A US police officer who killed an unarmed black college student during a suspected burglary at a Texas car dealership on Tuesday was fired for making mistakes that the city’s police chief said had caused a deadly confrontation that put him and other officers in danger.
Arlington Police Department Chief Will Johnson said officer Brad Miller, 49, could also face criminal charges once police complete their investigation.
Called to the scene of a suspected burglary early on Friday last week, Miller pursued Christian Taylor, 19, through the broken glass doors of a car dealership showroom without telling his supervising officer, Johnson said.
Photo: AP / G.J. McCarthy / The Dallas Morning News
Instead of setting up a perimeter around the showroom, Miller confronted Taylor and ordered him to get down on the ground, Johnson said.
Taylor did not comply.
Instead, he began “actively advancing toward Officer Miller,” Johnson said.
Miller’s field training officer, who had followed Miller into the showroom, drew his own Taser. The training officer heard a single pop of what he thought was Miller’s Taser, but Miller actually had drawn his service weapon and fired it at Taylor, who is believed to have been between 2m and 3m away, Johnson said.
After Taylor continued to approach, Miller fired his gun three more times.
“This is an extraordinarily difficult case,” Johnson said. “Decisions were made that have catastrophic outcomes.”
The Arlington Municipal Patrolman’s Association issued a statement on Tuesday night decrying Johnson’s decision.
The group said it supports “Miller’s right to be judged fairly and completely on facts instead of a snapshot developed in only days,” and also expressed sympathy for Taylor’s family.
“We again ask that citizens obey the commands of police officers in order to prevent these tragedies from occurring in the future,” the association said.
An attorney for Miller did not have an immediate comment on Johnson’s announcement. Taylor’s family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Taylor was a graduate of an Arlington high school and a football player at Angelo State University in Texas.
At a protest on Tuesday night outside the Arlington police headquarters, about 60 demonstrators demanded that Miller be charged with a crime.
The firing was “not enough justice,” said Matthew Higgins, 20, one of Taylor’s former high-school classmates.
“If it was a white person, it probably would have been different,” he said.
There is no video of the shooting, although security camera footage from Classic Buick GMC dealership’s parking lots shows Taylor walking around and damaging some vehicles.
Before his final confrontation with Miller, Taylor allegedly held up a set of car keys and told another officer that he intended to steal a car, Johnson said.
He said Taylor had driven a vehicle through the glass front doors of the showroom and, after officers arrived, was slamming his body into the side of a different part of the building to try to escape.
“It is clear from the facts obtained that Mr Taylor was non-compliant with police demands,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he ultimately decided Miller’s mistakes required his firing, adding that it would be up to a grand jury to decide whether Miller’s actions were criminal.
Miller joined the police department in September last year and graduated from the city police academy earlier this year.
He was still undergoing field training and assigned to a more senior officer, although he was a licensed police officer authorized to carry a weapon.
Police said Miller cannot appeal his firing because he was a probationary employee.
Taylor’s death came two days before the anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, 18, who was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
Brown’s death helped spur protests and a nationwide “Black Lives Matter” movement to demand reforms to how police treat minorities.
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