Body camera footage released in police shooting of Joshua Feast
Feast was fired on by La Marque Police Officer Jose Santos as he attempted to run away from a vehicle. The 22-year-old later died.
Body camera footage of the fatal police shooting of 22-year-old Joshua Feast was released Monday.
Feast was shot on Dec. 9 in La Marque, Texas, located about 40 miles southeast of Houston, when La Marque Police Officer Jose Santos approached him as part of an investigation into an earlier shooting. Santos found Feast after 11 p.m. and fired a shot at him as he attempted to run away.
According to an NBC News report, the officer drives and exits his vehicle as Feast, who is passenger of another vehicle, jumps out and runs away. The officer appears to open his door and fires at Feast’s back.
In the body camera video, which is silent until Santos allows for audio, Feast is seen stumbling after he runs away, and an object which was later identified as a handgun drops to the ground.
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Santos pursues Feast into the driveway of a residence, where the man collapses. He is heard requesting medical support and backup to recover the dropped handgun. The officer demands, “Show me your hands,” a command to which Feast responds, “Help me, help me, help me.”
The officer continues to hold the man at gunpoint, ordering residents who have come out of their homes to observe the situation to stand back.
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Feast is transferred from the scene in an ambulance, where a second gun was later found in his clothing. He later died at the hospital.
An autopsy shows he died of a single gunshot wound to his back.
The lawyer representing Officer Santos said the officer called Feast by name when he exited the car. That portion of the audio isn’t in the video.
“When Officer Santos sees Mr. Feast go for the firearm in his waistband,” said Greg Cagle. “That’s when he has to make a firing decision.”
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Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Feast’s family, said Santos’ body camera footage doesn’t show his client pointing a weapon at the officer. He is demanding an investigation from the Texas attorney general and an independent probe by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Crump is also alleging that Santos has a “propensity to use force against Black people.” He was the subject of a 2013 lawsuit in which a Black man accused him and a fellow Galveston Police Department officer of excessive force.
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