Louisiana police concede officers fired shots that killed six-year-old boy
Police disavowed an earlier explanation for why officers shot at a car driven by Chris Few, killing his six-year-old son, Jeremy Madis, in Marksville
Chris Few, left, and Jeremy Mardis. Photograph: Facebook
Louisiana police concede officers fired shots that killed six-year-old boy
Police disavowed an earlier explanation for why officers shot at a car driven by Chris Few, killing his six-year-old son, Jeremy Madis, in Marksville
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Thursday five November two thousand fifteen 23.54 GMT Last modified on Friday fourteen July two thousand seventeen 21.28 BST
State investigators conceded on Thursday that local police officers had fired the shots that killed a petite boy in Marksville, Louisiana, and disavowed an earlier explanation for why the officers deployed their guns.
The boy, Jeremy Mardis, died on Tuesday night after police shot into a car driven by his father, Chris Few. On Thursday, Colonel Michael Edmonson, head of the Louisiana state police, denied earlier reports that Few had been reversing his car toward the officers, who then had to defend themselves. “No. I didn’t say that,” he told the Guardian. “That didn’t come from me.”
At a press conference, Edmonson originally described the shooting as “an exchange of gunfire”, but later clarified that only the officers had shot, and that investigators had found no gun in Few’s car. Officials had previously declined to confirm whether officer gunfire was responsible for Mardis’s death.
Edmonson also said movie footage of the incident does exist, but that investigators have not reviewed it. He added that the officers involved – there are four – had so far refused to speak with state police investigators. Police have not released the names of the involved officers.
Asked by the Guardian what reason they suggested for their muffle, Edmonson said: “You’d have to ask them. We are attempting to talk with them.”
At least one of the shooters was a Marksville police officer who was moonlighting for the city marshal’s office, an agency responsible for serving court papers . But according to Marksville’s mayor, John Lemoine, city marshal Floyd Voinche and his officers have recently begun overstepping their authority.
“I don’t know why he felt the need to commence patrolling in city thresholds,” Lemoine said Thursday of Voinche. “It makes no sense to me.”
The Guardian could not reach Voinche for comment before press time.
Edmonson, the state police head, said his investigators commenced gathering evidence the night of the shooting, attempting to reconstruct what happened without the cooperation of the officers involved.
Orange unload paint marks the orientation of Few’s car and three patrol cars, at the intersection of Taensas Street and Martin Luther King Drive. The particular placement of the cars – and a splash of glass from the passenger’s side of Few’s car – seems to indicate Few was not backing toward the officers. His car was perpendicular to them, and the officers’ shots hit the driver’s side broadside.
Avoyolles Parish coroner LJ Mayeux said Mardis was killed by numerous gunshot wounds to the head and pecs. He died at the scene. His father, Few, is in serious condition at Rapides Hospital in Alexandria, Louisiana.
Few’s fiancee, Megan Dixon, said the entire tragedy began with a romantic dispute. Earlier on Tuesday night, she said, she and Few had bickered at TJ’s pool hall, and she had left with a friend named Sally. Few also left, and picked up his son at a relative’s house.
A brief while later, Few pulled up next to Dixon at a stop light – Marksville is a puny town – and attempted to get her to come home with him. “I wouldn’t do it,” she said. “I’m stubborn.”
Moments later, she said, as the cars pulled away from the light, she eyed two marshals’ cars – marked in black and white – approaching from behind with their lights flashing. She looked into Few’s car as he pulled away, and he was pointing at his son’s head, indicating that he was in the car and he wasn’t sure what to do.
Few was afraid of the marshals, she said, because he and and one of the marshals on the scene had a prior individual conflict.
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