On the evening of May 6, 21-year-old Dreasjon “Sean” Reed was fatally shot by an Indianapolis police officer on the northwest side of the city following a pursuit captured in part on Facebook Live.
Since then there have been multiple protests in Reed’s honor, an officer heard making a joke about Reed’s body has been disciplined, and video captured at the scene raises new questions about how IMPD handled the situation.
In the courts, Reed's family filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the IMPD; and a special prosecutor overseeing the case called for a grand jury to decide whether to indict the officer who shot Reed.
On Tuesday, November 10, the grand jury determined there was not enough probable cause to indict [Officer Dejoure] Mercer.
According to IMPD, the incident started on I-65 near 30th Street about 6 p.m., when IMPD Deputy Chief Kendale Adams saw a gray Toyota Corolla operated by Reed driving recklessly.
Police said Reed's vehicle had almost struck other vehicles while it exited the interstate.
Adams initiated a pursuit. Chief Randal Taylor, in another car behind Adams, aided.
Other officers joined the pursuit as Adams and Taylor dropped off, but by 6:10 p.m. an IMPD sergeant ordered that those other officers stop because of how fast the suspect was driving.
An officer [Mercer] then saw Reed driving eastbound on 62nd Street before parking at a business. Both the officer and Reed left their cars, and a foot pursuit began.
Police said there was a confrontation between the two near the intersection of West 62nd Street and Michigan Road that involved an exchange of gunfire, and the officer called in the shooting at 6:16 p.m.
Police said the officer used his service weapon after a Taser deployment was “ineffective.”
Fifteen casings were recovered at the scene. Police said they believe a weapon found at the scene belonged to Reed.
Additional information about the weapon has not been released by investigators.
In a Facebook Live video, a shirtless Reed is recording himself as he drives (Mack 2).
… Reed was … on his way to pick up his girlfriend and was driving her car. He called her and told her he had just awakened and was running late. Later, the girlfriend saw Reed on Facebook Live broadcasting the pursuit.
"Almost lost him y'all!" Reed says. "Almost got rid of his ass!"
A little while later, Reed is laughing and cheering as he thinks he lost the officer. "I'm not going to jail today!" he shouts (Hackney 3).
"You gotta look," he says, as he positions his camera phone to show what's behind the moving car. It appears to be a police car that's tailing him. "It's just one right now," he says to the camera.
After telling viewers that he thinks the officer is gone, Reed is trying to figure out where he has driven.
"What street is this? I'm going to park this (expletive) and get the (expletive) out," he says. "At 62nd and Michigan, somebody come get my stupid (expletive)!"
He goes on: "Please come get me. Please come get me!"
He then appears to park the car and leaves his vehicle. The video, at this point, is unclear. But within 18 seconds, Reed is responding to another voice. He asks: "What'd you say?"
About 11 seconds go by when there is more inaudible shouting.
Then two pops can be heard. Reed appears to either drop his phone or collapse or both. Then, as the camera points toward the sky, the sounds of more than a dozen other pops ring out.
By then, more than 4,000 people had tuned in to watch the Facebook Live video.
The audio appears to interrupt for a few moments. But when it returns, a voice repeats the phrase "Oh my God," while an orchestra of police sirens grows louder in the background.
Another recording of the Facebook Live appears to show the aftermath. The camera is still pointing to the sky, with more than 16,000 people watching.
A detective, who IMPD later identified as Officer Steven Scott, was recorded saying of Reed’s body: “I think it’s going to be closed casket, homie” — referring to a closed casket funeral for Reed.
IMPD Chief Randal Taylor called the comments "inappropriate" in the wake of the shooting, stating that the officer would be disciplined.
…
An eyewitness video obtained by attorneys representing Reed in June alleges that Reed was Tased and then shot in the back after running from officers.
The video … is of three women describing the events they say they witnessed on May 6. “We saw it from the beginning to end,” one says. “We seen the whole thing,” another woman says (Mack 1-3).
“They just shot this man, y’all,” one unidentified woman said on the video. “The police just shot this dude on 62nd and Michigan, y’all.”
She continues: “They done shot this man, y’all in his back for no reason after they done already tased this (slur). He was on the ground shaking, and they still shot this man. That is so crazy.”
There’s back and forth conversation, and she adds: “They killed this man for no reason; shot this man in his back.”
[Elayne] Rivers, [of the law firm of Fatima Johnson, which represents Reed's family] said the women who witnessed the incident in the video I watched were hesitant to come forward because they feared for their safety but felt compelled in part because of the protests and unrest occurring in American cities grappling with police brutality and excessive use of force (Hackney 3).
A spokesperson for the Reed family attorney said the video disproves the police department's assertions that Reed fired at officers.
“It’s a blatant cover-up of an unjust murder in broad daylight," said Elayne Rivers ... “We have sufficient evidence that shows that the murder was completely unnecessary.”
Surveillance footage released in July shows the moment Reed stepped out of his car and fled before being fatally shot. The video, which does not show Reed being shot, was captured by security cameras at ACE Lock & Key in the 6100 block of North Michigan Road.
It shows a shirtless Reed parking his gray Toyota and exiting from the driver's side.
He glances behind him as he steps out of the car before running in the opposite direction. He looks back once more before he runs out of the camera's view.
Reed appears to be holding a white article of clothing in his left hand, and an object that cannot be identified by viewing the video in his right hand.
Moments later, an IMPD officer can be seen running after Reed.
The video, which is about 15 seconds long, has no audio and does not show any part of the interaction between Reed and the officer that ended in Reed's death.
…
Nearly three months after Reed's death, Reed’s mother Demetree Wynn was given her son’s autopsy report in early August.
The report was released after multiple public appeals by the family and protests demanding that the document be released to the public.
After reading the report, Wynn told media gathered outside the Marion County Coroner's Office for a scheduled a news conference that what the public has been told about her son by officials is a lie, and that fabrications continue in an effort to cast her son in a negative light.
"You can try if you want to, but you cannot do what you did to my son and tell me it was right ... I've been a nurse for 20 years. I'm not stupid, and don't insult my intelligence by assuming I don't know how to read," she said. "I know what it says, and if that was your child, I promise you ... you couldn't stand here and read it without wanting to throw up."
…
About 200 people gathered downtown the next morning in protest of the fatal shooting, and continued to protest that evening near the scene of the shooting.
It was at 62nd and Michigan that Reed's father, Jamie Reed, came face-to-face with the chief of police.
In an emotional, public conversation, Jamie Reed asked Taylor why his officers killed his son.
"Ya'll be murdering us black people for years," he said. "What's going on? What's the investigation? What's going on?"
Jamie Reed criticized the fact that IMPD doesn’t outfit its officers with dash or body cameras. His questions were immediately followed by cries from Jazmine Reed, Dreasjon's older sister.
"They Tased him and shot my little brother," she screamed as her father held her up. "They shot my little brother dead after he was already down.
"They took him from us."
Taylor kept his composure while flanked by protesters. Speaking into a microphone, he promised the family that the investigation would be open and impartial.
"I can't be here to debate the case," Taylor said. "There's no way I can do that. The only thing I can do is assure this family that an investigation is ongoing" (Mack 4-6).
IMPD Chief Randal Taylor (left) and Sean Reed’s father (white shirt) Jamie Reed (center right) and sister Jazmine Reed (right)
Call 6 Investigates obtained the surveillance video just one day after a lawsuit was filed in Federal Court targeting the City of Indianapolis, IMPD, the police chief, a deputy chief and two officers.
The video, which is about 24 seconds in length, shows Reed stopping his vehicle behind ACE Lock & Key near 62nd Street and Michigan Road after leading police on a long chase — which he was also streaming on Facebook Live.
Reed can be seen getting out of his vehicle and running with what appears to be a white t-shirt in his left hand and two cell phones in his right hand, while metro police officer Dejoure Mercer comes running after him.
“How in the world could you shoot if you had a t-shirt in one hand and a phone in the other? There is no way. You can’t … You can’t shoot someone,” [Reed’s mother Demetree] Wynn said.
The Reed family’s lawyers say the video is helping them build their case against IMPD.
“To us, this shows it’s consistent with what we thought … he did not have the capacity to fire a gun at Officer Mercer because his hands were occupied and he was running,” Fatima Johnson, the family’s attorney told Rafael Sanchez.
Dreasjon was known as "Sean" on Facebook Live.
According to his mother, Reed changed his name after he was robbed in January 2019. Wynn says the incident changed him into a completely different person.
“That day changed my son,” Wynn said. “He got to the point he felt like he had to look over his shoulder constantly. That’s when he changed his name to Sean.”
Reed was working at Discount Tire at the time. On January 28, Wynn says Reed cashed his check and was later robbed, leaving him with “significant” injuries.
“I have led a modest life so my children can have a modest life or even a better life than I had,” Wynn said. “So they (the robbers) saw this kid with money and they tried to take it from him, and he was completely different after that.”
The Reed family’s legal team has not shied away from the fact that Reed has a criminal history. Reed had a previous traffic stop out of Marion County from September, and multiple videos on his social media account show him handling a weapon. But the legal team says that has nothing to do with why Reed was killed by police.
Reed, a Lawrence Central graduate, served in the Air Force from February through November 2017 (Sanchez and Cox 2, 4-5).
Special prosecutor Rosemary Khoury, who was appointed in June to oversee the investigation into the shooting, announced Tuesday that the grand jury had declined to indict Mercer, who is also Black. She said the grand jurors found there was insufficient evidence to indict or accuse Mercer of a crime but that she couldn’t discuss what evidence was presented because grand jury proceedings are secret.
…
Attorneys for the family of a 21-year-old Black man who was shot and killed in May by an Indianapolis police officer blasted the investigation on Saturday, saying a more thorough one could have led the grand jury to return a criminal indictment against the officer.
The lawyers for Dreasjon Reed’s family maintain that at least 10 eyewitnesses saw Officer Dejoure Mercer shoot Reed with his stun gun and then repeatedly with his firearm while Reed lay writhing on the ground. Contrary to findings of a State Police investigation, those witnesses maintain that Reed didn’t fire on the officer, the lawyers said.
“Their testimony was consistent — Dreasjon was tased, he fell, he was shot while still shaking on the ground. He did not shoot back,” attorney Fatima Johnson said during an online news conference Saturday. She said she was “beyond disgusted” that Mercer won’t face charges — at one point repeating the word “again” 13 times to represent how many times Mercer fired at Reed.
“Dejoure Mercer did not stop shooting until Dreasjon stopped moving, until Dreasjon stopped breathing, until his life was gone and he was not here anymore,” Johnson said.
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Reed’s mother, Demetree Wynn, filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit in June against the city, its police department and four officers, including Mercer. That suit alleges the department failed to adequately train, screen and supervise officers to prevent them from engaging in excessive or deadly force.
[Attorney Swaray] Conteh said Saturday that the family would now concentrate on the lawsuit rather than pressing for a federal civil rights investigation (AP 2-3).
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New surveillance video shows moments before Dreasjon ...
Works cited:
Associated Press. “Attorneys ‘Disgusted’ No Charges against Indianapolis Cop.” The Garden Island, November 14, 2020. Net. https://www.thegardenisland.com/2020/11/14/news/attorneys-disgusted-no-charges-against-indianapolis-cop/
Hackney, Suzette. “Hackney: New Video Raises Questions about IMPD Actions in Dreasjon Reed Shooting.” IndyStar, updated June 2, 2020. Net. https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/suzette-hackney/2020/06/02/police-protests-indianapolis-dreasjon-reed-shooting-video/3122394001/
Mack, Justin L. “Dreasjon Reed Shooting: What We Know about the Indianapolis Police Shooting.” IndyStar, updated November 10, 2020. Net. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2020/11/10/dreasjon-reed-shooting-what-we-know-indianapolis-police/6225702002/
Sanchez, Rafael and Cox, Katie. “ New Surveillance Video Shows Moments before Dreasjon Reed Killed by IMPD Officer.” WRTV, June 17. 2020. Net. https://www.wrtv.com/news/america-in-crisis/new-surveillance-video-shows-moments-before-dreasjon-reed-killed-by-impd-officer
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