Emantic Bradford Jr, the 21-year-old African-American man who was killed by a police officer on Thanksgiving at a mall in Hoover, Al., was shot three times from behind, according to an independent autopsy released by a civil rights attorney, The Guardian reports. His father said the report showed his son was murdered. Dr. Roger Mitchell observed gunshot wounds to the right side of Bradford Jr’s body, in his head, neck and lower back. The report states: “The cause of death is gunshot wound of the head. Manner of death is homicide.”
After Thanksgiving dinner with his family, Bradford Jr went to the mall. Gunfire broke out. A 12-year-old girl and an 18-year-old man were injured. Initially, Hoover police identified Bradford as the suspect. They later said he was not the suspect, but had “brandished” a gun. Police backed off that claim too. A week after the shooting, a suspect was arrested in Georgia. On Monday, through the lawyer Ben Crump, the Bradford family said: “[The autopsy] clearly demonstrates that EJ posed no threat to the off-duty Hoover police department officer who killed him while working a private security detail … since EJ was moving away from him.” Until they commissioned the private autopsy, Bradford’s parents said, they had no idea what happened to their son. They and attorney Crump said they had asked repeatedly for police and state agencies to release any videos of the incident. That was why it was necessary to commission the autopsy, Emantic Bradford Sr said, adding that he wanted people to understand “what happened to my son and how he was murdered, ’cause that’s what I’m going to say. He was murdered.”