“I can’t believe you shot me, bro,” DeAnthony VanAtten, a young Black man, can be heard saying in body camera footage released Thursday by Michigan authorities. In the video, VanAtten lies handcuffed on the ground in a parking lot. “You shot me two times, bro.”
The 20-year-old, who survived the April 25 encounter with police outside an East Lansing grocery store, has since been treated for at least one gunshot wound and released from a local hospital. A subsequent push by local activists for accountability culminated in a Thursday press conference, where East Lansing Police Chief Kim Johnson released seven videos that captured the shooting on both body and surveillance cameras.
“We are releasing video footage of the incident here today as a part of our commitment to transparency,” Johnson said at the conference. “Building public trust means remaining present in these challenging times, engaging in tough conversations, and being as transparent as possible with our community members.”
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Officers had initially been summoned to respond to the Meijer grocery store after a 911 call was placed to report an armed, masked man entering the building, Ann Arbor News reported. A dispatcher told police, “I have a caller that advised... He’s not threatening anybody with [the firearm], just walked inside the store.”
In the partially censored footage, VanAtten, whose face is covered, can be seen as an officer chases him through the parking lot. “You’re going to get tased!” an officer yells.
“He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!” another calls moments later, ducking behind a car.
The footage released Thursday indicates that roughly eight shots were then fired from multiple firearms, around three minutes after they arrived at the scene. The police have not yet provided an account of the number of shots fired in the incident, with Johnson saying Thursday that VanAtten had been hit by gunfire.
“I seen him on the floor,” VanAtten’s girlfriend, who was present at the scene and can be heard yelling in the background of the videos, told WOOD-TV, “and I’m just screaming, telling them to ‘stop shooting, stop shooting.’” In the footage, she can later be seen holding a small child’s carrier, and tells police at one point that VanAtten was unarmed.
In the footage, an officer, looking around the lot, then pulls what appears to be a handgun from beneath a vehicle near where police said they believed VanAtten was parked. Johnson said Thursday he did not know if VanAtten had been armed at the time of the police shooting, nor if the 20-year-old had fired any shots.
VanAtten was transferred to Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital, where organizers have alleged he was “mistreated,” according to the Lansing State Journal. His mother, Burnette VanAtten, has said that she had to wait for hours before receiving any updates on her son’s status. Around 1 a.m. the next morning, according to her, VanAtten finally reached out, saying he “still had two bullets in his body and broken ribs."
After being released from the hospital, VanAtten was taken into custody and transferred to the Ingham County Jail on an alleged parole violation. On Tuesday, activists gathered outside the jail to demand justice. (VanAtten was never charged with a crime, and has since been released.)
“He went into that store to buy corn and macaroni for a cookout,” said Sean Holland, an organizer with the chapter, according to a local Fox News affiliate. “He left his girlfriend and her eight-month-old baby in the car and said, ‘I'll be right back,’ and, somewhere between that conversation and walking into Meijer, going and getting those items and checking out, he never made it home.”
The 20-year-old’s mother also stepped up to the microphone, saying that her son had been “running in fear for his life.” The only thing he was guilty of, Burnette VanAtten added, according to the Lansing State Journal, was “shopping while Black.”
The group also called for transparency from the police, insisting that the officers involved be named and held accountable. “We need real systemic transformation,” Holland said. “You can’t reform evil.”
Appearing before the Independent Police Oversight Commission last week, Lansing Police Chief Kim Johnson has said that the department will not be releasing any information on the officers until after the state police had finished their investigation. At the same meeting, the commission voted unanimously to release footage of the shooting within a week.
“This is a tragedy and we are fortunate that DeAnthony is still alive,” Holland said on Tuesday. “He shouldn't be alive, but he is still alive. And again, the community needs to know that he still has two bullets in his body.”
