Arkansas police released a reenactment video Tuesday that they say explains their allegation that a man in custody shot himself in the head despite being handcuffed.
In the video, four unidentified officers from the Jonesboro Police Department are shown handling a fake gun and pointing it at their right temples, the same scenario in which 21-year-old Chavis Carter was found dead in the back of a patrol car late last month.
Carter had allegedly been picked up on a drug charge, searched, then handcuffed, then searched again. Authorities say they found no weapons on him before he was put in the back of Officer Ron Marsh’s vehicle. Sergeant Lyle Waterworth told WREG-TV Carter had been “handcuffed behind his back and double locked, and searched.” Another officer said he heard “several thumps” before being told by Marsh that Carter had shot himself, an allegation Carter’s mother, Teresa Carter has questioned.
“I think they killed him, my son wasn’t suicidal,” she told WREG-TV, noting that her son was left-handed.
The state chapter of the Commission on Religion and Racism has called for Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates to step down for mishandling the investigation.
“We are not going to accept this lie that the City Council, Mayor, Police Chief, Police Department are trying to put out,” CORR national director Dr. Isaac Richmond told KAIT-TV. “It is impossible. We have tried it on numerous of us. We have tried it, and it cannot be done.”
The police’s reenactment video, posted on YouTube by user “007ohkay,” can be seen below:
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