Video Of Police Officers Shooting A 6-Year-Old Autistic Child Released

The video of two Louisiana State police officers who shot and killed a six-year-old autistic child back in November has been released. The body camera video shows the two deputy city officers firing multiple shots on the victim’s car, killing the six-year-old boy and severely wounding his father. The tragic incident took place in Marksville, Louisiana, on Tuesday, November 3, 2015.

This is the first time the general public is getting a glimpse of the video that shows the shooting of six-year-old Jeremy Mardis and his father, Christopher Few, by two police officers, 32-year-old Derrick Stafford, and 23-year-old Norris Greenhouse Jr. The tragic video has been linked below.

Warning: Some viewers may find this disturbing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9H0I2f9-Q

The body cam footage was released following its appearance in a court hearing on Wednesday, where prosecutors had shown the video in order to support their claim that one of the two deputies involved in the incident, Derrick Stafford, had a history of using excessive force.

Christopher Few

The two police officers had been arrested following the shootings and had been charged with second-degree murder for the death of the six-year-old boy. In a news conference that was held after their arrest, State Police Col. Michael Edmonson had said that the department’s decision to arrest the two officers had been made after looking at the body cam footage of the incident.

“We took some of the body cam footage. I’m not gonna talk about it, but I’m gonna tell you this — it is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen and I will leave it at that. That little boy was buckled into the front seat of that vehicle and that is how he died.”

The footage of the incident had not been released until now, almost 11 months later. CBS News had inquired to Col. Edmonson at the time what exactly it was that Christopher Few had done to be stopped by the police. Edmonson had hesitated in making a straight comment, instead giving the following reply.

“I think the rest of the investigation tells us that. I mean, we’ve got to look at everyone involved, and we’ll get to the part of that, but what we learned from the very first night, what we heard an hour after that, was that they were trying to effect an arrest warrant on a traffic stop. Not factual. Not factual.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEZC8E8B3ZQ&feature=youtu.be

The police have since claimed that the two officers had gone on pursuit of Christopher Few after he drove off with his son Jeremy following an argument with his girlfriend, who was Jeremy’s mother. The video starts off at a point where the police officers had Few’s car cornered. But things soon got out of hand when the two police officers began shooting at the car. Six-year-old Jeremy Mardis, who was autistic, suffered from multiple gunshot wounds and as a result was killed at the scene. His father, Christopher Few, was critically wounded, but ultimately survived.

The defense attorneys have been arguing that the actions of the officers were an act of self-defense and that they had opened fire after Christopher Few rammed his car into the deputy’s vehicle. In Wednesday’s court session, District Court Judge William Bennett saw the video and disagreed with the claims of the defense attorneys, saying that the video showed no signs of Christopher Few using the car as a “deadly weapon” when the two officers first opened fire. Following the hearing, the court released the video of the incident to reporters.

[Featured Image by KTLA 5 News/Facebook]