New Jersey police shooting: video shows officers killing Jerame Reid as he raises his hands after traffic stop

 
Shooting: the video taken from the officer's dashboard camera in Bridgeton, New Jersey (Picture: Bridgeton Police Department)
Michael Howie22 January 2015

A video of police officers shooting a black man in the US state of New Jersey today stirred fresh anger over another death at the hands of law enforcement.

The newly-released video shows a stand-off between two officers and the occupants of a car pulled over for ignoring a stop sign in the town of Bridgeton.

The video, taken from a police dashboard camera, shows the apparently routine stop quickly escalating after one officer warns his partner about seeing a gun in the glove compartment of the Jaguar.

Officer Braheme Days is heard to scream at the passenger, Jerame Reid, to “Show me your hands”. He then shouts: “If you reach for something, you’re going to be f****** dead!”

The officer, who is black, appears to reach into the car and remove the gun.

“I ain’t got no reason to reach for nothing, bro, I ain’t got no reason to reach for nothing,” Reid says as Days continues to shout to his partner, Roger Worley, who is white, that Reid is reaching for something.

One of the passengers says, “I’m getting out and getting on the ground.” Days shouts at Reid not to move.

Reid then emerges from the vehicle. His hands are at about shoulder height and appear to be empty. As he steps out, the officers fire at least six shots.

The stand-off lasts less than two minutes.

Both officers have been placed on leave while the Cumberland County prosecutor’s office investigates.

The shooting on December 30 sparked protests in Bridgeton, a struggling town of about 25,000 people - two-thirds of them black or Hispanic - outside Philadelphia

It came after months of turbulent demonstrations and violence over the killings of unarmed black men by white police officers in New York and Ferguson, Missouri.

Tribute: A sign and cross are displayed in Bridgeton near where the police stop resulted in the fatal shooting of Jerame Reid (Picture: Mel Evans)

Conrad Benedetto, a lawyer hired by Mr Reid’s wife to investigate th shooting, said the video footage “raises serious questions” about the officers’ actions because Mr Reid was shot as he raised his hands.

“The video speaks for itself that at no point was Jerame Reid a threat and he possessed no weapon on his person,” said Walter Hudson, chair and founder of the civil rights group the National Awareness Alliance. “He complied with the officer and the officer shot him.”

Reid, 36, had spent about 13 years in prison for shooting at New Jersey State Police troopers when he was a teenager. He was also arrested last year on charges including drug possession and obstruction. Days was one of the arresting officers then.

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