearing body cameras. The department has not released video of the shooting or the name of the officer responsible.
According to the Washington Post, Edwards is the youngest of the 330 people shot and killed by police so far this year.
