Questions raised on tactics used by police in Heard shooting
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – Last week at the Chattanooga City Council, protestors showed up concerning the Roger Heard Jr. police shooting.
Tuesday, the City Council is holding their first meeting since the release of footage last weekend.
Some criticism has been levied towards the place of the interaction between police and Heard at the Speedway gas station on East 3rd Street.
Attorney Robin Flores said, “Why were they all doing this where you have all of these civilians standing there?”
The exact amount of civilians at the Speedway on that Friday evening is unknown.
But the concern being raised is that the incident could have taken an even darker turn if one of them had been struck.
Video from tower cams at the Speedway shows Officer Celltain Batterson approaching Roger Heard Jr.
Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp says at the moment you see Heard kicking open the door, he is firing at Batterson, leading to exchange of gunfire between the parties.
Some say the initiation of the stop could have been done in a safer manner as video shows Officer Batterson parking his unmarked police vehicle in front of Heard, different from a usual traffic stop.
Flores said, “You do the stop that way, grill to grill? You put yourself right in the kill zone? You got the guy in the vehicle where you don’t know what he’s got in there. It would be better practice to make sure he’s out, or if nothing else wait until he’s down the road and do a felony traffic stop on him, where you’re behind him and have points of cover.”
District Attorney Wamp argues that the officers could not have anticipated that the interaction would have gone in the manner that it did.
She said, “He was at the gas station, committing a litany of felonies, including a drug transaction right there on the parking lot which the investigators knew about and had information about, so they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into, however, they did not expect there to be a gun battle.”
Protestors last Tuesday also raised another concern about the use of unmarked police cars in these situations.
The state of Tennessee passed SB 2787 in 2022 requiring the use of marked police cars to make a traffic stop.
However, that law does say that officers can use unmarked cars for undercover work.
In the fiscal notes of that law, it is unknown how many unmarked police cars are in operation across the state.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol noted they had 320 unmarked vehicles at the time, but would elect to mark them after the passage of this law.
Since this wasn’t a formal traffic stop, this law would not have applied.
Flores said, “And then you look at it when he hit them with a fusillade of gunfire when the guy was already down, well hell, right in the damn line of fire was another police officer.”
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is still investigating the incident.
