A witness to Tuesday's police shooting of 25-year-old African-American Kajieme Powell recorded the event on his phone on Tuesday August 19.
In the video Kajieme Powell is pacing back and forth in front of a convenience story. He's placed two soft drink cans on the footpath. One of his hands is in his hoodie pocket.
“He just stole two sodas…” says the man filming. “He’s just right put them on the ground… daring someone to touch them.”
Moments later a police car pulls up and two officers point their guns at Powell.
“Get your hand out of your pocket. Get your hand out. Drop it now. Drop the gun,” say the officers.
Powell responds telling them to: “Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot me. Shoot me now.”
Powell walks a few paces closer to the police car, where the officers are standing shielded by their open car doors.
He stops, backs away.
The police move towards Powell pointing their weapons.
“Oh sh--, they’ve got their guns out,” says the man filming.
Powell walks towards them slowly and is still several metres away when the police fire multiple times. Powell falls down and the police fire more shots.
“Oh my God,” says the man filming.
The police yell at Powell to put his hands up, and there’s some movement from him on the ground.
“Oh here we go again,” says the man filming. “They just killed this man. He’s dead.”
The police move Powell over on the ground, and another witness protests: “Look how they’re flipping him over, he’s already dead.”
The man filming says: “They’re putting him in cuffs. He’s dead. Oh my God. They just killed this man. He didn’t have a gun on him. Now they cuffing him. He’s already dead.”
“He’s still holding his gun out, the man is dead.”
There are more police sirens, and other officers run to the scene. They put police tape around the scene and move onlookers back.
“He didn’t even have a gun or nothing. They could have tazed that man,” says the man filming.
“Oh my God. You can smell the gunfire. We backing up, sir.”
“They just gunned that man down. They could have tazed him. They could have tazed him or shot him in the leg. They shot him repeatedly.”
Around 150 people later gathered at the scene, chanting the slogan of the Ferguson protests: "Hands up, don't shoot."
St Louis Metropolitan police confirmed 12 shots were fired, six from each police officer who attended the scene.
Police also released CCTV footage and audio of two emergency calls. In one call, the convenience store worker says a man has stolen items and is still outside. In the other call, a woman who is watching events from across the street reports there is a man with a knife in his pocket outside the store.
