By: Samantha Michaels | Mother Jones
Four months after a Mississippi police officer shot a Black 15-year-old, Jaheim McMillan, in the head outside a Family Dollar store, the state’s Department of Public Safety has released video footage of the encounter, following the state attorney general’s announcement Wednesday that a grand jury found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by law enforcement.
The shooting of McMillan in Gulfport on October 6 sparked months of protest, after some witnesses outside the store said he was unarmed and had his hands up, and that he lay on the sidewalk for minutes without medical care as blood poured from his head. The officer who shot McMillan, Kenneth Nassar, who is white, said the teen turned toward him with a gun.
The video footage, including dash-cam footage, was released Wednesday to local journalists. It shows McMillan and another teen fleeing a parked car in front of the store after a police vehicle enters the lot. Both teens run in the same direction, away from the police vehicle, but as an officer comes toward them, McMillan turns and flees in the opposite direction, back toward the entrance of the store. As he runs, another officer, Nassar, approaches and quickly fires eight shots at him. McMillan is lying on the ground wounded within about five seconds of exiting the car.
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