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Jerame Reid shooting: Dashboard camera footage shows police shoot dead black man with his hands raised Jerame Reid shooting: Dashboard camera footage shows police shoot dead black man with his hands raised
(about 3 hours later)
Footage from a police dashboard camera has been released which shows a black man shot dead by an officer as he steps out of a car with his hands raised. Tensions over policing tactics and race relations are threatening to escalate in the United States once more after a graphic video emerged of a fatal confrontation in New Jersey between two patrol officers and two African American men they had pulled over in their Jaguar for jumping a red light.
Jerame Reid was a passenger in the car which was pulled over by two officers in Bridgeton, New Jersey, on December 30 for going through a stop sign. At the same time there were reports the US Justice Department was moving towards clearing of all wrongdoing the police officer who opened fire and killed the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer, touching off months of anti-police marches there and across America. Protesters took to the streets of the mostly minority community of Bridgeton, New Jersey, just south of Philadelphia, on Wednesday night in response to the newly released footage. Taken by a dashboard camera in the police patrol car, it showed what apparently started as a routine stop spiralling into confrontation as one of the officers shouts to his partner that he has seen a gun in the glove compartment.
The stop quickly escalated however after one of the officers warned his partner about seeing a gun in the glove compartment of the Jaguar. After the officer yells, “Show me your hands!” and “don’t you f***ing move”, the passenger steps out with his hands raised to shoulder level. The officers are seen to open fire, killing the man, 36-year-old Jerame Reid. The officers, identified as Braheme Days, who is black, and Roger Worley, who is white, have been placed on leave pending an investigation.
Officer Braheme Days can be heard to shout at Mr Reid "Show me your hands" and "If you reach for something, you're going to be f***ing dead." The killing, on 30 December, is drawing increasing condemnation from civil rights and community leaders.
In the footage, taken from the police dashcam, the officer, who is black, also appears to reach into the car and remove what appears to be a handgun. “The video speaks for itself that at no point was Jerame Reid a threat and he possessed no weapon on his person,” Walter Hudson, chairman and founder of the civil rights group the National Awareness Alliance, complained. “He complied with the officer and the officer shot him.”
During the standoff, the driver can be seen showing his hands out of the open window on his side of the car. It is not clear what Mr Reid is doing, although Days repeatedly warns him not to move. The rash of marches to protest alleged police racial bias, which broke out in the weeks before Christmas, were triggered by the decision of a state grand jury in Missouri to decline to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Mr Brown, and then by a New York grand jury ruling which similarly cleared the police officer who killed a Staten Island man, Eric Garner, after restraining him in a strangle-hold.
"I'm going to shoot you," officer Days shouts, referring to Mr Reid at one point by his first name.
"I ain't got no reason to reach for nothing, bro. I ain't got no reason to reach for nothing," Mr Reid says as officer Days continues to shout to his partner that Mr Reid is reaching for something.
Someone then says, "I'm getting out and getting on the ground," as the officer continues to shout at Mr Reid not to move.
The passenger door opens and Mr Reid emerges. His hands are at about shoulder height and appear to be empty. As he steps out, the officers fire at least six shots.
The death of Mr Reid has stirred anger and protests in the city of Bridgeton. It comes in the wake of months of demonstrations across the US over the killings of unarmed black men by white police officers in New York and Ferguson.
Tyesha Miller, a neighbour of Jerame Reid, speaks during a news conference, Wednesday, January 21, 2015, in Bridgeton, New Jersey (AP)Tyesha Miller, a neighbour of Jerame Reid, speaks during a news conference, Wednesday, January 21, 2015, in Bridgeton, New Jersey (AP)
In the latest shooting incident, officer Days is black while his partner is white. Both Mr Reid and the driver of the car, Leroy Tutt, are black. Mr Wilson, who has since retired from the Ferguson Police Department, escaped state charges but a federal probe remained in train at the Justice Department. However, according to a New York Times report, the leaders of that investigation are now preparing to recommend to US Attorney General Eric Holder that he declare there are similarly no grounds to press federal charges in the case.
Officer Days and his partner have been placed on leave while Cumberland County prosecutor's officer carries out an investigation. Such an outcome will doubtless bring fresh expressions of disappointment from the Brown family and its supporters and reawaken grievances in the community.
Activists have called on the case to be transferred to the state attorney general. It would not come as a great surprise to legal scholars, however, who have long warned that hurdles in the way of a federal case were extremely high.
Walter Hudson, chair and founder of the civil rights group the National Awareness Alliance, said: "The video speaks for itself that at no point was Jerame Reid a threat and he possessed no weapon on his person. Not yet completed is a separate Justice Department investigation into the record of the Ferguson police department as a whole that may end with it being brought under federal supervision. 
"He complied with the officer and the officer shot him." The department has remained overwhelmingly white even while Ferguson, which lies just outside St Louis, is roughly 70 per cent black.
Mr Reid, 36, has spent about 13 years in prison for shooting at New Jersey State Police troopers when he was a teenager, it has been reported.
He was arrested last year on charges including drug possession and obstruction. According to the Associated Press, Days was one of the arresting officers at that time.
Conrad Benedetto, a lawyer hired by Mr Reid's wife to investigate, says the video footage, released through open records requests from the South Jersey Times and the Press of Atlantic City, "raises serious questions" about the legality and reasonableness of the officers' actions because Mr Reid was shot as he raised his hands.
Additional reporting by AP and PA