Video shows two Milwaukee cops shooting 19-year-old Jerry Smith Jr. three times, leaving him partially paralyzed.
Police said they were responding to a call of a man with a gun and that Smith matched the description.
But Smith was unarmed at the time of the shooting and has no criminal record.
All he had in his hands that day was a cell phone.
“Jerry Smith does not have a criminal record. Jerry Smith was not charged with any crime that day. Jerry Smith had no weapon that day,” Daniel Storm an investigator working with Smith’s legal team said in an interview with WISN.
One bullet grazed Smith’s head.
Another tore through his abdomen.
“That moment when I got shot I felt like I was going to die,” Smith said in a 2017 interview after the shooting.
He ended up on the rooftop after fleeing from officers on foot after one drew his gun because he matched the description a caller had given about a man with a gun.
“OK, I ran, but he, the officer, scared the hell out of me, man,” Smith said.
“He got off that bike grabbing his gun, grabbed the gun. Cause I matched the description of someone having a gun, I ran.”
Even though the officers shot an unarmed man who posed no immediate threat to either of them, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office declined to file any criminal charges.
In the video footage, four officers climb up to the rooftop and begin yelling at Smith to turn around and put his hands in the air.
“He doesn’t have a gun in his hand, but he was hiding behind the AC unit,” one officer tells the others just before they reach the top.
When they reach the top, Smith is not hiding behind the air conditioning unit.
Smith begins to get on the ground right before officers shoot him.
Storm said the footage was the most chilling video showing a shooting of an unarmed man he’s ever seen. .
“We know what’s needed in this community,” Storm said.
“It’s not ice cream and toys. It’s accountability.”
Due to his injuries, Smith will be partially paralyzed for the rest of his life.
He has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the police department and the city.
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