Local faith leaders and the family of a black man killed by Colorado Springs Police stood before a crowd of about a hundred people outside of the department’s operations center on Tuesday to ask again for a new and independent investigation into the shooting.
Nineteen-year-old De’Von Bailey was killed on the evening of August 3 after police stopped him on suspicion of robbery. Police say Bailey was shot after reaching for a weapon, though witnesses say officers fired multiple bullets into Bailey’s back as he tried to flee.
"Never think it can never happen to you, because I thought that," said Bailey’s mother, Delisha Searcy. “So we have to fight for justice, so no one else has to feel this pain of not seeing their child anymore.”
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office is handling the investigation of the killing and expects to finish their report by the end of this week, when they have said some part of the officer’s body camera footage will be released.
Speakers including Pastor Terry Thomas said the relationship between the Sheriff's Office and the Police Department it's investigating is far too close.
"History will remind us and if we were wise we would listen to it that friends cannot be trusted to investigate friends," Thomas said.
“We do not trust the process of investigation in this case,” said Reverend Promise Lee. “Regardless of how you try to sweep this under the rug, you will not be successful.”
Bailey family attorney Darold Killmer is asked city leaders to turn the investigation over to the State Attorney General's office and a grand jury of citizens.
"This assures us of the transparency that we're all entitled, and most pointedly, that the Bailey Family is entitled to," Killmer said.
Neither the police department nor the office of Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers responded to requests for comment for this story.
