The video shows police threatening to shoot the man before firing a hail of bullets at the vehicle. Police said the man was armed with a gun, but his sister denies it.
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released the man’s autopsy results and has released no information on the manner of his death.
“As we continue to see, they are not listening to us, so we are going to be here every day and we are going to use all the disruptive and non-violent demonstration tactics that we have to make sure that we are heard. Loud and clear,” he said. protester Jacob Raiford at the station.
Carlos García criticized the use of force by the police in the incident and questioned his description of the events.
“We are not surprised that, despite all the scrutiny from the community, Phoenix PD continues to respond violently to calls. But we must all continue to demand transparency and accountability,” he wrote on Facebook.
“The department also issued a premature statement that omits the facts of the case. We cannot allow dishonest narratives to be constructed by violent departments. We will continue to call for independent investigations into shootings involving officers.”
What the videos show
When the police arrived, the caller told officers that the man who stabbed him had a knife and another person had a gun. The man directed officers to a house where they found several people, including a man in a car in the driveway.
“Officers spoke to the man for approximately 10 minutes and asked him to leave his car so they could secure the scene. He refused and eventually raised the windows and pulled out a gun,” police said in the statement.
“Officers ordered the man to drop the gun, but he refused,” the statement said. “The man repeatedly told officers to shoot him and raised the gun at the officers. It was then that two officers fired their weapons.”
A video of the incident, posted on social media by family members of James García, shows at least four officers surrounding the car. An officer can be heard threatening to shoot the person in the driver’s seat if he does not stop moving. Seconds later, another officer can be seen swinging an object on the passenger side of the car.
About 10 shots can be heard in the video immediately after the sound of glass breaking. Garcia was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The viewer’s video doesn’t show most of the 10-minute interaction between the police and Garcia.
The body camera video released by police Monday shows the officer running to the car where the man was shot while other officers surround him, some with weapons in hand. He said the officer arrived immediately after the shooting.
Two other officers are still pointing their weapons at the man in the driver’s seat, who appears to be slumped. The video released by the department blurs his body.
The officer using the camera says, “Let me put on gloves,” and he is seen putting on gloves. He asks where the gun is and they tell him it’s on the man’s lap.
The video shows the officer reaching the car through the broken window on the driver’s side and pulling out a black pistol. Then he yells, “The gun is safe.”
James Garcia’s sister Jacqueline Fernández said in another Facebook post that her brother was “unarmed sleeping in the car” when the police shot him. Fernández and another family member did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Phoenix Police Department said it will not post videos used by the body of officers directly involved in the shooting until all interviews with witnesses and officers have been completed, so as not to compromise their investigation.
CNN’s Eric Levenson contributed to this report.
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