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Circuit Attorney
Jennifer Joyce said there was not enough evidence to show that
the plainclothes officers did not shoot Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, in
self-defense, as they contend they did.
“This is a tragedy in every aspect of the word. I’m sorry for
the pain that the Ball-Bey family is experiencing right now,”
Joyce said in a statement.
St. Louis and its suburb of Ferguson have drawn protests over
police treatment of minorities after a white Ferguson officer
fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in 2014. That and other
fatal incidents ignited protests around the United States.
Ball-Bey was killed as police were trying to execute a search
warrant at a home in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
Joyce said the two officers and a witness reported that they saw
Ball-Bey with a gun as he ran out of the building. Ball-Bey
pointed the loaded weapon at one officer and both shot at him,
she said.
Prosecutors found photos from social media and Ball-Bey's cell
phone of what appear to be the same gun in his possession, she
said.
Jermaine Wooten, the Ball-Bey family's attorney, said: "We're
terribly disappointed. It appears her investigation centered
more around just rubber-stamping the police."
The family has not decided whether to file a civil suit, he
said. They maintain that Ball-Bey, a recent high school
graduate, was not in the home being searched.
The autopsy shows that his spinal cord was severed, but the
police explanation would mean he ran another 80 feet (24
meters), Wooten said.
Joyce had ordered an independent probe into the shooting at the
same time police were investigating it. The officers have not
been identified.
(Writing by Ian Simpson; Editing by Chris Reese)
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