{"id":3162,"date":"2022-08-14T11:43:10","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T11:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=3162"},"modified":"2022-08-14T11:43:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T11:43:23","slug":"questions-and-anger-swirl-over-police-shooting-of-23-year-old-in-san-bernardino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=3162","title":{"rendered":"Questions and Anger Swirl Over Police Shooting of 23-Year-Old in San Bernardino"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Peter Schurmann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorneys for the family of 23-year-old Rob Marquise Adams, who was killed by police in San Bernardino this past weekend, held a press conference Wednesday to denounce what they describe as a \u201chorrific execution.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Adams\u2019 family, called Saturday\u2019s shooting \u201ccowardly,\u201d questioning how it is that a black man running away from the police could be considered \u201cthe biggest threat in America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crump also represented the families of George Floyd and Brionna Taylor, both of whom were killed by police in high-profile cases that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement. Saturday\u2019s shooting comes weeks after police in Akron, Ohio,\u00a0fired more than 60 rounds at Jayland Walker<\/a>, a 25-year-old Black man who was also fleeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surveillance video<\/a>\u00a0released on social media shortly after the July 16 shooting shows an unmarked vehicle with tinted windows slowly rolling into a parking lot. According to police records, the officers were responding to reports of an armed man in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the video, Adams is seen running in the opposite direction as two men emerge from the vehicle, guns drawn. One of the officers, who has yet to be identified, fires several shots, striking Adams in the back. He was later taken to a nearby hospital where he died from his wounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday San Bernardino police released additional footage<\/a> of the shooting, including body cam footage from the officers involved, that they say provides further details left out of or obscured by the initial video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to San Bernardino Police Chief Darren Goodman, Adams was armed with a 9mm pistol and initially approached the vehicle before fleeing between two parked cars. Officers believed Adams intended to fire on them from behind the vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFearing that bystanders\u2019 or the officers\u2019 lives were in danger, one of the officers fired his gun, striking Adams,\u201d Goodman said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crump and the Adams family challenged that interpretation. \u201cHe was rejoicing about his friend\u2019s car, and he was talking to me on the phone about it,\u201d said Adams\u2019 mother, Tamika Deavila King, who said she could hear the shots fired as she was speaking to her son.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both she and Crump say they have yet to see any evidence that Adams was armed, suggesting that Adams was in fact holding a cell phone when officers fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others are also questioning police tactics in the shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey claim he ran away, yet in the video, it is like a classic drive-by shooting,\u201d says Attorney Bradley Gage, part of the team of lawyers representing Adams\u2019 family. \u201cIt was an unmarked car, rolling slowly. All of a sudden, two men jump out and you see evidence of shots fired. There is no warning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gage, who spent close to four decades representing police officers, also questioned why there was only one unmarked police vehicle on the scene. \u201cIf you believe he is dangerous, why is there only one unmarked car? You see on the video lots of police after he was killed. Why weren\u2019t they there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Bernardino City Councilman Ben Reynoso told the Guardian newspaper<\/a> after watching the video he believed the officer should face criminal charges for the shooting. And like Gage, he questioned police handling of this and past incidents. \u201cHow often do we deploy these tactics? And to what end?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorneys fielded a bevy of questions from reporters after the briefing, including allegations of past misconduct within the San Bernardino police department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gage said he has handled previous cases involving \u201ccover-ups\u201d among San Bernardino police, noting \u201cofficers who tried to do the right thing got retaliated against.\u201d He did not specify which cases he was referring to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A state auditor\u2019s report<\/a> released in April cited San Bernardino along with four other cities for failing to mitigate against racial and ethnic bias among its officers, saying the departments had routinely neglected to examine the potential for bias in officer-involved incidents. Among its recommendations were \u201cmore robust community engagement strategies\u201d and training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A protest rally is scheduled for this Saturday in San Bernardino as outrage over the shooting of Adams grows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe see young white men, confirmed mass murderers, and the police don\u2019t get out and shoot,\u201d said Crump. \u201cWhen it is a black person, they just start shooting. How can you explain that San Bernardino? They shot over 7 times\u2026 they emptied the clip in his back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is why this family and this community are devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Ethnic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Peter Schurmann Attorneys for the family of 23-year-old Rob Marquise Adams, who was killed by police in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[66,102],"class_list":["post-3162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regular-column","tag-african-american","tag-police-shooting"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3163,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions\/3163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}