Protests erupt after Thanksgiving police shooting of innocent man in Birmingham, Alabama
By
Shelley Connor
26 November 2018
Twenty-one-year-old Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford of Hueytown, Alabama, was shot and killed by Hoover, Alabama, police on Thanksgiving Day when they responded to a shooting at Riverchase Galleria Shopping Mall in suburban Birmingham.
In the aftermath of the police killing of Bradford, which was filmed and photographed by bystanders, the Hoover Police Department (HPD) has changed its story multiple times. On Friday, the HPD finally admitted that the African-American man was likely not the shooter, and that the suspect remains at large. An estimated 200 protesters marched through the Galleria on Saturday, demonstrating against Emantic’s killing and the subsequent efforts of the police to justify his death.
On Thursday evening, amid families engaged in early Christmas shopping, a fight broke out at the crowded Riverchase Galleria, followed by a shooting in which an unnamed and at large suspect shot a young man twice in the torso while also wounding a twelve-year-old girl, leaving both in critical condition. Chaos erupted as shoppers took shelter in shops, bathrooms and closets.
In the midst of this chaos, the Hoover Police Department came onto the scene. Police quickly claimed that they had “secured” the Galleria and had taken down the shooter. Photos of Bradford, lying in a pool of his own blood, immediately made the rounds on social media.
Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis told AL.com on Thursday, “Thank God we had our officers very close. They heard the gunfire, they engaged the subject, and they took out the threat.”
Bradford’s parents, Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Sr. and April Pipkins, were alerted to their son’s killing via social media…