WAUKEGAN, Ill. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Attorneys for the black couple shot by Waukegan police last week said the police bodycam video does not show the shooting because the officer failed to turn on the camera.
While Tafara Williams, 20, is still in the hospital recovering from the shooting, her 19-year-old boyfriend Marcellis Stinnette didn’t survive after being fatally hit.
“Body-worn cameras that were available for this very purpose, for what we desire and seek - accountability, transparency, the truth - were not turned on until after the shooting occurred,” said Tony Romanucci, one of the attorneys for the families.
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Romanucci continued, saying that the use of force was excessive, and the officer who fired the shots only turned on his camera after he’d shot and then said to Williams, “You tried to run me over.”
Romanucci and his co-counsel called this “a false narrative.”
Speaking from her hospital room, Williams shared her version of events, saying she and Stinnette were sitting in a car and were questioned by police before she slowly drove off. She said another officer appeared to be waiting for them and opened fired after she lost control of the car and crashed.
“I kept screaming, ‘I don’t have a gun,’ but he kept shooting. He told me to get out of the car. I had my hands up and I couldn’t move because I had been shot. Marcellis had his hands up,” said Williams, who has a 7-month-old son with Stinnette.
The officer, a Hispanic man who had been on the force for five years, was fired just a few days after the incident last week.
The FBI and Illinois State Police are conducting an independent investigation into the shooting and will present their findings to Lake County State’s Attorney Michael Nerheim, who will decide whether to press charges.