The father of Jordan Edwards, the fifteen-year-old victim of a recent police shooting, filed suit this week in federal court alleging excessive force by Balch Springs police officer, Roy Oliver, and inadequate training and oversight by Oliver’s employers at the city. The allegations are infuriating.
Oliver, who was reputed to have a short fuse, fired his rifle into the passenger side of a car full of teenagers leaving a house party, striking Edwards and endangering the lives of the others. Officers then surrounded the car and handcuffed its occupants as Edwards died of the rifle-wound to his head.
The police initially reported that the car was “aggressively” backing toward responding officers, but they had to backtrack on that after viewing (still unreleased) bodycamera video, which apparently showed that the car was driving away. Oliver has been charged with murder.
According to the Washington Post, 345 people have been killed by police thus far in 2017. Fifty-six were killed by police firing their guns into moving vehicles, a practice that should be absolutely prohibited in any police force.
