Some folks took to Twitter to express their outrage after the police released body camera footage nearly two months after cops gunned down 20-year-old Willie McCoy at a Taco Bell drive-through in Vallejo, California.
SEE ALSO: Milwaukee Police Release Body Cam Footage Of Fatal Shooting
The Vallejo Police Department released a 30-minute clip on Friday that purports to show McCoy on Feb. 9 surrounded by six cops while he’s sleeping in his car with a gun on his lap, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
In the minutes before they opened fire, the officers talked about opening his car door, grabbing the gun and dragging him out of the car, the footage shows.
“As the officers’ body cameras rolled, the sleeping man … began to move. He used his right hand to scratch near his left shoulder, then bent forward and moved his left arm toward his lap. That’s when officers opened fire through the window with a barrage of bullets,” the Chronicle said.
The department released the video after a loud public demand for transparency, according to KTVU-TV. Meanwhile, the department faces multiple office misconduct allegations in other cases, including an officer who detained a person who was recording a traffic stop with his smartphone.
Although Vallejo police said they gave McCoy multiple verbal commands to put his hands up, the video shows a span of three seconds before the first command and gunfire.
The six officers involved in the shooting were identified as Collin Eaton, Bryan Glick, Jordan Patzer, Anthony Romero-Cano, Mark Thompson and Ryan McMahon.
McMahon was involved in a separate fatal shooting last year and Thomson was named in another excessive force complaint in 2018.
A police press release after the shooting said the cops were “fearing for their safety” when they opened fire on McCoy. The six officers have returned to duty.
The family views the police shooting as an execution.
“I am shocked and outraged, as much as one can be by the manner the Vallejo PD executed Willie McCoy,” said the family’s attorney John Burris after the video was released. “The number of shots that were fired was well over 20 by at least three or four different officers.
McCoy’s family suspects that the police edited the video to show their spin on what happened.
“They’re being political now,” said Marc McCoy, Willie McCoy’s older brother. “Look, that’s the way our society is. If your people do wrong, you’re not allowed to say, ‘Hey, we messed up.’ That’s the way we’ve been trained.”
Scroll down to see what people are saying on Twitter.
