‘You Didn’t Have to Kill Him’: Family of Black Atlanta Man Question Why He Was Shot In the Back By Police While Driving Away
Three generations of women are calling for transparency and justice surrounding the death of Eric Holmes, a young man fatally shot by a Clayton County Police officer last November.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has agreed to secure body-camera video of the incident, offering to sit with the family as a probe seeks to discover what happened to their son.
At the core of the story is a stolen car the officer was investigating.
“You didn’t have to kill him,” the man’s mother, Vakelvion Holmes, said. “I just want to know why he killed my baby.”
According to a statement released by the GBI, the officer, identified in local reports as Justin Stephens, arrived at IGM Surfaces, LLC in the Atlanta suburb of Morrow, Georgia, to investigate a stolen vehicle parked outside the company. The young man approached the officer and engaged him in a nonconfrontational conversation “but gave no indication of his connection to the stolen vehicle.”
An initial report stated Holmes “abruptly walked away” from the officer and got into the car.
After he started the engine, Stephens called for Holmes to stop, but he continued to drive away.
“The officer fired several shots, and the man left the scene in the stolen vehicle. The officer called for assistance and pursued Holmes in his marked patrol car,” the GBI said.
An injured Holmes drove the car for approximately a quarter mile on Commerce Drive before veering off into a ditch.
Stephens detained Holmes, pulling him from the vehicle and placing him under arrest at the location of the crash. He also called for emergency medical care technicians to treat Holmes but aided his injuries until they arrived.
The post ‘You Didn’t Have to Kill Him’: Family of Black Atlanta Man Question Why He Was Shot In the Back By Police While Driving Away appeared first on The New York Beacon.
