Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr announced Wednesday that the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Jabari Peoples by a Homewood police officer was justified and that no charges will be filed. Carr’s decision comes after reviewing body camera footage and the findings of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, which investigated the June 23 incident.
Carr met with the Peoples family on Wednesday to share the video and his findings. According to Carr, Peoples was in Homewood Soccer Park with a female passenger when the officer approached their car, reportedly due to suspected criminal activity in city parks.
Carr said the officer smelled marijuana, asked the occupants to exit the vehicle, and then saw a weapon inside. As the officer attempted to detain Peoples, Carr said a struggle ensued and Peoples broke free, ran toward the vehicle, retrieved a gun and was shot in the lower left side of his back.
The officer, who has not been named but is confirmed to be a Black man, fired a single shot. Carr stated that body cam footage corroborated this sequence of events.
However, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the Peoples family, challenged that conclusion during a press conference following the meeting. Crump and the family were shown a four-minute ALEA-edited video that included only about one minute of the actual police interaction.
“What we saw was an 18-year-old shot in the back while running away,” said Crump. “He never pointed a gun at the officer. This is not an open and shut case.”
Crump criticized the limited and edited nature of the footage shown to the family, saying it included slowed-down segments with annotations indicating where ALEA believed a gun was present.
The family and legal team emphasized that the edited footage could reflect a biased narrative and questioned when and why the officer chose to draw his weapon.
“From what I saw, the gun was aimed before Mr. Peoples got near the vehicle,” said Crump. “That’s a matter of intent, and we’re not going to stop until we know the truth.”
The refusal by ALEA and Carr to release the footage publicly has fueled community protests, including demonstrations by Black Lives Matter and local activists. The family’s attorneys have vowed to pursue full video disclosure through legal means.
“We’re going to dot every ‘i,’ cross every ‘t,’ and turn over every stone to find out why this young man was shot in the back while running away,” said Crump.
Carr defended his decision not to release the video to the public.
“Sometimes [cases] may not end the way [families] want them to, but at least they’re armed with the facts and truth. In this case, we did just that,” said Carr.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
