Video released shows a black man was killed in Bridgeton, New Jersey, after two police officers—one who is white, another who is black—opened fire while the man stepped out of his car with his hands raised about shoulder-level.
The officers stopped a Jaguar on Dec. 30 after the driver allegedly ran a stop sign at night. The driver pulled over, and the dashboard camera rolled as the situation escalated from a routine stop to a deadly shooting.
Officer Braheme Days, who is black, allegedly spotted a gun in the glove compartment. He started shouting at the man in the passenger seat, Jerame Reid, demanding that Reid show his hands, repeatedly yelling “don’t you fucking move!”
Days then appears to remove a gun from the vehicle, but he continues shouting. The two go back and forth as Days shouts “he’s reaching!” to his partner, Roger Worley, and Reid appears to say “I ain’t doing nothing. I’m not reaching for anything, bro.”
Then Reid seems to tell Days that he’s going to get out of the car and on the ground, though Days tells him multiple times not to move. Reid’s hands are raised at about shoulder level as he steps out, and both officers open fire, killing him. The Cumberland County prosecutor’s office said the officers retrieved a gun during the traffic stop.
Video of the shooting comes after months of anti-police brutality protests in the United States that began in Ferguson in August when a white police officer named Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, who is black. On Wednesday, lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department said there wasn’t enough evidence to file criminal charges against Wilson.
The South Jersey Times reported that state residents have filed nine municipal court complaints against Days. He once reportedly pepper sprayed a handcuffed man. All nine complaints have been dismissed.
Worley had to give up two days of vacation time in 2011 after two incidents in 2010. In one incident, Worley, who is white, was cited for using the term “cracker.”
Days, who at one point refers to Reid by his first name during the altercation, reportedly ran into Reid in 2014 when he helped arrest the man after he was charged with obstruction, drug possession and other crimes. Reid had been to prison for about 13 years after he was arrested for shooting at police officers as a teenager.
Small protests have sprung up in Bridgeton since Dec. 30, and the Cumberland County prosecutor’s office is investigating the officers’ use of deadly force.