Early Monday morning, reports started coming in about a fatal police shooting outside of Dallas. Jordan Edwards, a 15-year-old African American, was killed by a member of the Balch Springs Police Department.
According to initial police statements, Edwards was in a car full of five people, including his brother, who was driving. The boys were reportedly driving away from a house party they were at, which they left quickly after hearing gunshots.
What happened after that has been the focus of conflicting statements. Police said at first that the car was "backing down the street" towards them in "an aggressive manner," so an officer confronted them and fired.
However, hours after the first statements, Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber had changed his tune. He said that Edwards' brother was driving backwards at first, but had actually been driving away from the trouble when the shooting happened.
"It did not meet our core values," said Haber about the shooting.
Edwards' parents want the as-yet-unnamed officer who fired the shots to be arrested, said their attorney Lee Merritt.
"We are declaring war on bad policing. This has happened far too often," he said. "We are tired of making the same rhetorical demands, of having the same hashtags; our community is fed up with the same tired excuses, once again offered by Balch Springs Police Department yesterday, that this was somehow the fault of the victims—teenage kids with no criminal records, with no motive to attempt to hurt anyone, with no evidence that they ever attempted to hurt anyone."
The officer responsible has been placed on administrative duty. The shooting is being investigated by the Balch Springs Police Department, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office.
