Footage from a surveillance camera pointed at the street where officers shot a mentally ill man in the abdomen earlier this week shows the man never walked toward police nor raised a knife to them, disputing a police officer’s narrative provided in a sworn affidavit.
On Oct. 14, the man’s mother called 911 to report that her mentally ill son was sitting in a swivel chair in the middle of a cul de sac with a knife and acting erratically. Joyce Jackson, the man’s mother, said the dispatcher promised to send officers who were trained on interacting with the mentally ill.
The surveillance video, given to News 8 by Jackson’s neighbor Maurice Bunch, shows Bobby Gerald Bennett, 53, walk out of the garage of his mother’s home at 9452 Crimnson Court at noon. He begins pacing the street.
At 12:05 p.m., Bennett retrieves a swivel chair from the garage and sits in the middle of the block. He gets up and talks to Bunch and returns to the chair at 12:08 p.m. Bennett sits still in the chair until a single police cruiser arrives at 12:19 p.m. It’s not clear whether he is holding the knife at this point.
Ofc. Cardan Spencer and a witnessing officer exit the police car and slowly walk toward Bennett, who pushes the chair backward a few feet. He then stands up straight and the two officers draw their weapons. The officers stop about 20 feet from him. Eight seconds after pulling their guns, Spencer fires and Bennett crumples over and falls to the ground. An affidavit says Spencer fired his weapon four times, striking Bennett once in the abdomen.
