*San Bernardino police are under fire after officers fatally shot a Black man during a seemingly covert operation.
The family of 23-year-old Robert Adams claims he was gunned down by officers who did not identify themselves before they got out of an unmarked car and chased Adams in a parking lot, New York Post reports.
Security footage has surfaced on social media showing the events leading up to the fatal police shooting of Adams. Now his family is demanding that the police department releases the bodycam footage.
“I could understand if he was a threat to them,” said Adams’ mother Tamika Deavila King. “But he was not a threat to them. He was running for his life.”
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Here’s more from CBS News:
According to the San Bernardino Police Department, uniformed officers from a specialized unit were investigating complaints from neighbors about an illegal gambling facility on Saturday at about 8 p.m. Security camera footage showed two officers driving past the facility in an unmarked vehicle before stopping their car just a few yards from the parking lot where the gambling facility was located.
Robert Adams, 23 could be seen talking to someone before walking in the direction of the officers’ vehicle. As he approached the car, two officers jumped out with their guns drawn shortly before Adams began to run towards a nearby wall.
“They just hopped out with the gun and they didn’t say anything,” said Adams’ best friend.
Adams was shot seconds after the officers got their vehicle. He later died at the hospital.
The SBPD said in a release that the two officers involved the shooting were “fully uniformed and tried to give Adams verbal commands before he began to run.”
Police claim Adams was an “armed felon and an unlicensed security guard for the facility,” per the report. They allegedly recovered a loaded Taurus G3C that they claim Adams had at the time of the killing.
“We are asking the community to please withhold their judgment on the situation until they have all the available facts and details,” said Chief Darren Goodman in a release.
The family wants murder charges filed against the officer that killed Adams.
“The boy ran,” said the victim’s stepfather Audwin King. “[The officer] hunted him down like a dog. If [Adams] still had some life in him, the [the officer] probably would’ve finished the clip. So, when do we have justice for that?”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing Adams’ family.
“It is unbelievable that another Black family has to bury their child due to police shooting first and asking questions later,” Crump said in a statement on Tuesday. “Robert appeared to be simply walking around the parking lot when officers exited their unmarked vehicle firing their weapons at him immediately.”
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