Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom and dad distraught after son shot dead in Galleria Alabama mall cop shooting

Episode Date: November 27, 2018

Alabama investigators are working to sort out what happened at an Alabama mall Thanksgiving night that led to 2 people wounded and a 21-year-old man dead. Police initially said an off-duty officer working as private security shot a gunman who had just shot a 12-year-old girl and a 18-year-old man. But they now acknowledge that Emantic Bradford Jr., who was shot to death by the police officer, was not the shooter. Bradford's family is now demanding to see security and body camera video. Nancy Grace talks to the Bradford's attorney Benjamin Crump. They are joined by syndicated radio host Dave Mack, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Bober, and lawyer Ashley Willcott. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. No, it's not Santa. It's Nancy Grace. Are you trying to find the perfect gift for a parent or an expecting parent? Please do not give them another onesie. Don't do it. And not another plastic toy that's going to end up in the trash bin or the garage or sent

to Goodwill this holiday season, give them something that really matters. And what matters more than protecting their child? I sat down with the smartest people in the world that I know when it comes to child safety, finding missing children and fighting back against predators. And what I learned is so critical and the information so powerful and important. I want you to have it. I want them as parents to have it. Go to crimestopshere.com for a five-part series with action information that you can use to change your life and protect your child. Because I have done it myself based

on what they have told me. And starting right now, you get 40% off when you sign up. 40% off. Give that as a gift, not another onesie, please. Find out how to protect your child. Out and about, at the mall, at the store, at the grocery store, in parking lots, in parking decks, at your home, in your neighborhood. Find out about protection regarding babysitters, nannies, daycare, even protection online. It's the very best gift you can give any parent. And 40% off starts now. Go to crimestopshere.com and join the Justice Nation. Crimestopshere.com. God willing.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. All of a sudden I heard my manager just yell, there was gunshots, gunshots, and just running as fast as I can to the back and all the way to the office. And there was a couple people with us and two customers, and then we locked the door and someone got on 911. Everything was calmed down for a little bit, and then we started going like just outed by the cashier everything and then there was more gunshots and then

everyone was just running to the back. There was people crying, shaking. I tried to stay as calm as I could. I heard one and then bang bang and then right after that people started screaming and going crazy to just get away from it and then cops stand by us with their guns drawn in that direction. What were police doing? I guess what were they telling you guys? Nobody was telling anybody anything. I mean it was so fast and I was oh I was so close to it. I'm not hanging around for so much time. What to do? How did a young man who simply goes to the mall shopping end up shot dead by police? Are there two sides to this story? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. First of all, joining me, Benjamin Crump, the family attorney for the victim's family, E.J. Bradford. Also with me, Dave Mack, syndicated radio talk show host. Dave, explain to me what happened. Nancy, there were actually two shootings inside the Riverchase Galleria Mall, which is in Hoover, about 10 miles outside of downtown Birmingham towards the south. At 9.52 p.m., shots rang out. That's when a 12-year-old and an 18-year-old were both shot outside a shoe store. Police heard the shots, and within seconds, they were on the scene. And police, from what we gather, pulled guns and shot 21-year-old E.J. Emantic Bradford Jr. in the face, killing him almost instantly. And then they

detained and cuffed other suspects in that moment. Of course, the chaos that ensued afterwards in the video you're seeing of people running, that was just after the fact. This was the thing that maybe in 15 seconds time began and ended. But that's the problem, is that this man, E.J. Bradford, initially was reported to be the gunman who shot the 18-year-old and incidentally shot the 12-year-old. But after quick review with less than 24 hours, police said, hey, we shot the wrong guy. E.J. Bradford was not the initial shooter, and he's dead now, and it's our fault. Or at least that's what many of us want them to say. It's our fault. They haven't said that yet. Well, Dave,

let me understand something. Why would they think Emantic Bradford was the initial shooter that gunned down two teens? Why would they think he's the man? I'm going to back up here. The police have stated publicly that they believe that E.J. Bradford, at 21 years old, was involved in some type of altercation. And when police were on the scene within seconds, they saw he had a gun. Now, they've claimed he was brandishing his weapon. Other eyewitnesses are saying it was holstered in his waistband. I don't know. I know that I saw a video that was taken immediately after this when police were on the scene, and you can clearly see a gun next to EJ Bradford on the ground.

But police came around the corner after the shots were fired. They claimed that they saw EJ Bradford brandishing a gun. Okay, wait, I don't understand something. Let me ask Benjamin Crump. He is the family lawyer for the victim in this case, EJ Bradford Jr.'s family. Mr. Crump, you have handled so many high-profile cases, and I'm proud to call you not only my colleague, but my friend. But I got to ask you a tough question, Mr. Crump. There's no way they could have seen a gun holstered in Emantic Bradford's waistband. He had to have it in his hand when they shot.

Do I think he was the initial shooter? No, I do not. Do I think he deserved to be shot down? No, I do not. Do I think the police screwed up? Yes, I do. I also think that he had his gun out. At them all.

I don't like that. Nancy, the laws are what they are. Apparently, Alabama is an open carry state. Alabama, like many other states, are for their citizens the Second Amendment rights to openly carry guns if they have a license and permit. A man took Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. has a permit to carry a gun. And as we understand, and this is why we keep crying and demanding and screaming to release the video, you don't need to say no more, just release the video. That is the battle cry of the Bradford family because witnesses report when the shooting started, there were dozens of people who pulled their weapons out because they feel you have a right to defend yourself. In fact, there's some of the top

leadership in our country say what we need to stop bad guys with guns from these mass shootings is to have good guys with guns. What we believe is the problem with that theory, if you're a good guy with a gun and you happen to be black, the police don't see you as a good guy. They see you as a criminal and they shoot and kill you and ask questions later. We saw the incident in Chicago with Jamil Robinson, and now we're seeing this incident in Hoover, Alabama, with E.J. Braffitt, who several witnesses have come forward to our office. And we're trying to send them to law enforcement to give their accounts, but they claim E.J. Braffitt was trying to get people away from the shooting. In fact, multiple witnesses have come forward and said that he shielded me.

And we don't know what happened because the police are using these semantics, saying he brandished a gun. And at first it was he shot the 18-year and he shot the 12 year old. And when the press asked the police chief, are you certain? He said, 100% certain. And they had, uh, proclaimed that the, uh, off duty police officer who was working private security for the mall was a

hero. And this just cut to the core I mean took out the heart of EJ's mother and father because they knew the son they raised they knew his character everybody has said nothing but glowing things about this young man people say he wouldn't have been the one to point the gun at anybody everyone with me isjamin crump the family attorney for the victim in this case emantic bradford jr now first of all i'm not moved at all by what friends and families say not at all because i've never tried i don't think a single person from a shoplifter to a killer whose mother did not come in and attack me for putting her son in jail. Okay?

I understand that. And I'm sure I'd be the first one in line to attack anybody that wanted to put my son or daughter in jail. So I get it. That means nothing to me, except that I hurt, that they're hurting because they've lost their son. But you just enlightened me, Benjamin Crump. You are saying that Emantic bradford who i would

like to point out was a member of the u.s army and has never been in any trouble at all to my knowledge the way it was first reported he was brandishing a gun in a mall and if i find out somebody's brandishing a gun in a mall and I'm there with my two twins, okay, I'm not that upset if somebody pulls a gun and the police shoot him. But the way you're telling it is that he heard gunfire break out, he's running, he's trying to get other people out, and he pulls his gun in self-defense. Okay, that's a whole different scenario, Benjamin Crump. That is entirely different than some guy pulling out a gun like a big guy at a mall. That's a whole different scenario. And Benjamin, what leads you to believe that you're correct? Well, the witnesses,

because they won't release the video, all we can go by is what witnesses are saying. I mean, we have people right there in the foot action store where it happened in front of. And they say they could not understand why the police shot so fast. They never heard the police say any verbal commands, never say freeze, police, drop your weapon, all these things that you're trained to do, Nancy. He just, in a millisecond, for whatever reason, made a decision and shot him. Obviously, people in communities of color feel that there's always a rush to judgment by law enforcement when we are believed to do something to fit a profile versus

we see just several examples of when you have young white men who are confirmed mass shooters, whether it's the Waffle House shooting and he goes in the woods, the police take him alive, the Parkland shooting down in Florida shot 34 34 people 17 of them dead they take him alive you saw in south carolina dylan roof the young man who went into the church and killed nine of the most innocent people you could ever find while they were praying by the way i'd like to add benjamin remember they were praying when he shot them down at this big mall at an alabama mall a shooting breaks out two people are killed everybody starts running pandemonium breaks out police get there according to ben crump the family lawyer very well-known lawyer his guy emantic bradford began

running and hurting people out and he pulled his own gun and when police saw him with a gun they shot him dead right then and there now where was he in relation to the initial shooting and can we tell which way he was going what can we tell about the logistics of this Ben Crump to support your theory that's what the witnesses have have reported is that Emantic was running away as everybody, when they heard the guns, immediately started to run away. But then two young ladies have reported to the family, told some of the media outlets,

hey, this guy grabbed me and shielded me, and he tried to help me get away. So they purport him as a hero in all of this he was trying to get away from the shooting what we have to see is the video because i've been involved in mall shootings we don't doubt for a second that they have thousands of hours of video that can track ematic from the moment he walks in that mall. And he wasn't there very long from the moment he walks in that mall and to the moment he is shot in the head.

They can track every second. I don't have any doubt that the police already know exactly what happened. Mr. Bradford's family believes, as many in their community, that if that video would have showed a mantic doing anything bad or nefarious, we would have already seen it. Well, what I don't understand, among many things, very quickly, Joe Scott Morgan, is that why aren't we seeing the video? That's a simple matter. Do we play the video?

And in these malls, it's like NASA. It's like the Vegas casinos. They've got video everywhere, and it's a very simple matter to compare bullets. They've got his gun, and they've got the bullet where the 18-year-old was shot and the 12-year-old who was caught in the crossfire. Yeah, you cited Vegas. Nancy, that video was not released immediately. Let's keep that in mind. There's an ongoing investigation at this point in time.

However, I think that as things begin to settle a little bit, more information will come out. I can tell you that the scene itself, the scene itself was total chaos and pandemonium when people hear gunshots it's almost like a herd mentality they just start fleeing the forensic evidence here is going to be very very difficult to sift through in this particular case guys we are talking about a young man i'm looking at this picture right now it's a magic Fitzgerald Bradford jr. body lying on the ground in a pool of blood at River Chase Galleria in Hoover Alabama as everyone was out shopping and now right beside that I'm looking at a photo of this young man he's very good-, strong, young, smart, the son of a Birmingham police officer. I'm just so upset about it, Ben Crump.

I don't even know what to think. I'm just beside myself when I look at him. He's just so young, so vibrant with the world in front of him. And I have to tell you, Matt, it's deep. Because I understand, he said, that the prosecutor, every mother and father would say that kid was a good kid. But you really have to understand, Emantic was named after his father, Emantic Sr., who served 15 years in the Marines came out of the Marines and then began working for the Birmingham Police Department and he is

now battling cancer he's doing chemotherapy today as we speak he meant it will work a full day get off work, and immediately go to his father and spend time being a caregiver trying to inspire his father, saying, we're going to battle this cancer together. We're not going to lose this battle to cancer. We're going to fight it, Daddy. And when you watch the interviews of his father, he talks about not only that was his best friend and his inspiration, but now it has had a profound effect on his mentality because, you know, Marines,

they talk about you do stuff to get your unit across the line. And that was the mentality him and his son had taken. We're not going to leave you behind, Daddy. We're going to get you across the line. And so this Thanksgiving night that we're living infamy for their family forever has even more devastating consequences. When you think about he is retiring this Wednesday from the Birmingham Police Department after 25 years because the counselor has become too aggressive and he also has to deal with fighting for justice to clear his son's name who him and his uh Emantix mother knew from day one when they said their son shot somebody they said not our son not our son they knew it was a lie even before the police retracted the statement and they're

so troubled why the police didn't look at the video before they plastered their son's face all over the worldwide media and branded him the shooter and that he was a bad guy and so what they want more than anything else now is to defend the legacy of their child and get to the truth and they are so concerned like many of us that this will get swept under the rug the longer they refuse to release this video and so it's not a hard complicated request from these parents they're saying to the mayor to the chief to the leadership simply tell It's not a hard, complicated request from these parents. They're saying to the mayor, to the chief, to the leadership,

simply tell the truth, show us the video, and the transparency will help build a trust not only from our family but from this community. Ben, Mr. Benjamin Crump, the family lawyer for Emantic Bradford Jr.'s family. The first research I did was cops see a guy with a gun pulled, and they shoot him in a mall. And I was placing myself at a mall in my mind with children and seeing a guy pull a gun. So I'm like, well, you know what? You pull a gun in a mall, what do you think is going to happen?

But now that you've told me all of these additional facts, now that I've learned this guy was in the armed forces, his father, a Birmingham cop, and not just that, but the scenario and the logistics that you have laid out tend to support exactly what you're saying. Ben, as my friend, if you would relate to his family, how sorry we all are. We all are for what they are going through. Thank you, Ben. I certainly will, Nancy. Thank you. And maybe we can have them on the show and talk with you. Yes, sir. I just pray to God, and here they go into Christmas with this weight on their hearts.

I feel so bad for them. Ben Crump, you're on your way to court. You skedaddle. Guys, take a listen. Thank you so much, Nancy. Sure. Take a listen to this. Hoover police are still saying Bradford played a part in the initial fight that set all of this in motion, but they don't think he fired the rounds that hit that teenager. Police said

Bradford showed a handgun and was fleeing the scene of the original shooting near foot action when he was shot and killed by a Hoover police officer. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. No, it's not Santa. It's Nancy Grace. Are you trying to find the perfect gift for a parent or an expecting parent? Please do not give them another onesie. Don't do it.

And not another plastic toy that's going to end up in the trash bin or the garage or sent to Goodwill. This holiday season, give them something that really matters. And what matters more than protecting their child? I sat down with the smartest people in the world that I know when it comes to child safety, finding missing children, and fighting back against predators. And what I learned is so critical and the information so powerful and important. I want you to have it. I want them as parents to have it. Go to crimestopshere.com for a five-part series with action information that you can use to change your life and protect your child. Because I have done

it myself based on what they have told me. And starting right now, you get 40% off when you sign up. 40% off. Give that as a gift, not another onesie, please. Find out how to protect your child out and about at the mall, at the store, at the grocery store, in parking lots, in parking decks, at your home, in your neighborhood. Find out about protection regarding babysitters, nannies, daycare, even protection online. It's the very best gift you can give any parent. And 40% off starts now. Go to crimestopshere.com and join the Justice Nation. Crimestopshere.com. God willing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is not how I wanted to, you know, my son portrayed as.

You know, it's been a long week, hard for me. My son was a good kid. What happened to him was unfortunate. It's a hard pill for me to swallow. My son was loving, my son loved me, I love my son. But to get on social media in the middle of the night and people calling telling me woke me up, my sister-in-law called me. And I tried to get to the phone. My wife asked me, she said, who was I?

I said, it was your sister, I couldn't get to the phone. My wife asked me, she said, who was it? I said, it was his sister. I couldn't get to the phone, so she probably just hit the number by mistake. So my other sister-in-law, Pauline, came across the street and rung the doorbell. They had me sitting down. She said, just sit down, Brad. I said, what's going on? She said, what's the matter?

I said, she's in the bedroom. So I sat in the living room. She went in there and told my wife something. And then my wife came out there, and then she told me my son was dead. You are hearing the father of Emantic Bradford Jr. That's his dad, Bradford Sr. What do we know?

We know that at a crowded Alabama mall, a fight breaks out. An 18-year-old is shot. A 12-year-old girl is grazed as well. She's shot as a bystander. We know that pandemonium broke out. Everybody starts running. And at some point, this young man, Emantic Bradford Jr., pulls a gun out. Why is it to protect himself? Others say he

was herding them out and trying to protect them. What do you think? If you were at a crowded mall Christmas shopping, you see a guy pull a gun, how upset would you be if the cop shoot him dead? What really happened? To hear Benjamin Crump tell it, this guy was a hero trying to save other people. But Dave Mack with me, talk show host, has a completely different opinion. Dave Mack, why are you so convinced Ben Crump is wrong? Well, mainly because Ben Crump,

he only shows up when he's going to be able to be the lead story on all the network news and can get a whole community up in arms when there are absolutely minimal facts actually out in the public. Now, Benjamin. Stop right there. Just stop right there, Dave Mack. Hold on. Yeah, he shows up on high profile cases. That's because people want to talk to him because he's representing people on high profile cases. I'm sure he handles hundreds of other cases that are not high profile that you don't hear from him on. That doesn't mean what he said was not true. Give me something legitimate, something hard.

Give me some hard evidence to show me he's wrong. You and I are both parents, and he hit that note with you about being a family. His dad is sick. And all those things are actually true. But here's the reality. No, that's not what really hit me. What hit me is that his father was a Marine and is with the police force. Yes.

Because that suggests to me a certain— Yeah, he actually— Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Don't make me cut your mic, man. That suggests to me a certain type of upbringing, of discipline, of taking care of the son, of raising him up. Dave Mack, move forward. The other issues surrounding this entire shooting, Nancy, are that a crowded mall on Thanksgiving night and the shooting happens. Now, the mall, being the biggest in Alabama, is covered up with private security and police who are off duty

making extra money. They were on the scene within seconds, within seconds of the initial shots being fired. So the story that somehow Mr. Bradford was rescuing people and taking them all out, it sounds like a great movie, but the reality is he was shot and two other suspects were handcuffed right next to his body outside of where the initial shooting took place. Now, I'm not casting aspersions onto the man's character. I'm really saying that we don't have any kind of facts that support the story that Benjamin Crump is selling. And what we do have is a community that is now, again, divided along racial lines when in reality, gunshots were fired. People were shot apparently over an argument over a new shoe that had been released at the Foot Action Store in the Galleria.

The police show up within seconds, and the only person they see with a gun is Mr. Bradford. They shoot him. Now, I don't know if they gave him any commands. Eyewitnesses say they never said freeze or anything else. But you've got an active shooting. You see a man with a gun, and they shot him. Right or wrong, they made the decision, not me. But the bottom line is that in the video that I saw in the moment after this happened, and it's so sad that this was out there, but I saw EJ on the ground, dead.

And I saw the police handcuffing two other suspects right there with him. Now, if they were all fleeing the scene, they wouldn't have been caught up at the same time with a gun right by his side with the police on top. So, again, we're jumping to a lot of conclusions. And it doesn't seem like any of this is based on race. It's merely shots fired, they got the guy with the gun, and there you go. Police tried to correct this within 24 hours, saying, we announced the wrong thing, and we are investigating. They had to turn it over to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency so there wouldn't be a conflict of interest with the newly elected sheriff of Jefferson County. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're going so fast

that I'm losing some of your information. I want to get back to what we know about what happened at the scene. Guys, take a listen to this. Hoover police say the preliminary information indicated that two individuals were involved in a fight that led to an 18-year-old male being shot multiple times. That victim remains in UAB Hospital tonight. That 12-year-old girl who was shot in the back is in stable condition at Children's of Alabama. Hoover Police say Jefferson County Sheriff's Office investigators examined critical evidence that now paints a different picture. It suggests Bradford may have been involved in the fight, but was not the shooter. You're hearing right there from WBRC-TV. That's Jameis Price reporting.

So to you, Justice Scott Morgan joining me, forensics expert, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, and author of a new book, Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joe Scott, I'm trying to figure out what the truth is. And when you're deciphering the truth, Joe Scott, as I've learned at trial, sometimes both sides can be speaking the truth. OK, as I've told you many times, Joe Scott, I once had a judge who was 84 years old, best judge in the courthouse, Luther Alverson. And he would tell juries at the close of the case, it is your duty to make all the witnesses speak the truth and impugn perjury on no one. In other words, people can tell what they believe to be the truth, even though it differs from other witness accounts. What I'm saying is, if Emantic Bradford Jr. was part of the original fight that led to a shooting, I mean, arguments break out all the time. If you're in front of a footlocker or whatever it is, it could be an argument over anything.

They also say that he was not, they don't believe right now, the original shooter. My question is, if cops saw him, quote, brandishing a gun, did he pull out his gun? I don't see how they could have known he had a gun if it was in his waistband. And I think it would be easy enough, Joe Scott, for the 18-year-old that was shot multiple times to tell cops who shot him. What about that, Joe Scott? Yeah, I think that it's accurate. You know, the temperature is being turned up so much on this case that what I'm hoping is with the initial investigation, Dave had mentioned that there were a lot of security police officers there on the scene at that moment in time.

I'm really hoping they lock this thing down really, really quickly, Nancy, because now the media world has all of these voices screaming. I'm hoping they lock this thing down so that they were able to catch those eyewitnesses in the immediate and take initial statements from them. Because as Dr. Bober can point out, people's memories change. Their perception of things change. It all comes down to the physical evidence and what we're going to see displayed before us. And we have to be patient in this particular case. To Ashley Wilcott joining me, juvenile judge, lawyer, founder of AshleyWilcott.com. Ashley, help me out.

Weigh in. Nancy, so I agree completely that we have to be patient, but we also have to be thorough for this reason. It is so imperative that an investigation be completed and that all aspects be considered. You don't want just the video. You don't want just the witness interviews. Law enforcement has to do all that thoroughly. And then I agree, we're going to have a better picture of exactly what happened. And whoever needs to be held responsible can be should be at that point. Well, what I don't understand is you've got a witness lying in the hospital as to who shot him. Now, even if it shows, if that witness says that Bradford was not his shooter,

that still does not address the question of, did cops see Bradford, Emantic Bradford Jr., brandishing a gun in a mall? Listen to his father. My son is gone. I can't get him back. But you vilified my son like he was a straight criminal on Facebook, national TV, and never showed him no love, Fox 6-2. You ran with the story, but he was walking around waving a gun, and he ran it to the officer.

That's a lie. So you need to clean that up. You need to apologize. And I want to apologize. Mother needs one, and grandmother definitely needs one. But at the end of the day, I'm hurt, and I'm totally distraught about the whole situation. And my baby was there for me,

always there coming by, checking on me. And I need some understanding behind this. I just want everybody to understand this that Thanksgiving will never be the same for me because that's the day that's the last time I saw my son the last time and you know 21 years ago I was looking into the beautiful eyes and face of my son, my firstborn, carried him nine months. And now I won't see him ever again. And now I have not heard the police. Nobody even took the time or had the decency to notify me of my son's death.

Instead, it's flashed all over social media. There is no way that any parent should have to find out the death of their child. No parent should have to ever go through this. You're hearing from Emantic Bradford Jr.'s mother, April Pipkins. She describes the death of her son the last time she saw him. This is what we know right now. At a crowded mall in Alabama, a shooting breaks out. Apparently, an altercation in front of a store, many believe it was a footlocker, erupts in gunfire. An 18-year-old is shot multiple times.

A 12-year-old girl named by her family as Molly Davis was shot once and reported now to be alert and talking. She's still in the children's hospital. Her mother, Julie Moore Bennett, posted on social media her daughter was shopping with her family and did not even immediately realize the pain she had on her back was actually from a bullet. She was hurting a lot, according to the mom. The 18-year-old at this moment has not been named. By 6 a.m., the mall was open again for Black Friday shopping. You know, you can't stop that, I guess. Something seems so wrong that I see a photo of this young man,

a man named Bradford Jr., lying in a pool of blood on the mall floor. And within a couple of hours, everybody is walking right over it like nothing happened, doing their shopping. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. We are searching for the truth. Back to Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host. Dave Mack, you are convinced police were right, but take a listen to this. A statement from Hoover police on Friday shut it down! If we don't get it, shut it down! A statement from Hoover police on Friday said they believe Bradford had a part in the fight,

but it is unlikely that he fired his gun. A country needs to come to the forefront and say, we're going to stop looking at a man as a color. That's right. A man is a man. That's right. Police now believe that more than two people were involved in the fight before the shooting and that the gunman remains at large.

You are hearing right there WBRC's Ashley Knight reporting. So what does this mean, Dave Mack, talk show host? If Emantic Bradford Jr. is not the gunman, that means the gunman is out there. Absolutely. And that's why this investigation, it was shut down too quickly. They announced they had the shooter and it was over, and then they had to say, well, he wasn't the shooter. We've got a shooter out there.

They're asking for the public to provide information. And it's a sad reality that we live in today because people jump to conclusions. I've been investigating this since it happened, Nancy, and the one thing that really truly bothers me are that facts seem to get left out of this discussion every time. You realize that 2017 black males accounted for 22 percent of all people shot and killed by police. Whites accounted for 44 percent. Yet we seem to hear whenever there's a shooting that the cops shot the black guy. And in this particular case, yes, a young black man was shot. But we don't have any other

facts. The police said they believe he was involved in the altercation. His gun was pulled. I don't know anything else because we don't have videotape of everything, but are we going to believe just people running around saying whatever they feel is emotionally safe to say, or are we going to actually believe the facts? Got a question to Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert. In this case, the cops are now saying that he, Bradford Jr., was not the shooter in the original incident, but that he may have been part of the altercation. At what point do we believe, or has it been reported, that Bradford pulled his gun? Did he pull it during the altercation? Did he pull it as he was running away? What are you learning and what difference would that make forensically, Joe Scott Morgan?

Well, it's going to make a difference relative to his attitude, physical attitude, directed toward the sound of the shooting. And is he confused? I think in this case, you know, we talk about how police are running around with their weapons drawn. I'm wondering how many rounds were actually discharged at the scene. Were there multiple rounds? Did the police fire prior to this kid with his gun out, or did the kid react to that? That's going to make a huge difference, Nancy, in perception. And I'm not talking about our perception. I'm talking about

the perception of the individual that has been shot and the perception of the police that are there to try to... Well, what about this, Joe Scott? We're getting some reports that at the Galleria Mall, the police recovered another gun in what's called Santa's Village, where they actually take the Santa photos. Man, I never thought I'd put all that in one sentence, a gun recovered in Santa's Village. How will that help the case? Well, I think that if they have that weapon sequestered, and obviously they do, they know where it was, they can tag this thing back. The weapon itself, if it has been fired and they can recover, yeah, and they can match this thing up forensically. That is significant.

You know, here's another theory just to throw out there. Ashley Wilcott, we all know what felony murder is. Felony murder is when you're in the commission of a felony. It could be child abuse. It could be a bank robbery. You don't intend for a murder to happen, any shooting. In fact, you go in to rob the bank and you never pull your gun. But in the middle of your felony, your bank robbery,

the security guard tries to pull his gun and it goes off and shoots somebody dead. Guess what? You're guilty of felony murder because a death occurred during the commission of a felony. So what I'm saying is the original shooter may be looking at felony murder charges because of his felony double aggravated assault in front of the footlocker, somebody is dead. What about that, Ashley? Absolutely. I agree with that legal theory. And that's the reason the intent behind the felony murder charge is because even if it was unintentional to murder someone, if you're

going to commit a felony and that's the result of the felony you committed, then you should be held criminally responsible. Nancy, the other thing I have to say is talking about jumping to conclusions. Yes, lots of people are jumping to conclusions because of the emotional nature. We have lost a young man who was shot by police. The parent indicates that they were not notified that he had been killed or that he was dead. So there's so many emotions around this. But again, as a judge, I see this all the time. It's hard to do, but there's got to be caution around any conclusions and let the investigation play out to get the accurate information to see what really happened. Even if he pulled a gun to protect people, he pulled a gun.

I'm not saying he should have been shot. Don't misunderstand me. But all of these facts have to be investigated. Right now, the gunman's still at large. If you have information, call 205-822-5300. Repeat, 205-822-5300. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.