Five Oklahoma City police officers were charged on Wednesday with first-degree manslaughter after shooting a teen theft suspect last year.
Stavian Rodriguez, 15, died last November after being shot 13 times, according to The Oklahoman. The police said he did not follow police orders to reach the ground and instead reached into his back pocket.
Images from the body camera released on Wednesday show Rodriguez dropping his pistol and a magazine he was carrying. After he dropped the pistol, the police told him to get on the ground, but Rodriguez remained standing and reached into his back pocket.
The prosecutor’s investigator said in statements that the police sergeant. Sarah Carli was the first to shoot, but she did so with “a 40mm less lethal projectile”, according to The Oklahoman
The rest of the officers “all shoot lethal bullets unnecessarily at Stavian Rodriguez, hitting him several times and causing fatal injuries,” said the investigator. “Stavian Rodriguez had no weapon other than the firearm, which he dropped before the shot. A cell phone was retrieved from the left rear 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.
“Nobody should be executed because they made ‘stealthy moves’. Our systems are broken and need to be rethought and need to be rebuilt, “said ward 6 councilwoman JoBeth Hamon after the shooting.
More than a dozen shots were fired by the five policemen in Rodriguez. He later died in the hospital.
“When an armed robbery suspect did not obey police orders, five police officers realized the same threat and simultaneously fired their weapons. The loss of a life is always a tragedy and we know that these policemen do not take the firing of weapons lightly. OKC FOP waits for these officers and says they acted within the law, ”said the Oklahoma City Police Fraternal Order on Wednesday.