Eye-Witness Accounts So Varying That Police Ask for FBI’s Help in Officer-Involved Shooting Death

Steve Neavling

Eye-witness accounts can be wildly different, causing a headache for investigators.

Take a St. Louis police-involved shooting that killed a young black man in April.

Police interviewed about 12 witnesses, half of whom said they saw the shooting, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports.

Some said the young man, Cary Ball, had a gun in his hands. Some said he was surrounding. The witnesses also couldn’t agree on how far police were from Ball when he was shot 21 times.

St. Louis police concluded the shooting was justified, even though no witness saw Ball point a gun at officers, the Post Dispatch reported.

“Some paths are very clear to me, and with this one, I want to make certain that we are right,” Police Chief Sam Dotson told the Post Dispatch in a recent interview.

Share on Facebook

Tweet