The East Lansing Police Department will release redacted footage later this week of the officer-involved shooting of a Michigan State University student.
On April 15, ELPD officers responded to reports of a theft and a stabbing at the intersection of Lake Lansing and Abbot roads.
Police Chief Jennifer Brown said at a news conference that night that 21-year-old Isaiah Kirby approached officers with “blood on his person and had an object in his hand that appeared to be a weapon.”
Karyn Kirby, Isaiah’s mother, spoke at a news conference Tuesday. She said that, when she viewed her son’s body, she counted 17 gunshot wounds.
“The narrative that the white officer may fear for his life does not justify the murder of my child by the use of excessive force when there are less lethal options available,” she said.
The Kirby family has requested to see the unedited footage of the shooting, but Karyn Kirby said ELPD has not released it.
“Truth and transparency is all we ask for,” she said.
Instead, Teresa Caine Bingman, the Kirby family’s attorney, says they were shown what she describes as “very scattered, very biased.”
“They were shown a highly edited and actually insulting presentation that was narrated by the very agency that killed their son, the East Lansing Police Department,” Caine Bingman said. "Let me be clear, what we saw in that video was not transparency.”
A friend of Isaiah Kirby’s spoke briefly at Tuesday’s news conference. He said he learned about the shooting just hours after it happened.
“I can remember since the fourth grade, my mom telling me, ‘Hey, if a police officer ever pulls you over, or does anything, make sure that you have your hands up,'” he said. “How many other races have to ask a 10-year-old child to know how to react around a police officer?”
ELPD said the footage it plans to release later this week will also include a narrated timeline and redacted body cam footage.
The police department says it does not have footage of the stabbing incident that led up to the shooting of Isaiah Kirby.
The footage will be released publicly at the City of East Lansing’s “ELPD Officer-Involved Shooting” webpage.
ELPD has declined to comment.
