On August 5, 2014, a 22-year-old African-American man named John Crawford III was killed by police in a Dayton, Ohio, WalMart store. Another customer had called 911 and reported a man was “waving” a gun and “pointing” it at customers. Surveillance video and eyewitnesses don’t support this assertion. The caller and his wife later changed their story several times.
In fact, Crawford was just a customer who had taken a toy BB gun from a shelf, apparently intending to purchase it. There is evidence the police acted hastily in shooting him, and lied about it later. Crawford was talking to his girlfriend, Tasha Thomas, on his cellphone when he was shot. In other words, he was distracted, and probably didn’t pay attention when a voice said “put it down.” He didn’t put the toy gun down. Seconds later, he was dead, felled by police bullets.
Later, the cops’ story, too, changed after the surveillance video and eyewitnesses contradicted their version of the incident. It’s now clear they failed to identify themselves as “police,” didn’t issue a command to “drop the gun,” and resorted to deadly force almost immediately. Nevertheless, a grand jury refused to indict them.
But there’s more. In the aftermath of the shooting, a police interrogator tried to get Thomas to say Crawford had a gun with him when he entered the store. (This is false.) In the video below, the interrogator bullies Thomas by threatening her with jail if she doesn’t say what he wants to hear. Then, this asshole informs Thomas her boyfriend is dead like this: “As a result of his actions, he is gone.”
I’m a lawyer. Don’t submit to questioning by police, even if they lead you to believe they only consider you a witness and are just trying to find out what happened. Cops lie to get people to talk. They may say you’re just a witness, but consider you a suspect. Even if you weren’t involved in the incident, they may be trolling for an excuse to charge you with something. (In Tasha Thomas’s case, the police interrogator clearly is trying to set her up for an accessory charge.) Talking to them can’t help you and could hurt you, even if you’re completely innocent and did nothing wrong. You should always exercise your constitutional rights to remain silent and to have your lawyer present for any questioning. Every lawyer in this country will tell you this.