Officials have released the chilling video footage of a tragic incident dating back to December 4, 2014. The shocking video shows a West Monroe, Louisiana, police officer shooting a homeless man dead outside a convenience store. According to KNOE News, the police officer who was behind the incident has been identified as Officer Jody LeDoux. The officer is currently standing trial at a Louisiana court and has been charged with one count of negligent homicide. The homeless man killed by LeDoux was later identified as Raymond Keith Martinez. The incident happened in early December on the store located on 7th Street in West Monroe.
LeDoux has pleaded not guilty to the charges, although looking at the footage, it is difficult to defend his actions.While all the facts of the case are not known, LeDoux has found support from several of his colleagues from the West Monroe Police Department. LeDoux is next scheduled to appear in court on May 19, 2015.
The video footage shows officer LeDoux arriving at the parking lot of the convenience store, where there are several other people standing. Later, the video cuts to the part where LeDoux is clearly seen using his gun on Raymond. While the footage seems blurry, in the video, Jody is seen shooting Raymond at least four times, after which the man falls to the ground. It is unclear as to what Raymond was doing at the time of the shooting. From the video, it didn’t seem he was acting overtly aggressive. Lots of facts pertaining to the circumstances in which the homeless man was shot dead, however, remain a mystery.
The news about a cop shooting and killing a homeless man comes just a day after the Inquisitr had reported about another incident where two cops were seen using a taser on an elderly man who was offering little resistance. Last month, too, we had reported about a similar incident where a homeless man was shot dead by cops in Washington state. In that incident, the homeless man, identified as 35-year-old Mexican-born Antonio Zambrano-Montes, was exhibiting threatening behavior at cops and even threw rocks at them, reports say.
Meanwhile, the news of the killing of the homeless man from West Monroe has lead to online outrage with people calling for the officer to be charged with first degree murder — instead of negligent homicide.
[Image via YouTube/ KNOE News]