MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) — An unarmed 17-year-old was shot in the back by a Myrtle Beach police officer in the midst of April’s chaotic North Ocean Boulevard melee that left a Bennettsville man dead.
That’s the claim made Monday by national civil rights attorney Bakari Sellers, who said in a news release that he was representing the victim identified only as “John Doe.”
“They almost killed my son that night,” the victim’s mother Kristy Flow said in a statement. “They shot him in the back while he was unarmed and running away. He was just a teenager at the beach like any other, and now he has to carry that bullet inside him for the rest of his life.”
The April 26 incident along the 900 block of N. Ocean Boulevard happened just before midnight and left 18-year-old Jerrius Davis of Bennettsville dead. Police said he opened fire into a crowd.
Myrtle Beach police responded in 1.2 seconds, with Ofc. Brandon O’Rourke returning five rounds at Davis, hitting and killing him, Myrtle Beach Police Chief Prock said last week. In the video, one extra shot is heard after the five shots, which Prock said the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is working to determine where it came from.
One of those people was critically hurt, but all have since been released from the hospital, according to Prock. The victims’ ages ranged from 13 to 43.
In the aftermath of the shooting, 11 people sustained gunshot-related injuries, with some of them including bullet wounds and shrapnel grazes. Prock said four of them were taken by an ambulance, while seven self-reported to the hospital.
At least two other teenagers known to have been injured are 15-year-old Serenity Chavis and Zavian Washington, 13. Both are being represented by activist John Barnett.
Flow’s son, who was fleeing at the time, was hit in the back and spent multiple days in the hospital and ICU. The bullet that hit him remains lodged in his chest, Sellers said in a release.
Sellers and Flow said they’re concerned by the Myrtle Beach Police Department’s “reluctance to publicly release crucial information about the shooting.” Dashcam video of the incident was released May 29, but O’Rourke’s body camera footage has not been issued.
“Jerrius Davis wasn’t the only one who recklessly fired into a crowd of people on April 26,” Sellers said. “Brandon O’Rourke did too, and justice demands that we hold him accountable.”