A cellphone video showing police shooting multiple times at a man running away outside an Atlanta restaurant has gone viral, sparking outrage online.
The video, first posted by the Instagram page Atlanta Uncensored, shows a Black man running across the street toward a car parked at Memezz Restaurant on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW.
As he tries to get into the vehicle, officers with guns drawn run toward him and start firing. Multiple gunshots can be heard clearly in the video. The man’s condition was unknown at first.
In the video, a bystander can be heard asking, “Is he dying?” as the scene unfolds.
What Police Are Saying
According to local news reports, authorities later confirmed that one man had died and two others were taken into custody after the shooting, which happened Thursday afternoon at the same location shown in the video.
The Fulton County Police Department said the officers were in the area because they saw a group of people hanging around. When they approached, one man ran away. Police said they told him to stop, but instead he ran back to his car.
Officers said they ordered him to turn off the car and put his hands up. However, police claim the man reached down and grabbed a gun, which led them to open fire. He was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital but later died from his injuries.
So far, the police have not released the name of the man who died or the two people they detained.
Reaction From the Public
The video has already been watched nearly 140,000 times on Instagram. Many people are criticizing the police, saying the officers didn’t need to shoot so many times.
“They did not need to shoot that man like that… Come on, bro,” one viewer commented.
People are questioning whether the officers handled the situation properly and whether they could have arrested the man without using deadly force.