The St. Louis city police department concluded on April 18 its investigation into the fatal shooting death of Mansur Ball-Bey, who was shot and killed by city police on Aug. 19, 2015 in Fountain Park.
Ball-Bey’s death incited protests, where heavily armed police deployed tear gas into the residential North City neighborhood that evening.
The police’s investigative findings were not released publicly today. The department has been referred to the Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce’s Office for review.
“Once the Circuit Attorney’s Office has reviewed the findings and a decision rendered, all findings permissible under the Sunshine Law will be released to the public,” Police Commissioner Sam Dotson said.
Joyce launched an independent investigation into the case soon after the incident.
Attorneys representing Ball-Bey’s family argue that Ball-Bey, 18, was not inside the house when police executed a search warrant at 1211 Walton Ave. on Aug. 19 – nor was he carrying a gun.
The story contradicts what police have said transpired when members of the police Special Operations Unit and Tactical Team searched for weapons and drugs at the home near Page Boulevard and Walton Avenue that Wednesday morning. The raid ended in Ball-Bey’s death on the front lawn of 1233 Walton Ave.
Police said that Ball-Bey and a 14-year-old, both black males, fled out the back of the house that they were raiding and ran into the alley.
However, the family’s attorney Jermaine Wooten said only two individuals were inside the house at the time of the police raid. One of them did not give a police statement, Wooten said, and the other told police and him that Ball-Bey was not in the house at the time of the raid.
Ball-Bey had just gotten off of work at Fed-Ex, where he worked the morning shift starting at 4 a.m., said attorney Jerryl Christmas. Ball-Bey and a 14-year-old friend were sitting on the back porch at 1233 Walton Ave., Christmas said, and Ball-Bey was waiting for a ride from his brother to go back to his home in Spanish Lake – where he lived with his family. They heard the police forcing entry into the building two doors down at around 11:30 a.m.
They were watching from the alley when two police officers in plain clothes walked up and pointed guns at them, according to what the 14-year-old told Wooten. The boy also told him that the police didn’t say to stop or put their hands in the air, Wooten said, and they ran because they were afraid.
Police have said that Ball-Bey pointed a gun at them and then ran. However, the attorneys said the two did not have weapons.
“Mansur had just come from his job at Fed-Ex,” Christmas said. “Why would he have a gun? None of the witnesses we’ve talked with said he had a gun.”
On August 21, the St. Louis city police department’s preliminary autopsy results showed that Ball-Bey died from a gunshot wound in the back. Many felt this confirmed that he was running when he was killed and not preparing to fire at the officers, as police claimed.
However, Police Chief Sam Dotson told the St. Louis American, “There were two officers, and they weren’t standing in the same spot.”
Wooten pointed to inconsistencies in the police’s story. He said that in a house raid, there would have definitely been a “tactical team” stationed at the back door to ensure the security of the officers inside. Ball-Bey would have never gotten past the back porch – especially armed – if he was inside the house, he said.
Also, the gunshot wound went straight to an artery that leads to the heart, he said, and it would have been “impossible” for Ball-Bey to run two houses away, as police have claimed, after they shot him. He died almost instantly, he said.
The two officers involved in the shooting are described as white males, ages 33 and 29, both with about seven years on the police force.
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