US Police Brutality: Texas Officer Shoots Black Man in Back

Local Editor

A police dash-cam video appears to show a Texas officer shooting a black man as he is walking away from the officer and not posing any immediate threat.

A lawyer for David Collie released a copy of the video showing the July encounter with a Fort Worth officer and a Tarrant County sheriff's deputy. The officer and deputy were off duty at the time and working a security detail together at an apartment complex, attorney Nate Washington said on Wednesday.

He said Collie was shot in the back, leaving him paralyzed.

This release of dash-cam footage comes on the heels of another recording involving alleged police misconduct in Fort Worth posted on Facebook Live last week. It showed an officer aggressively arresting a woman and her two daughters.

Washington said he released the video to show that last week's incident was not an isolated case.

"Many members of our community have been assaulted, handled roughly by Fort Worth police officers," Washington said. "To be clear, we believe the vast majority of police officers are good and decent people."

Police at the time were searching for two shirtless black men who they believed had committed a robbery near a gas station, Washington said. Authorities said in a news release they issued at the time that Collie had pulled a box cutter from his pocket and pointed it at the officers.

Collie was charged with aggravated assault on a public servant but a grand jury declined to indict him.

Fort Worth police told NBC 5 that they would not comment until an internal investigation was complete. "In order to abide by state law, there is a process that we have to follow for the fairness of all the parties involved," the department said. "Once the investigation has concluded, we will provide you with the results."

Collie, 33, was walking from work to a friend's apartment when the officers approached him in the patrol vehicle, Washington said. It was the Fort Worth officer who shot Collie, Washington said, and the video appears to show the officer firing his weapon about 10 seconds after exiting the vehicle, as Collie walked away.

The video was obtained about three weeks ago from the Tarrant County district attorney's office through an open records request, Washington said.

The attorney also said he released the video on Tuesday at a news conference at Collie's insistence because Collie was tired of comments made to his mother by people assuming he must have done something wrong.

Washington said Collie wanted to make clear he "didn't do anything to threaten an officer".

In the incident that prompted Washington to release the video, cellphone footage captured a white Fort Worth officer last week wrestling a black woman to the ground and then arresting her and her two daughters. The officer appeared to be argumentative and escalate the encounter with the woman, who had called police following an encounter between her son and a neighbor.

The video had been viewed millions of times.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team