Three Decatur, Alabama, police officers have been fired and a fourth has been suspended following the fatal shooting of a man as his truck was being repossessed in September, the city’s mayor said Thursday.
Police fatally shot Steve Perkins, 39, outside his home early Sept. 29, as a tow company attempted to repossess his truck, officials said. Video showed police yelling “get on the ground” almost immediately before they opened fire.
Decatur police said that the tow company called them around 1:30 a.m. and that a tow driver said they had tried to repossess a truck but that they fled after they were confronted by someone with a gun.
Officers and the tow driver then went to Perkins’ home, and Perkins emerged with a handgun, police said. One officer fired a weapon, police have said.
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A spokesman for Perkins' family has said that from the neighbors' security video that they saw, "it looked like an ambush of him not even knowing who was in his yard." It is a dark neighborhood, and no police cars were visible, spokesperson Brenton Lipscomb has said.
Perkins’ family said in a statement that the truck payments were up to date, so the truck shouldn’t have been towed.
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