A family of police activists recording police activity in Southern California caught the tail-end of a police shooting Saturday night where one man ended up dying on the streets.
San Bernardino police said they shot and killed Cody Wayne Jarrett, 26, because he was wielding a sawed-off shotgun when they pulled him over in a stolen car.
But Felipe Hernandez, who runs the High Desert Community Watch\ Cop Block YouTube channel, said Jarrett was unarmed when they shot him several times in the back as they were chasing him.
“There was nothing in his hands,” Hernandez said in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime Sunday night. “The guy was just running for his life and they shot him in the back.”
It was only minutes earlier where the two officers who shot Jarrett had posed with a photo with Hernandez’s daughter, who runs the YouTube channel, Caligirl Copwatch.
“They were messing with some homeless guy and saw us recording,” Hernandez said. “They were asking my kids if they want to take a picture with them.”
Hernandez regularly records police in public with his daughter and son, the latter who runs the YouTube channel, Teen4Justice.
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The officers, who were on foot after parking their patrol car nearby, walked around the corner where other officers had apparently pulled Jarrett over.
The Hernandez family did not see the initial traffic stop because it took place down a side street, but the father said he heard several gunshots, then saw Jarrett sprinting from around the corner with the cops chasing after him.
They shot several more times and he fell to the ground, landing on his face.
“You could hear the crack of his nose when it hit the street,” he said.
That was when he began recording, which he said is what prompted the male officer to begin pumping the suspect’s chest as if trying to save his life.
This is how police explained it to the San Bernardino Sun:
Police shot and killed a car theft suspect they had been chasing Saturday night after they discovered he had a sawed-off shotgun, a police spokesman said.
Cody Wayne Jarrett, 26, also was shocked several times with a Taser, said Lt. Rich Lawhead.
The incident began about 9:15 p.m. when officers ran the license plate of a green Honda Accord and found it was reported stolen out of Yucaipa, Lawhead said. When the officers tried to pull over the Accord, Jarrett drove the car into the parking lot of a market at 196 Highland Ave., jumped out of the vehicle and ran, Lawhead said.
Officers chased him around the corner onto Mountain View Avenue, where Lawhead said they deployed a Taser multiple times to try to subdue him.
After he rose after being shocked a second time, the officers saw Jarrett was armed with a sawed-off shotgun, he said. That’s when the police began shooting, according to Lawhead.
The video recorded by Hernandez shows one man approach officers telling him he is a nurse, offering to help the victim, but the officer chased him away.
Below is one video recorded by Hernandez and two videos recorded by his daughter.
Hernandez said the cops who shot Jarrett were the same ones who posed for the photo with his daughter.
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