Body cam footage shows fatal encounter between Hope Mills 17-year-old and Greensboro police
Attorneys for the family of Nasanto Antonio Crenshaw, the 17-year-old shot and killed by a Greensboro police officer, released a statement on Tuesday following the release of video footage showing the incident.
The interaction between Crenshaw and Cpl. Matthew L. Sletten from August was released Tuesday morning. In total, 104 videos were released.
Officers believed Crenshaw was driving a stolen vehicle from Fayetteville when he was stopped last August on West Market Street in Greensboro. The department said two other teenagers were riding inside the vehicle.
Crenshaw, nicknamed "Duke," was from Hope Mills. The two others in the vehicle were 15 and 17 years old.
In March, it was determined no charges would be filed in the shooting, and Guilford County District Attorney Avery Crump found Sletten was justified to use deadly force.
Dash cam video showed Sletten try to pull over a white sedan in a shopping center parking lot.
Greensboro police say as officers approached the car, Crenshaw took off. When the vehicle was stopped for a second time, several teens jumped out and ran away.
At one point in the video, the headlights of the stolen car shine toward the officer just before he fires his gun.
After the shots were fired, the video shows the car stopped and crashed when a passenger gets out. Video shows the officer ordering the teen to stay on the ground. The image of that teen is blurred in the video and the conversation is muted because of the person's age.
Crenshaw’s family, including his mother Wakita Doriety, is represented by attorneys Harry Daniels, John Burris and Chimeaka White. The group filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Greensboro and Sletten in connection with the killing in March.
"Why couldn't you shoot out the tires?" said Doriety in an interview with WRAL News in August. "Why couldn't you throw down some strips?" she asks, tearfully. "Anything besides shooting him dead. And that's what you did. You shot him dead. I mean, them just facts."
The attorneys issued this statement Tuesday on behalf of Crenshaw's family:
“Cpl. Sletten’s life was never in any danger. Nasanto Crenshaw was never a threat. He was scared, unarmed and running for his life when this officer gunned him down and killed him.
“The wheels of the car were clearly turned away from Sletten and he simply wasn’t in the car’s path when he fired the first shot. The front of the car had passed when he fired his second and the car had passed entirely when he fired the third shot killing Nasanto and barely missing a 14-year-old sitting in the passenger seat. Cpl. Sletten and District Attorney Crump may not know the difference between a passing car and one trying to run you over, but the people do."
The family points to the body camera video showing the wheels of the car turned away from the officer at the moment that first shot was fired.
Sletten has been on administrative duty since the shooting, pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
