By Police1 Staff
EUFAULA, Ala. — A newly released video shows a controversial officer-involved shooting that occurred in October 2013.
The five minute body cam video captured the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Cameron Massey, Buzzfeed reported. Massey was in the passenger’s seat of a vehicle attempting to flee from police.
Officer John Phillips spotted the vehicle because it matched the description of a car an informant told police was carrying a heavy load of marijuana through town, Chief Ralph Conner told the news site.
When the car made an improper lane change, officers initiated a traffic stop. The driver, 30-year-old Joshua Kelly, was “loud, boisterous, aggressive,” according to the report by the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.
As Conner approached the passenger’s side, he commanded Massey put his hands on the dashboard. Massey then leaned over to the driver’s side and shifted the car into drive.
Conner said he fired the first shot because he saw the car dragging Phillips. Phillips said he fired four times because he feared for his life.
“The gun shot, I thought that’s him gonna kill me,” Phillips said in a taped interview obtained by Buzzfeed.
Police later found seven pounds of marijuana in the trunk.
The footage had critics questioning whether officers acted in self-defense.
A grand jury decided not to indict the officers.
“The officers fired upon Mr. Massey to stop the imminent deadly threat posed by Mr. Massey’s actions, which halted his continued ability to accelerate the vehicle and seriously injure or kill the officer being dragged,” Mayor Jack Tibbs said in an April 2014 statement.
Conner retired last September. Phillips is still with the department.