After the killing of EJ Bradford, questions remain: Had police simply killed a bystander? Was Bradford actually shepherding others to safety as gunfire erupted?

There is nothing to mark the spot where EJ Bradford fell.

In an unremarkable corner of an unremarkable Alabama shopping mall, just a few miles from Birmingham, the cradle of the civil rights movement, routine has already gone back to normal. It is less than three weeks since the 21 year-old African American was gunned down by a police officer in circumstances that remain shrouded in controversy and conflicted narratives.

EJ Bradford was shot three times from behind by officer, autopsy reveals Read more

The white tiled flooring outside a footwear store had been covered in blood on the night of Thanksgiving when Bradford was present at the scene of an armed altercation involving at least two other men. But now it shimmers clean under the glaring lights, as Christmas carols drown out the noise of shoppers drifting between stores.

Police had initially identified Bradford, a high school graduate who had enlisted in the US army, as the shooter in a chaotic episode that left one 18 year-old man critically injured and a 12 year-old girl, not involved in the dispute, with a gunshot wound. But days later police were forced to acknowledge that another suspect had been identified and later arrested. Still, a series of questions remain.

Had police simply killed a bystander? Was Bradford actually a “good guy with a gun”, shepherding others to safety as gunfire erupted? Was he shot from behind? And would police body camera footage and surveillance video be released to reveal what really happened that evening?

A few years ago, when the high-profile police killings of a number of black men and boys prompted a national conversation about race and policing, the shooting of EJ Bradford would likely have dominated the national news for weeks. But just as shoppers have returned to their daily business here, so too has the news agenda . While many questions remain unanswered, an investigation by the Guardian, including interviews with friends of Bradford and eyewitnesses who have not spoken publicly before, has shed further light on his last seconds and hours.

The reporting corroborates some of the account provided by the Bradford family’s attorney, indicating he was shot from behind, facing downwards at the time an officer opened fire. But it also reveals that Bradford had known both men involved in the altercation, suggesting it is likely he was not an uninterested bystander to the event.

The 21 year-old had spent much of Thanksgiving hanging out with his oldest friends. First with Jamari Coney, his friend of five years, with whom he ate lunch, and then with his childhood friend Kriston Peterson with whom he had been catching up on the porch of a friend’s home during the rest of the afternoon.

“When I had last seen him he had a smile on his face, like he always do,” Peterson said, indicating there was nothing about Bradford’s mood that suggested he knew a conflict might occur later in the day.

Shortly after, Bradford headed to the Riverchase Galleria in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover with another group. Both Peterson and Coney said Bradford had gone with the intention of catching the Black Friday sales and had been due to link up with another friend, Tra’Vonte Todd, who worked at a local Walmart, later that evening.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police tending to 18-year-old Brian Wilson close to the body of EJ Bradford, according to a witness. Photograph: Laura Dial

All three friends found out about Bradford’s death from Facebook posts that showed his lifeless body sprawled out in a pool of blood just outside a Footaction store on the upper level of the mall.

“I found out my friend was dead from a picture, because I remember what he had on when I had seen him earlier.” Peterson said. “I was devastated.”

The precise details of the conflict that occurred at the mall that evening remain unclear and none of Bradford’s closest friends were present. Prosecutors now allege it was 20 year-old Erron Brown who shot and injured 18 year-old Brian Wilson. But crucially, it has now been established from both Bradford’s friends and a lawyer involved in the case, that Bradford knew both young men involved in the skirmish.

Erron Brown’s lawyer, Charles Salvagio, told the Guardian there was “something ongoing” between his client and Wilson, which could be proven by the existence of text messages between the two that allegedly indicate Wilson had told Brown to meet him at the store before the gunfire began. He said that Bradford and Brown had known each other too, (a claim supported by one of Bradford’s friends interviewed by the Guardian) and alleged without citing evidence, that Bradford had been part of the group that invited Brown to the store.

The mall was packed that evening. Thousands of people from all over the surrounding area had come for the sales. Two eyewitnesses – retail workers at stores metres away from the shooting – said they heard the first of at least two bursts of gunfire ring out around 9.50pm. It sent the mall into chaos as hundreds of people fled.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Laura Dial, who runs a custom jewelry store directly beneath the location of the shooting, said: ‘Everybody ran to wherever they could get to.’ Photograph: Laura Dial

“Everyone started screaming. Everybody ran to wherever they could get to,” said Laura Dial, who runs a custom jewelry store directly beneath the location of the shooting.

Although Dial did not see the next burst of shooting, which appears to have happened seconds after, another retail worker who did not want to reveal her name as she was not authorized to talk to media, said she witnessed the moment Bradford was shot. This worker, a manager at a shop opposite the site of the shooting on the upper level, heard the first round of gunfire and rushed to the window to lock the door, as is protocol in an active shooter situation.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The private autopsy documented three entry wounds from behind. Photograph: Courtesy Ben Crump

By this point, the witness said, two Hoover police officers who minutes earlier had been patrolling the same area, had sprinted to the scene and stood a few metres away to Bradford’s left. Bradford was now outside the Footaction store, standing still and staring down at Wilson who was lying close by after being shot. Bradford’s back was “partially turned” away from the officers with a firearm in his right hand, which was lowered, held out to his right flank but not pointed at anyone. His family have said the gun was legally purchased and he possessed a license to carry. Attorneys for the Bradford family say he did not discharge the weapon at any point.

“He just stood there, he continued to have his gun in his right hand,” the witness said. “The cops came running up, they approached him, they told him to put his gun down multiple times … He didn’t comply, he didn’t do anything.”

Then one officer, who was crouched, opened fire. It happened within a second or two of the last command to drop the weapon being shouted.

“It happened really, really fast,” the witness, who has been interviewed by state investigators three times but not previously spoken to media, said. Both officers were white men, the witness added.

A private autopsy, commissioned by Bradford’s family, indicates he was shot three times, once in the head, once in the neck, and once in the back. All the shots entered from behind.

Attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the family, has also viewed 30 seconds of footage showing the shooting. His recollection of the film suggests that Bradford had “moved away” from the officer before he opened fire.

The witness said Bradford was killed immediately.

The Hoover police department initially lauded the officer, who has not yet been named, a hero.

“Thank God we had our officers very close,” Police Chief Nick Derzis told local media. “They heard the gunfire, they engaged the subject, and they took out the threat.” But four days later the department was forced to concede that Bradford was unlikely to be the shooter. Seven days after the shooting Brown was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Wilson. His lawyer says he is not guilty. No one has yet been charged with shooting the 12-year-old girl.

The mismanagement, just as much as the circumstances of the shooting itself, has drawn the ire of local activists who have staged almost daily protests in the aftermath.

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The NAACP legal defense fund has asked the US Department of Justice to intervene in the investigation, which is currently being run by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency [Alea]. But such a move seems unlikely under the presidency of Donald Trump.

“This [Trump] administration has all but said we’re going to always side with the police no matter what the factual scenario is,” Crump told the Guardian. “That’s a 180 degree adjustment from the last [Obama] administration.”

“Now the president doesn’t say anything about [police shootings], the AG doesn’t say anything about it and it’s almost: out of sight out of mind. Your life don’t matter.”

The famed civil rights lawyer is well placed to make such an evaluation. Crump represented the families of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, all young black men and boys killed by law enforcement or security personnel during the Obama years. In many instances the Obama administration not only commented on the individual case, but commissioned a federal investigation into the departments responsible.

Trump has made no comment on the EJ Bradford shooting, or any other officer involved shooting since he became president. The justice department declined to comment for this article.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest April Pipkins holds a photograph of her deceased son, Emantic ‘EJ’ Bradford, during an interview in Birmingham, Alabama. Photograph: Jay Reeves/AP

Just two months before the shooting of Bradford, Trump’s former attorney general Jeff Sessions appeared at a policing symposium in Hoover a few miles from the Riverchase Galleria mall. In front of an audience of police, including Chief Derzis, Sessions lambasted reforms implemented by the Obama administration and declared: “Each one of you can be certain about this: we have your back and you have our thanks.”

Nonetheless, local lawyers suggest the Hoover department is unlikely to be as plagued with racial bias as departments, like Ferguson and Baltimore, that became notorious in the wake of sustained unrest after the killing of unarmed black men.

The Hoover police department has been sued in federal court just a handful of times in the last 10 years, once after a white officer allegedly used excessive force while arresting a black high-school aged girl after she told him to “leave her alone”. The second was for the use of excessive force during the arrest of a 71-year-old man who had called the police after a fire in his home.

“In terms of this [department] being a powder keg waiting for something to happen, no I don’t think so,” said Martin Weinberg, a Hoover based attorney specialising in police use of force cases.

The department did not respond to a request for comment and would not provide information about the racial or ethnic breakdown of its sworn officers.

As the Alea investigation into Bradford’s death continues to search for witnesses, it seems inevitable that footage of the shooting will not be made public for weeks if not months. And as tensions in Hoover continue to simmer, Bradford’s friends and family continue to mourn the smart, generous laid back young man who they say had a promising future ahead of him.

But even his closest friends accept the shooting may be far from a simple case of right and wrong. “It’s an active shooter in the mall so I can understand [the cop’s] side too,” said Peterson, “But he [Bradford] was probably shot in the wrong, and [the officer] could have handled the the situation a whole lot better than shooting him from behind.”