Five Oklahoma City officers were charged with first-degree manslaughter on Wednesday after shooting a suspect in a teenage robbery last year.
15-year-old Stavian Rodriguez died last November after being shot 13 times, according to The Oklahoman. Police said he disobeyed the officers’ orders to get to the ground and instead reached into his back pocket.
Body cameras released Wednesday reveal that Rodriguez is dropping his gun and an extensive magazine he carries with him. After he dropped the gun, officers told him to hit the ground, but Rodriguez stopped and reached into his back pocket.
The district attorney’s investigator said in affidavits that Police Sgt. Sarah Carli was the first to fire, but did so with “a 40mm shorter round,” according to The Oklahoman
The rest of the officers “all fire unnecessarily deadly bullets at Stavian Rodriguez, hitting him multiple times and inflicting fatal injuries,” the investigator said. “Stavian Rodriguez had no weapons other than the firearm, which he dropped before he was shot. A cell phone was found in the left back pocket in which he had his hand at the time he was shot.”
Carli was not charged, but officers Bethany Sears, Jared Barton, Corey Adams, Jonathan Skuta and Brad Pemberton were.
“No one should be executed for making ‘covert movements’. Our systems are broken and need to be rethought and rebuilt, ”Ward 6 counsel JoBeth Hamon said after the shooting.
More than a dozen shots were fired by the five officers at Rodriguez. He later died in the hospital.
“When an armed robbery suspect disobeyed the police commandos, five officers saw the same threat and fired their weapons at the same time. Loss of life is always a tragedy and we know that these officers do not take the firing of their weapons lightly. The OKC FOP is standing by these agents and claiming to be abiding by the law, “the Oklahoma City Fraternal Order of Police said Wednesday.