Charlotte Police Release 11-Minute Body-Cam Video of Fatal Shooting

On Wednesday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department released the 11-minute video of the March 25 shooting of Danquirs Franklin, a 27-year-old black man who the police said was carrying a gun, in the parking lot of a Burger King.

It said in a statement that the video was also provided to the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office as part of criminal and internal investigations to determine whether the shooting was “justified.”

The shooting of Franklin has shaken the city of Charlotte, the most populous in the state, with about 860,000 people. In 2016, the fatal shooting of a 43-year-old black man, Keith Lamont Scott, by an officer from the same department prompted days of sometimes violent protests in Charlotte.

The police had publicly released a shorter version of the video on April 15, but the full, 11-minute version was distributed to comply with a Superior Court judge ruling that granted a media request for the footage.

“I know I don’t like how it looks, and I think I’m pretty reasonable, people,” the police chief, Kerr Putney, told reporters.

“What cannot be more disheartening is watching the video, and we see a lot of them, and it appears that, but for training, we could have rendered more aid,” Putney said, according to the radio station WFAE.

On April 15, just before the police released the two-minute version of the video, Charlotte officials gathered to call for calm.

Mayor Vi Lyles, according to video of her remarks, called the shooting a “tragic moment” in which “many lives were changed forever,” and said that people had the right to protest. “We owe it to the community to see for themselves what has been recorded,” she said.

Lyles also highlighted the work of law enforcement officers, whose jobs “require an instantaneous decision, and that is something that none of us should take lightly.”

“I call on all of Charlotte to come together respectfully,” she said.

Meghan McDonald, the spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said Thursday that the Police Department had turned over investigative material to the district attorney’s office on Wednesday.

“This office can now begin its review of the investigation to determine whether the officer acted lawfully or unlawfully,” she said. The office’s goal is to complete its own investigation within 90 days, she said.

At about 9 a.m. on March 25, dispatchers received two calls about events unfolding at a Burger King on Beatties Ford Road, the police said. The first caller said an armed man had walked behind the counter and was pointing a weapon at an employee. The second caller said a man had approached her vehicle while she was waiting for food in the parking lot and had pulled out a gun.

The body-camera video starts inside the patrol car of two officers en route to the Burger King. Radio traffic can be heard describing a vehicle there. When the officers, Wende Kerl and Larry Deal, get out, they draw their guns and approach Franklin, who is crouching on the pavement within the open door on the front passenger side of a vehicle, apparently talking to someone in the front seat.

The officers approach from the back of the vehicle and shout at Franklin to “drop the weapon” or “put the gun on the ground” about two dozen times. Franklin is motionless and has his hands down, but then moves his hand. Shots ring out. Franklin slumps sideways against the door and then falls face first onto the ground.

That all happened in the first two minutes of the initial footage. The longer video showed the aftermath.

There is the sound of moaning, as Kerl reaches over his shoulder, saying, “I’ve got to pick up the gun.” The officers radio for assistance. Someone can be heard crying.

“He pulled a gun,” Kerl says to Deal.

“Yes he did, I know, Wende,” her partner says. “You OK?”

“I’m all right,” she says.

“All I know is I shot because he had the gun in his hand,” Kerl says a few minutes later. “This is the gun. I had to take it from underneath him,” she says to another officer who has arrived at the scene.

“I haven’t touched him yet,” she says.

Medics arrive about four minutes after the shooting.

Over the next six minutes of footage, Kerl repeatedly talks about what has happened. “I shot him. He pulled a gun. He wouldn’t drop it,” she tells another officer. “I didn’t have a choice.”

After another few minutes, she says: “I had to. He wouldn’t drop the gun, and he brought it out of his jacket.”

“Is he alive?” she asks later, by that time seated in her patrol vehicle. Another officer replies that he doesn’t know.

Sandy D’Elosua, a department spokeswoman, said on Thursday that officers were trained in CPR and in placing tourniquets, and that Deal had checked the man’s pulse and breathing. The department is still conducting an internal review, which will include a look at whether sufficient aid was rendered.

The police, in their statement on the day of the shooting, said Kerl “perceived an imminent, deadly threat” and fired two times, striking Franklin. He was transported to the Atrium Health hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the police said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department policy says officers should take “any appropriate measure they are trained and certified to take” to render medical aid to an injured person in the event of an officer-involved shooting, The Charlotte Observer reported. A department spokesman could not be reached on Thursday.

“Danquirs was the joy of my life gone but you will never be forgotten,” his mother, Deborah Franklin, wrote on Facebook days after his death.

Kerl, who was hired in 1995, was placed on administrative leave, the police said. Jeremy B. Smith, her lawyer, said in a statement on Wednesday that Kerl “had to analyze in a split second” before deciding to open fire to protect the person, the public and her partner.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.