A newly released video shows a St. Louis police officer killing a 17-year-old in June 2024—and reacting with shock when he seemingly realizes the teen had a cell phone, not a gun, in his hand.
An attorney working for the family of Emeshyon Wilkins has made public the body cam video of the shooting, as well as an independent analysis of what happened that day in the city’s The Ville neighborhood.
Footage from the body cam of the officer who shot Wilkins shows the teen running from the police as the officer shouts, “Get on the fucking ground now” and twice yells, “Drop the fucking gun.”
Shots ring out and Wilkins falls. Officers approach the teen’s dead body, put his hands behind his back and cuff him. The shooting officer says, “Fuck!” and then, “The gun’s right fucking here.”
It’s unclear what the officer is referring to. Wilkins had in his pockets pieces of a disassembled weapon, but it seems unlikely he could have in any way brandished those pieces at the officer who shot him, according to the report compiled by Gregory Gilbertson, an expert in police use of force.
The officer who shot Wilkins was one of 14 officers comprising an Anti-Crime Task Force working in Baden to recover stolen vehicles. When officers attempted to arrest Wilkins, he led them on a chase into The Ville while driving a stolen silver Mazda CX-5. Wilkins bailed out of the vehicle near the 4200 block of St. Louis Avenue. A brief foot pursuit lasted no more than 20 seconds and ended with Wilkins being shot in the back of the head.
Last May, Wilkins’ parents, Shaina Wilkins and Emanuel Mays, filed suit against the city and the officer who shot and killed their son. They are represented by Al Watkins, who is releasing the body cam footage for the first time today.
“It was a Frigidaire frost-free felony,” Watkins said of the shooting. “At best it demonstrates wholesale mal-governance of the city and police department. At worst … very dangerous ignorance of a most horrid nature. I assure you that this young man would be alive and preparing for high school graduation if he resided in the 63124 ZIP code,” he added, referencing an affluent area that includes Ladue.
Watkins said the shooting officer was never disciplined and remains on desk duty.
“The nation is watching,” Watkins added in a statement, “The powers that be must understand that continuation of this shitshow will trigger pain and suffering on an irreconcilable and irreparable scale.”
A spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department declined to comment, as is their policy on pending litigation. However, filings made on behalf of the Board of Police Commissioners indicate they are pleading sovereign immunity, which provides broad protection to government officials from litigation. The Police Board is represented by the Attorney General’s Office in the matter.
As part of the lawsuit, Watkins commissioned Gilbertson to analyze the shooting based on police reports, crime scene photos, autopsy reports, witness statements, and a body-worn video recording. Gilbertson is a retired criminology professor who trained the Afghan National Police. His report concluded that the lead-up to the shooting and the shooting itself violated the SLMPD’s own procedures in multiple ways.
Gilbertson’s report says that the police chase that preceded the shooting should have never happened, per departmental policies. Those policies say that vehicular pursuits are only to be initiated if the suspect has committed a felony involving the use, or threatened use, of deadly force.
As for the shooting itself, Gilbertson’s report says that the shooting officer did not identify himself as a police officer nor verbally warn of his intent to shoot, both contrary to SLMPD policy. (Also worth noting is that not every officer pursuing Wilkins had their gun drawn; at least one officer thought it necessary to only have a taser at the ready.)
Finally, the report also notes that statements made to the department’s Force Investigation Unit, which reviews police shootings, are contradicted by the body cam footage of the incident. The shooting officer told FIU investigators that he saw Wilkins with a gun “in his right hand in a low ready position … with his index finger inside or along-side the trigger guard.”
Gilbertson says the video belies that claim, noting that “body-worn video of the pursuit does NOT capture E.W. holding any handgun, much less a handgun at the low ready position.”
Wilkins’ parents allege their son’s death was unjustified and that the officer who pulled the trigger was negligently supervised. They are seeking unspecified damages. Watkins says Wilkins had turned 17 just two weeks prior to being killed and that his parents weren’t allowed to view their son’s remains until weeks after the shooting occurred, at which disfigurement had set in.
The SLMPD is no stranger to officer-involved shootings that wind up in court. A few weeks ago, a city jury awarded $37 million to Tyron Edwards, who was shot by police in 2016, when he was 14 (he survived). Last year, a federal jury awarded $18.7 million to Dennis Ball-Bey, whose 18-year-old son was killed by police. However both of those shootings happened a decade ago, an era of city policing generally seen as reckless. One report found the St. Louis police led the nation in fatal shootings per capita from 2009 to 2019. But thanks in large part to the leadership of Police Chief Robert Tracy, the first outside hire for chief in the department’s history, the rate of fatal police shootings in St. Louis has dropped, even as crime has fallen in the city.
The shooting of Wilkins, however, only happened two summers ago. As is customary, the scene flooded with officers and other department personnel in the wake of the shooting, Tracy among them.
Hear more about this story from Ryan Krull on The 314 Podcast.
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