Texas Police Have Fired The Officer Who Shot And Killed Jordan Edwards
Officer Roy Oliver fired multiple rounds into the car Edwards was riding in as the vehicle was driving away from a house party.
Balch Springs Police have fired the officer who shot and killed 15-year-old Jordan Edwards on Saturday night, BuzzFeed News reports.
Edwards was in the passenger seat of a car that was driving away from a house party in a Dallas suburb, where police were responding to a report of drunk teenagers. Balch Springs Police Officer Roy Oliver, the second officer to arrive on the scene, fired multiple shots with a rifle into the vehicle, killing Edwards.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber announced that Oliver, who had been an officer with the department since 2011, had been terminated. Haber said that Oliver's conduct violated departmental policies but would not expand upon which specific policies had been violated.
Haber changed the department's official account of the shooting on Monday, admitting that the car Edwards was in had been driving away when Oliver opened fire and had not been moving towards police in "an aggressive manner" as the account initially stated. "I made a mistake and I apologized for it," Haber said on Tuesday.
In a statement on Tuesday, Edwards's family said that they were "grateful the decision has been made to terminate the officer responsible for Jordan's murder" but that there "remains a long road ahead."
Prosecutors are still investigating the shooting, which was has been ruled a homicide by the medical examiner's office, and could charge Oliver. According to Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Edwards family, Oliver is appealing his termination.