Skip to footer

Murky questions surround fatal police shooting of 6-year-old Louisiana boy

State officials are investigating how the boy came to be 'caught in the line of fire' during a police chase Tuesday night.

|
Melissa Gregory/The Daily Town Talk/AP
Orange paint marks the spot where a 6-year-old boy was shot and killed Tuesday night by Ward 2 city marshals in Marksville, La., in this photo taken Wednesday. The marshals had been chasing a vehicle driven by the boy’s father, Chris Few. The father was shot in the head, but survived. He later was taken to Rapides Regional Medical Center in Alexandria for surgery. The boy, Jeremy David Mardis, died at the scene after suffering multiple gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

Louisiana investigators continue to question city marshals after a 6-year-old boy was fatally shot Tuesday night during a police chase. 

Two city marshals from the central Louisiana city of Marksville were chasing a vehicle driven by Chris Few, after he fled from the marshals who were attempted to serve him a warrant. When Mr. Few reached a dead end, he attempted to reverse the car and back into the marshals. 

The marshals then opened fire at Few’s car, fatally shooting his 6-year-old son, Jeremy Mardis, who was inside the car at the time. Jeremy was “caught in the line of fire” and died from gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to Avoyelles Parish Coroner Dr. L.J. Mayeux. 

“More likely than not they were shooting into the driver side, and he was on the passenger side,” Dr. Mayeux told the Associated Press. “He was in the line of fire.”

Few was also shot and is in serious condition, hospital officials said Wednesday.

“Anytime an individual is killed, especially a child, it’s a tragedy,” Col. Mike Edmonson, head of the Louisiana State Police, told AP. “The investigative team spent 12 hours Wednesday going through the entire scene from a forensic standpoint to get the trajectory of the bullets, find and count the casings and generally put the scene together.” 

State officials can’t confirm why the gunshots were initiated or who shot Mardis, but “We will interview the officers in the very near future,” Louisiana State Trooper Scott Moreau told Newsweek. “You can rest assured we are going to get to the bottom of it.”

Jeremy’s grandmother, Samantha Few, told WAFB-TV that her grandson was autistic and “a special gift from God.”

Jeremy was a first-grader at Lafargue Elementary, where grief counselors are currently working with classmates and teachers.

“He loved everyone he met and they loved him,” Ms. Few told WAFB. “He didn’t deserve what happened. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Jeremy is the youngest person killed by police in the US this year, according to an unofficial count kept by The Guardian. 

This report contains material from the Associated Press and Reuters.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Murky questions surround fatal police shooting of 6-year-old Louisiana boy
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/1105/Murky-questions-surround-fatal-police-shooting-of-6-year-old-Louisiana-boy
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe