A Shreveport police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Black man as he fled his home earlier this month was arrested on Thursday morning, according to Louisiana State Police.
The cop, Alexander Tyler, has been charged with negligent homicide nearly two weeks after Alonzo Bagley, 43, died at his apartment complex on Feb. 3.
“Detectives with the Louisiana State Police Bureau of Investigations have reviewed body worn camera footage and other relevant evidence,” state police said in their announcement Thursday afternoon. “Based on their findings and in coordination with the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office, Troopers arrested Shreveport Police Officer Alexander Tyler this morning.”
Along with announcing the arrest, police also released some bodycam footage and a recording of the 911 call placed the evening Bagley was killed.
According to the arrest warrant, police were called to Bagley’s home by his wife, who said he was drunk and and threatening her and her daughters. After cops arrived, Bagley went into his bedroom, attempted to “grab something off a nightstand,” and then fled the apartment by jumping over the balcony handrail, police said. As Bagley ran through the apartment complex, Tyler shot him in the chest in an entryway.
“Oh, Lord. Oh, God. You shot me,” Bagley, who had his empty hands in the air, told the officer, according to the filing. Tyler and another officer called to the scene attempted to administer aid, but he died at the scene.
According to the affidavit, Tyler told police that Bagley had approached him and that he “could not see his hands.” But the warrant states that “there were no known reports made to the responding officers that [Bagley] was in possession of a dangerous weapon…[and] no articulable facts were provided…that would justify the need for deadly force.”
Bagley’s family also viewed the bodycam footage on Thursday, saying he should not have lost his life that day.
“Alonzo was just so, so scared,” the family’s attorney, Ron Haley, said in a statement. “Everyone at the scene, including the perpetrator Alexander Tyler, knew Mr. Bagley should not have been shot that night. He wasn’t a threat. He deserved to live.”