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Cops Admit Black Man Police Killed In Alabama Mall Shooting Was Not The Shooter


The admission stopped well short of any type of apology.

Written By NewsOne Staff


Police respond­ing to a shoot­ing at a mall in Alabama appar­ent­ly shot and killed the wrong per­son — a Black man — leav­ing the sus­pect­ed gun­man at large fol­low­ing a vio­lent episode that wound­ed two oth­ers on Thanksgiving night.

Emantic “EJ” Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., “an active duty offi­cer for the Army,” was report­ed­ly shot in the face and died at the Riverchase Galleria in the town of Hoover as police iden­ti­fied him as their pri­ma­ry sus­pect. The 21-year-old, who was armed and licensed to car­ry a gun, was report­ed­ly home for the hol­i­days when he was killed.

Law enforce­ment was seem­ing­ly eager to announce how they were able to kill a sus­pect, even going so far as to announce it to the press before any appar­ent inves­ti­ga­tion had been launched. That proved to be one of a hand­ful of mis­takes the Hoover Police Department made Thursday, accord­ing to AL​.com.“We regret that our ini­tial media release was not total­ly accu­rate, but new evi­dence indi­cates that it was not,’’ Hoover Police Captain Gregg Rector said.

“We remain com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing the integri­ty of this inves­ti­ga­tion, help­ing deter­mine the facts involved, and assist­ing ALEA in their efforts.”According to AL​.com, “Rector said inves­ti­ga­tors now believe that more than two indi­vid­u­als were involved in the ini­tial alter­ca­tion. The infor­ma­tion indi­cates that there is at least one gun­man still at-large, who could be respon­si­ble for the shoot­ing of the 18-year-old male and 12-year-old female.”

The admis­sion stopped well short of any type of apol­o­gy for what on the sur­face appeared to be a case of police see­ing a Black man with a gun in an open car­ry state and assum­ing the worst. Chances were more than like­ly that police will claim they feared for their lives, a com­mon defense that killer cops rou­tine­ly rely on to elude any sort of pun­ish­ment or crim­i­nal charges.

The shoot­ing hap­pened ahead of Black Friday sales that drew shop­pers to the mall. It bore some sim­i­lar­i­ties to anoth­er in sub­ur­ban Chicago ear­li­er this month, when a Black secu­ri­ty guard try­ing to sub­due a gun­man was shot to death by police. Jemel Roberson was wear­ing a shirt embla­zoned with the word “SECURITY” and still got shot on Nov. 11. His funer­al was sched­uled for Saturday. https://​new​sone​.com/​3​8​3​7​9​3​5​/​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​k​i​l​l​-​e​j​-​b​r​a​d​f​o​r​d​-​j​r​-​a​l​a​b​a​m​a​-​m​a​l​l​-​s​h​o​o​t​i​n​g​/​?​f​b​c​l​i​d​=​I​w​A​R​0​8​S​h​l​L​e​0​5​U​n​j​q​H​2​6​g​_​m​1​e​x​b​v​d​q​p​S​T​l​V​S​1​S​r​K​m​Q​J​Q​g​H​y​j​L​O​d​5​H​X​x​R​I​a​5Rk