He said Twiddy has been placed on administrative leave, in accordance with department policy, while the State Bureau of Investigation looks into the matter.
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A witness named Truvalia Kearney told the News & Observer that she was standing near Denkins around noon on Monday when a police vehicle pulled up and Denkins “took off running”.
Eyewitnesses have offered descriptions of what happened Monday, including a woman who said a black man was shot in the back by a white police officer, but authorities have so far been tightlipped.
In the first several hours after the shooting, local television coverage showed police forming a line in the street near the downtown neighborhood where the shooting took place as a number of people gathered behind yellow crime-scene tape that blocked off the area and began chanting “No justice, no peace!”
In her statement on Monday, Police Chief Deck-Brown said that a firearm was found near the scene. The suspect and officer cleared one fence and Denkins then scaled a second chain-link fence.
During this chase, the officer fatally shot the man, said Deck-Brown.
The officer didn’t clear the fence cleanly, causing observers to snicker, but he never hit the ground, Williams said. Other witnesses, she said, told her he was unarmed. Police say a gun was found near Denkins, but it’s not clear if he was armed during the chase.
After addressing the crowd, Jones said in a brief interview that he wanted people to remember the slain man as a good person despite having some problems. The men disappeared from view, and then she heard shots.
“Everybody loved him, and he was just trying to make a life for himself”, she said.
Jones later said he didn’t understand why police felt the need to shoot Denkins. “Somehow they knew I was on my way”, Byrd said. “If he ran from you today, you could have arrested him tomorrow”.
“But (neither) a warrant nor an arrest warrant is a license to kill”, Barber added.
Denkins had two sons, ages 2 and 3, and was working on his GED through the Neighbor to Neighbor program.
“I got kids at home who I got to tell what happened to their big brother”, Dailey said.
Lorrin Freeman, the Wake County district attorney, said she contacted the SBI at 12:30 p.m. Monday after being informed of the fatal shooting. State authorities are conducting a criminal investigation into the shooting, and the Raleigh Police Department’s internal affairs unit is also investigating, Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown said. “Please join us in calm, prayer and patience and please keep all of those involved in this tragedy in your thoughts and prayers”.
The man killed was identified as Akiel Rakim Lakeith Denkins, 24, of Raleigh, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said.
Denkins’ mother said that a video of the incident exists in which the shooting can be heard but not seen and that her lawyer is in possession of it. “There’s video”.
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He says, “Well, southeast Raleigh is always going to be last”.
