On the night of October 16 in Columbus, Mississippi a very sketchy scenario transpired during a traffic stop that led to the death of 26-year-old Ricky Ball.
When the car Ball had been riding in was pulled over for “careless driving, no light above the license plate and lack of insurance,” he gave chase where he was eventually caught and killed by Columbus police officers, Canyon Boykin, Johnny Branch and Yolanda Young.
While all the above information are facts, the in-betweens of the ordeal get a little hazy.
Here’s what the coalition for Justice For Ricky Ball had to say.
(A) when Boykin and his gang pulled over the car that Ricky was a passenger in, Ricky jumped out and was running AWAY before Boykin and his gang could even get out of their unmarked car.
(B) Boykin jumped out of his car and fired at least two shots at Ricky WITHOUT ANY interaction between him and Ricky whatsoever. By the time Boykin began shooting, Ricky was yards away from him. Ricky was too far away for Boykin to try to tase or arrest Ricky.
(C) While chasing Ricky, Boykin fell into a ditch that Ricky jumped over, Boykin came up in the ditch shooting several more shots at Ricky. Ricky is running away from Boykin this whole time and at some point Ricky is hit from behind by some of Boykin’s bullets.
(D) As Ricky is running through his neighborhood screaming “y’all help me, they gonna kill me”, neighbors began coming outside their homes to see what all the shooting and yelling was about. One of Boykin’s bullets went into one of these neighbors’ door. Ricky eventually hid underneath the home of one neighbor, but Boykin and his gang found Ricky and pulled him from underneath the house and placed Ricky between that home and another one.
(E) Although officers on the scene were intimidating the people watching this incident by pointing guns in these people’s faces telling them to get in the house and to get out of their own windows, some people still managed to see officers tase Ricky while he was laying there bleeding to death. Neighbors also managed to see an officers plant a gun near where they had laid Ricky after pulling him from underneath a home.
(F) The paramedics involved took entirely too long to move from their staging area up the street from where Ricky was laying to the actual place where Ricky was laying. The paramedics did not leave the scene to take Ricky to the hospital with any sirens on or with any interior lights on or any police escorts. The paramedics left the shooting scene in no hurry at all as if they were carrying a dead body, even though Ricky was alive when they put him inside the ambulance.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, police chief Tony Carleton submitted his letter of resignation, assistant chief Tony McCoy announced his retirement, Boykin was fired while Branch and Young were suspended for 30 days without pay. (Hence, the reason Black Lives Matter was birthed to begin with.)
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the FBI are currently investigating the circumstances revolving around the death of Ricky Ball.
H/T: Raw Story
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Photo: Family Handout
