MEMPHIS, Tenn. — There are still a lot of questions remaining after a shooting and standoff in northeast Memphis left a suspect dead and two officers injured.
Neighbors on Ptarmigan Street are still shocked by the mayhem that went down Thursday.
They knew something had gone terribly wrong when a barrage of officers armed in uniforms descended on the neighborhood
“They were everywhere. A few minutes earlier they were nowhere. Suddenly they were here saturated everywhere,” said Barbara Morris, who was visiting family in the neighborhood.
Officers were trying to execute a warrant but instead it turned into a shooting. The TBI says the officers were fired on and at least one officer returned fire.
Friday afternoon, the TBI identified the suspect as Andrew Christian. Christian was later found dead, but it’s not clear if he killed himself or if he was hit by an officers bullet.
Two officers were hurt. We talked to one neighbor who saw one of injured officers.
“The police officer was in the back of that car and he was bleeding, and that policeman was helping him,” said the neighbor.
The TBI is left to sort it all out. One thing we don’t know is if the Multi-Agency Gang Unit officers had on body cameras that would have recorded exactly what happened.
We asked if the Multi-Agency Gang Unit, which is made up of several different law-enforcement agencies, is required to have body cameras. MAG’s public information officer told us he believes the officers are to go by the policies of their respective agencies.
Police confirm one of their officers did fire at the scene.
The Memphis Police policy says officers should activate their body worn cameras when responding to all
calls of service prior to making the scene of a dispatched call. Those cameras are also supposed to be helpful for officers, too, to prove exactly what happened.
But in this case, until the TBI investigation is over, there’s no word on what went down.
“If you break the law—evidently he broke the law they were coming for him with warrants—you have got to know the consequences and what possibilities can happen,” said Morris.
The TBI also keeps a list of all incidents where officers fire their weapons and shoot someone. They tell us in the last two years, this is the first time the Multi-Agency Gang Unit has shot a person.