Family Of Miami Man Killed By Police Claims Newly Released Video Vindicates Son, Cop ‘Murdered’ Their Loved One

New body­cam video shows the final moments of life for Antwon Cooper, 34 after he was shot in the head by police min­utes after he was pulled over for a traf­fic stop. The Miami man’s fam­i­ly says the new­ly released video shows he wasn’t armed. Miami police released a body­cam and near­by sur­veil­lance video of the dead­ly shoot­ing of the Black man on March 8. Cooper was pulled over by a Miami police officer

“They still haven’t been able to tell us what the stop was about; they just say it was some­thing with a paper tag,” said Rawsi Williams, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing Cooper’s family.

The inves­ti­ga­tion is still ongo­ing, but the new video shows an offi­cer approach­ing Cooper ask­ing for his license and reg­is­tra­tion. Cooper was dri­ving a friend’s car, accord­ing to Williams — although the body­cam video shows Cooper say­ing the car is his. When Cooper failed to pro­duce a license, the offi­cer asked him out of the car, but once he exit­ed the red Nissan Altima and the offi­cer began pat­ting him down, Cooper tried to run away. Bodycam video shows Cooper and the offi­cer tus­sling before the body cam­era falls off on the ground. That’s when a Miami police sergeant arrived on the scene sec­onds lat­er and opens fire, killing Cooper instantly.

Williams says the body­cam video helps counter a nar­ra­tive Cooper was armed, some­thing the fam­i­ly has always denied. “The release of the video by the Miami PD was a vin­di­ca­tion of us and a cor­rob­o­ra­tion of the facts we’ve already put out there,” Williams said.

While a gun did appear at the scene, exact­ly who it belonged to and how it got there is still unclear. Miami police have not respond­ed to request for more infor­ma­tion, but on the day of the shoot­ing, police said, “One of the two sub­jects was armed with a handgun…a hand­gun has since been recov­ered on scene.” Police ref­er­enced a pas­sen­ger in the car at the time of the traf­fic stop, who was not arrested.

As the inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues into Cooper’s death, his fam­i­ly has been anguished. “It’s tear­ing me and my wife apart,” Melvin Bryant, Cooper’s grand­fa­ther, said.

“It hurts; a death is a death, but this kind of death, you can’t accept that I can’t accept that, not at all,” said Helen Bryant, Cooper’s grandmother.

Amid their grief, the Bryants say they’ve also been faced with coun­ter­ing anoth­er nar­ra­tive about their grandson’s crim­i­nal past, say­ing he’d turned his life around and had a reg­u­lar job, and his record had no bear­ing on what ulti­mate­ly took his life.

“They just want­ed to smear him like he was such a bad guy, and he wasn’t,” Helen Bryant said of her grandson’s character.

Attorney Frank Allen says Cooper’s crim­i­nal past wouldn’t mat­ter in their fight for jus­tice because the crimes com­mit­ted occurred more than a decade ago.

“Some of the stuff they’re try­ing to pig­gy­back off of in lit­i­ga­tion, that stuff isn’t even going to be admis­si­ble, so a judge isn’t going to admit it, and a judge is not going to con­sid­er it, and a jury isn’t even going to hear it,” Allen said, one of the Cooper fam­i­ly attor­neys, said.

Although the family’s attor­neys have filed a pre-suit for a wrong­ful death fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit, claim­ing Cooper was a vic­tim of exces­sive police force, right now, the fam­i­ly says they aren’t con­cerned about lit­i­ga­tion but would rather exhaust their efforts on more imme­di­ate jus­tice against the Miami police sergeant who fired the fatal shot.

The fam­i­ly has start­ed an online peti­tion call­ing for the arrest of the sergeant.

“Our grand­son got mur­dered in the street by a cop who shot him in the head, and he laid under­neath a cov­er for sev­en hours, we’re not think­ing about a law­suit, we want jus­tice for our grand­son,” Melvin Bryant said.

“Can they give Antwon back to us? They can’t give him back to us, all the law­suits in the world can’t give him back to us,” Helen Bryant asked while lament­ing the loss of Cooper.

“He’ll nev­er be able to get mar­ried, there will be no Antwon junior, he’ll nev­er be able to have chil­dren,” Williams said of the long-last­ing impacts of the shooting.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is still inves­ti­gat­ing the case.
This sto­ry was first report­ed by Atlanta Black Star.