The investigation continues into how a young black man managed to shoot himself in the head while his hands were cuffed behind his back after being searched twice and placed in the back seat of a Jonesboro, Ark., police car.
That's what happened, according to the report filed by two Jonesboro police officers.
Chavis Chacobie Carter, 21, of Southaven, Mississippi, died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to police records.
Honest. It's in the report. "Self-inflicted."
According to the police report, Carter was a passenger in a pickup truck that was stopped just before 10 o’clock Saturday night on Haltom Street in Jonesboro.
Officer Keith Baggett said while he searched the vehicle, Officer Ron Marsh questioned and searched Carter. He reportedly found “some marijuana” and several new plastic baggies on Carter. No mention of what "some marijuana" means in terms of weight, volume or street value.
According to the report, Officer Marsh ran Carter’s information through dispatch and learned that he was wanted on a warrant out of DeSoto County, Mississippi.
After confirming the warrant, Officer Baggett said Officer Marsh ordered Carter to exit the patrol unit, placed him into handcuffs, searched him a second time then placed him into the back seat of the patrol unit.
While he and Officer Marsh walked back to his patrol unit, Officer Baggett said a car passed and then he heard “a loud thump with a metallic sound.” At the time he believed the vehicle had run over a piece of metal on the road.
That's just what it sounded like, he said.
Officer Bagget went back to his car to transfer the prisoner. Officer Marsh went back and talked to the other two people who were in the truck with Carter, turned them loose, got back in his car and prepared to leave. That's when he heard someone pounding on his trunk, he said.
It was Officer Bagget. He said that the prisoner had shot himself in the head.
They both went to Officer Bagget's squad car, opened the back passenger side door and found Carter in a “sitting position slumped forward with his head in his lap.” Officer Marsh said there was a large amount of blood on Carter’s shirt, pants, seat and floor. He also said Carter’s hands were still cuffed behind his back. A small caliber handgun was reportedly found beside him.
The left-handed suspect had somehow managed to shoot himself in the right temple with his hands cuffed behind him.
Well, doggone it. How in the heck did he get a gun in the car after being searched twice, get out of those cuffs, then shoot himself in the head, get the cuffs back on before the officers could see what happened?
Well, it was night time.
Carter died at a nearby hospital. Officers Baggett and Marsh are on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. And Carter's mother thinks the police killed her son.
“I think they killed him, my son wasn’t suicidal”, said Teresa Carter.
She says her son called his girlfriend while pulled over, to say he’d call her from jail. The mother said she was also told her son was shot in his right temple. But she says he was left handed. She says it just doesn’t add up.
Police say they’re still investigating and haven’t ruled out the possibility that someone else may have shot Chavis Carter.
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