Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), issued the following statement regarding the police shooting of E.J. Bradford outside of Birmingham, Alabama:
“The tragedy of E.J. Bradford’s death was only deepened by local law enforcement’s mistaken claim that he was the shooter who wounded two people at a mall in suburban Birmingham on Thanksgiving night. Local police have since conceded that he was not the perpetrator, a reversal that has understandably elicited strong feelings from the local community.
“Why Mr. Bradford was killed and why police identified him as the shooter are questions that cry out for answers. We echo local demands for the release of any body-worn and surveillance camera footage related to the shooting, and we call upon U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Eric Dreiband and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Jay Town to order the FBI to investigate Mr. Bradford’s death. A federal investigation would serve as an independent probe into what happened, to hold accountable those responsible, and to bring some measure of closure to all those affected by the senseless death of E.J. Bradford.”
