Jalen Randle Is Killed By Houston Cop Shane Privette Video Released

Body-cam video released by Houston police on Tuesday captured the moment Officer Shane Privette walked away on April 27.

A review of the video by The Daily Beast suggests an officer’s request to “let me see your hands” was barely over his lips before the fatal shot was fired.

“Oh shit,” comes a voice immediately afterwards, presumably Privette’s.

No gun is seen near Randle’s hands, and there is no apparent answer to a question heard immediately after the shooting, “Does he have a gun?” on body-cam video of the incident.

The video was released a day before the two-year anniversary of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Floyd grew up in Houston.

After the shooting, video appears to show officers tying up Randle’s limp body and briefly dragging him across the sidewalk before rendering assistance.

“Pull him back, pull him back!” a voice could be heard saying.

According to initial police reports, Randle was wanted on three outstanding warrants when a vehicle he was in was violently stopped by a narcotics team. Police did not claim that Randle was holding a gun, but a department release said a gun was later found in a bag he was holding when he was shot.

Since the shooting, Randle’s mother, father and five-year-old daughter have joined with local attorneys, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and community members to demand the release of the video and accountability for the police officer who shot him. Privette was charged by an officer with aggravated assault in 2019 for punching a man in the face two years earlier, but a grand jury dropped the charges.

Two weeks after Randle’s death, the family’s legal team produced an independent autopsy which they claimed showed Randle had been shot in the neck. A preliminary lead from the Harris County Coroner on the case refers to a gunshot wound to the neck, but a full official autopsy has not been released.

Earlier this month, Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. slammed US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)’s silence in the wake of Randle’s death, accusing him of ‘buzzing the environment in which it happened’.

Crump called the video’s “brutality” “extremely disturbing” in a statement Tuesday.

“It’s hard to believe that on the eve of the second anniversary of the killing of George Floyd and of George’s hometown of Houston, we’re still begging the police to stop killing us,” the senior civil rights attorney wrote.

“We demand full justice for Jalen Randle and his family. This officer must be held accountable immediately.”