JONESBORO, AR (abc24.com) - Authorities in Jonesboro released dashcam video of the night Chavis Carter was pulled over by police. The video offers new insight into the chain of events that left Carter dead, but for many it raises new questions.
For instance, why wasn't the sound of the gunshot included in the video as well as the Jonesboro Police officers’ response?
Even without it, the video and testimony of witnesses are being heavily scrutinized to find out if the Jonesboro Police Department is at fault.
“I did hear a little pop but we didn't know it was a gun shot or something,” Casper Gibson, an eyewitness, said in a recorded phone interview with police.
Moments before the shooting, Chavis Carter is pulled out of the pickup truck containing two other men. He's searched and police find what appear to be baggies of marijuana in his pocket. Soon afterwards he's escorted to the squad car where police say Carter killed himself.
In a recorded interview with police, a witness says officers weren't with him when the shot rang out.
Officer: Once you heard that pop what did the police officers do?
Witness: They went towards the car.
Officer: Ok so they walk towards the car and then what happened?
Witness: Then that's when we heard them yelling out loud.
But critics ask how a man in handcuffs who police say they searched twice, could shoot himself.
“Well at the very least that's negligent homicide. But I got another designation I would place on it: That he's been murdered and somebody knows who killed him,” Isaac Richmond of the Commission on Religion and Racism said.
The debate over how Carter died won't be settled until all the facts come out and the evidence is laid bare, namely ballistics testing that will tell whether police or Carter pulled the trigger.
