S.C. High profile Attorney Bakari Sellers revealed to local media through a press statement that a Myrtle Beach police officer shot an unarmed 17-year-old in the back during the chaotic North Ocean Boulevard incident in April, which also resulted in the death of a Bennettsville man.
Bakari Sellers Advocates for Justice
Bakari Sellers, of the politically connected Strom Law Firm, said in a news release that he was representing the victim identified only as “John Doe.”
“They almost killed my son that night,” the victim’s mother Kristy Flow said in a statement. “They shot him in the back while he was unarmed and running away. He was just a teenager at the beach like any other, and now he has to carry that bullet inside him for the rest of his life.”
The video above shows Jerrius Davis, an 18-year-old from Bennettsville, was killed during the event on April 26 on N. Ocean Boulevard’s 900 block. Authorities reported that he shot into a gathering shortly before midnight.
The video also shows that Myrtle Beach law enforcement responded within 1.2 seconds, shooting five times at Davis and those running alongside him. Officer Brandon O’Rourke’s gunfire fatally struck Davis as confirmed by Myrtle Beach Police Chief Prock’s latest announcement.
Another shot can be heard in the video after the first five shots, a detail currently being looked into by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Following the shooting incident, 11 individuals were injured by gunshots, sustaining various injuries such as bullet wounds and shrapnel grazes. Prock mentioned that four were transported via ambulance, while seven independently went to the hospital.
Civil rights activist John Barnett is representing Serenity Chavis, a 15-year-old, and Zavian Washington, who is 13, both among the injured teenagers.
“We may go home and it’s business as usual, but they are left in the dark, in their bedroom as children, teenagers, saying, I went to the beach and got shot,” Barnett said.
Flow’s son, who was running away, got shot in the back and had to stay in the hospital and ICU for several days. The bullet that struck him is still lodged in his chest, according to Bakari Sellers in a statement.
“When prominent lawyers, national lawyers, come in, that means it’s a problem a lot of the times,” Barnett said. “It’s not just a paper bag chase. Eventually, if they want to take it to court, there will be a day that all bodycams and all dashcams will be released.”
Bakari Sellers and Flow expressed worry about the Myrtle Beach Police Department’s hesitation to make important details about the shooting public. While dashcam footage from the event was made public on May 29, the body camera footage from O’Rourke has yet to be disclosed.
“Jerrius Davis wasn’t the only one who recklessly fired into a crowd of people on April 26,” Bakari Sellers said. “Brandon O’Rourke did too, and justice demands that we hold him accountable.”
Local News Via - MyrtleBeachSC.com
