DENVER — A black man was running from Colorado police officers when they shot him three times in the back and he collapsed on a street, according to footage from cameras worn by police and an autopsy report released Thursday.
The Colorado Springs Police Department released the video nearly two weeks after the death of 19-year-old De’Von Bailey, following calls from his family for the footage to be made public.
Attorneys for Bailey’s family separately released the autopsy report by the El Paso County coroner’s office.
Bailey’s death came as law enforcement agencies across the country are under scrutiny for the killing of black men. It has prompted several protests in Colorado Springs, including one heated rally that ended when police arrested two bail bondsmen who they said arrived on motorcycles and drew guns after a scuffle with protesters.
Police previously said an officer shot Bailey on Aug. 3 after he reached for a gun.
The body camera footage shows officers talking to Bailey and another man in a neighborhood about an armed robbery that was reported nearby. One officer orders the men, who are both black, to keep their hands up so another officer can search them for weapons.
Bailey runs away as he is about to be searched and is seen with his hands near his waistband.
The officer can be heard yelling “hands up!” three times before firing multiple shots. The footage shows Bailey falling to the ground and the officers running up to cuff his hands behind his back.
An officer kneeling at Bailey’s side tugs at what appears to be a gun between his legs as he is bleeding.
“He’s got a gun in his pants,” another officer says as the kneeling officer struggles to free the object from Bailey’s shorts. One of the officers uses a blade to cut Bailey’s shorts before removing them.
The autopsy determined that Bailey was shot four times — three times in the back and once in his right elbow.
The wounds to his back “collectively perforated the heart, left lung, diaphragm, and penetrated the spleen, resulting in massive blood loss and his subsequent death,” the report said.
A spokesman for the Colorado Springs police did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the report.
Family attorney Mari Newman characterized Bailey’s shooting as an “execution” based on the video and the reports of witnesses she did not name.
