Body camera footage provides more details about police shooting in Jeffersonville

Body camera footage released Tuesday by Jeffersonville Police offered a closer look at a shooting by officers earlier this month that left a 44-year-old man dead.

In the videos, which were shown to media members at a press conference and will be released to the general public when the investigation is finished, three different officers are shown firing at Robert Atkins on March 9 at an apartment complex in the Southern Indiana city. The officers had received complaints about an "allegedly mentally disturbed man" walking around the complex's parking lot in the 1500 block of E. 8th Street while waving a handgun, according to a statement from Indiana State Police, which is also investigating the incident.

Jeffersonville Police Chief Kenny Kavanaugh said the result of the shooting, which killed Atkins, is "not what we wanted." But he believes the shooting was justified, as officers were working to keep the public safe. The officers tried to deescalate the situation, he said, but were forced to respond after Atkins "(started) to fire that firearm and pull that trigger." The footage that followed, he said, showed the officers "responded through their training."

The video shows footage recorded by three of the five officers who responded to the call. Those three officers fired "multiple" shots after Atkins fired his gun into the sky twice. The officers asked him to drop his weapon after his first shot but shot him after he proceeded to fire another shot. Atkins pointed his gun toward the officers between the two shots he fired, the footage shows.

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Atkins was hit twice, the footage shows -- once in the upper leg and another in his chest. The officers applied a tourniquet to his upper leg and attempted to stop the bleeding in his upper body as well. He was taken to University of Louisville Hospital and was pronounced dead on March 12, the Jefferson County Coroner's Office said.

Atkins was a veteran, Kavanaugh confirmed, and he said witnesses told officers he'd had issues in the past with substance usage. Kavanaugh said we need to "look at how we can better protect and take care of our veterans and make sure that when we return (them) to society that we're doing everything in our capacity to be able to support them for serving our country and making the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms and our liberty."

The officers who fired their weapons are on administrative leave as the Indiana State Police investigation continues.

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Reach Ana Rocío Álvarez Bríñez at abrinez@gannett.com; follow her on Twitter at @SoyAnaAlvarez.