By Savannah Tryens-Fernandes
One relative is questioning the Decatur police chief’s correction to the initial police report on the shooting death of Stephen Perkins about two weeks later.
Sheree Head, a Perkins’ relative, said the police chief took too long to release the new statement.
“My issue is it took you 13 days to come up with what we already knew and what we all knew already, what we saw in these videos,” Head said during the public comments section of the Decatur City Council meeting this week.
“You had videos with audio that told you what they said was a lie. But you all allowed it to stand for 13 days to disparage his character and to make it appear that he was some aggressive person, that he was some predator of some nature when you knew it was a lie.”
“Day two, we knew this, and you allowed it to stand so that you could shape the public’s opinion about him,” Head said Monday.
Home camera recording of the event on the morning of Sept. 29 showed Perkins telling a tow driver repossessing his vehicle about a quarter to 2 a.m., “put the truck down” before the shooting.
The footage appeared to show a police officer coming from the corner of his house on 3900 Block of Ryan Drive SW and shouting, “Hey, hey, police, get on the ground,” and began firing. The police report that day said he turned a weapon towards an officer.
The interaction lasted about one second before gunshots rang out. A family attorney said seven bullets hit him; a neighbor said six hit his house, and he was lucky to escape death.
The Decatur police initially explained that they were responding to a tow truck company call after someone pulled a gun on a tow truck driver. Another home footage viewed by AL.com indicated the tow truck driver was at the house at about midnight.
“Officers made their way to the residence, along with the tow truck driver,” the Decatur police said in the statement explaining what happened about two hours later.
“The homeowner exited the residence armed with a handgun and began to threaten the tow truck driver. Officers on scene ordered the homeowner to drop his weapon, which he refused to do. It was at this time the homeowner turned the gun towards one of the Officers on scene. The Officer discharged his duty weapon, striking the subject.”
About ten days after the incident, longtime Decatur councilman Billy Jackson called for the firing of the police chief, calling to question the procedure that the three officers seen on home camera footage followed that day.
“I don’t know of any policy that would justify that,” Jackson said on Oct. 9. “I don’t know of any procedure that would have allowed us to go out there at that particular time in aid of, or in assisting a tow truck driver at that particular time when all we had to do was turn on the lights and knock on the door.”