The family of the black 21-year-old man who was horrifically shot to death by an Alabama police officer on Thanksgiving at a shopping mall has released his forensic exam that shows he was struck three times.
Emantic ‘EJ’ Bradford Jr was shot three times in the back of his body at Riverchase Galleria mall on November 22 just before 10pm.
One bullet entered the rear of his skull, another the back of the neck and a third in his lower back, according to the report shared in a press conference on Monday.
Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis prefaced the conference saying that police bodycam footage and mall surveillance video of the incident will not be released, despite demands from city officials to do so.
Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr, 21, was shot by three bullets fired by police on Thanksgiving day at Riverchase Galleria mall in Hoover, Alabama, according to a forensic report released by his family on Monday
In the conference attorney Ben Crump presented a map showing the shocking wounds Bradford suffered in the shooting and where bullets entered the rear of his skull, the back of his neck and his lower back
Bradford’s mother April Pipkins puts her head in her hands as she clutches a photo of her dead son in a prior press conference
Family attorney Ben Crump said at the conference that any of the three shots could have killed Bradford.
‘There is a laceration of the right side of the face at the eyebrow consistent with falling face forward on the right side of the head,’ Crump said in a document provided at a news conference on Monday, according to AL.com.
‘The cause of death is gunshot wound of the head. The manner of death is homicide,’ he added.
He was struck from the back as if he was running away from the gunfire.
‘All three of the gunshot wounds came from the back, which would suggest that EJ was moving away at the time the police fired. This is not to suggest that he was running from the police. Witnesses have verified that everybody was running from the gunshots,’ Crump said, according to The Root.
At the conference he presented a map of the shocking wounds Bradford suffered in the shooting where the three bullets entered his body.
Video footage from passerby shows the Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr’s body laying on the ground in a pool of blood at the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover, Alabama on Thanksgiving night
Bradford’s death led to a protest at the Riverchase Galleria mall where he died on Saturday November 24
Protesters took to the streets on November 24 to demand justice against the police brutality
Bradford’s family hired a pathologist to perform the independent ‘preliminary anatomical review’, which was conducted on November 30.
Just last week Hoover City Councilor Derrick Murphy called for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to release information and footage from the deadly shooting that took place at Riverchase Galleria on November 22, which they refused on Monday.
Civil Rights Activist Rev. Jesse Jackson opened the conference at the Rock Church in Birmingham saying: ‘All we really want is one set of rules. We want the people of Hoover to know, all we want is justice…why cover up the tapes?’
The pathologist worked with Jefferson County’s chief medical examiner to review all the forensic evidence and medical reports including x-ray photographs of the body, autopsy photographs and the body itself.
Because of the graphic nature of the conference, Bradford’s mother and step mother didn’t attend. But his father did and spokeo n his heartbreak on losing his son.
‘E.J.’s mother, my wife, will never have a conversation with E.J. again. But as you see from the evidence, my son was not posing a threat,’ Emantic Bradford Sr said.
‘If you walked up from behind on my son, you should have given a… verbal command to drop the weapon. That’s not proper police training.
‘You can’t explain that to me. That’s not training, that’s cowardice. You’re a coward. I’m telling you here on national TV, you’re a coward … You murdered my son…What you have done is destroy my family. You should not get away with this. You will not get away with this…’ he added.
Bradford was the son of a Birmingham cop and a combat engineer in the U.S. Army.
He was shot dead when officers responded to reports of an active shooter at the Riverchase Galleria on November 22 just before 10pm.
He was the son of a Birmingham cop and a member of the U.S. Army
Bradford’s stepmother, Cynthia Kenniebrew Bradford, shared this family photo in a post where she wrote how she was devastated to lose her son
Hoover police thought that Bradford was the gunman but later said he was not and they were mistaken. Cops said Bradford brandished a handgun moments after the shooting, which increased threat to officers.
The gunman also wounded an 18-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl.
Cops later said Bradford was involved in an argument with the gunman.
He pronounced dead at the scene at 10.11pm and the officer involved in the shooting has been placed on administrative leave.
A heartbreaking photograph from the scene shoes Bradford lying on the ground of the mall in a pool of his own blood.
On Thursday November 29 the real suspected gunman Erron Martez Dequan Brown, 20, was arrested by U.S. Marshals and charged with attempted murder in shooting the 18-year-old boy at the mall on Thanksgiving.