NEWS

Tupelo mayor, lawyer dispute fatal shooting details

Jeff Amy
Associated Press

TUPELO - Tupelo’s mayor is laying out the city’s version of events in a June 18 fatal police shooting that has roiled northeast Mississippi’s largest city.

Mayor Jason Shelton said Wednesday that Officer Tyler Cook shot 37-year-old Antwun “Ronnie” Shumpert because he feared for his life as Shumpert assaulted him and said the shooting came after Shumpert disobeyed police orders.

Shelton says a police dog did not bite Shumpert in the groin and police didn’t knock out his teeth, as a lawyer for Shumpert’s family has contended.

The mayor says he wants to let the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation finish its inquiry, but says the city needed to tell its version of events because the family lawyer is spreading untruths.

The shooting followed a traffic stop and foot chase. Cook is white. Shumpert was black.

Carlos Moore, the lawyer for the Shumpert family, is calling for a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting death and Tupelo Police Department practices.

Moore gave copies of the letter to reporters Wednesday after Shelton said Moore was spreading mistruths about the events of Shumpert’s death.

Moore is sticking by his version of events, renewing claims that Shumpert rightfully defended himself from a police dog that bit him in the groin and implying that Officer Tyler Cook may have faked his injuries from the altercation.

Shelton says those claims are untrue.