Dayton community members want answers after teen shot and killed by police

“I remain concerned about the shooting death of 16-year-old Brian Moody on Saturday evening. He was a child,” Joshua Ward, senior pastor at Omega Baptist Church in northwest Dayton, said during a recent Dayton City Commission meeting. “Neither the recent wave of gun violence nor the multiple negative images of Brian that have been flooded throughout media outlets over the past few days should be used to somehow justify the death sentence that was doled out to him on Saturday evening.”

The Dayton Unit NAACP, Black Lives Matter Dayton and a couple of other local grassroots groups say the evidence released so far does not convince them Moody pointed a gun at officers or was a threat to their safety.

Moody was fatally wounded on the evening of Saturday, June 29, in a grassy lot next to a home along Negley Place in northwest Dayton.

Dayton police Chief Kamran Afzal said officers were engaged in proactive efforts to try to break up parties that have been going on around the city involving young people that have led to shootings and violence.

Afzal, two days after the shooting, said Moody was shot after he turned toward officers while holding an automatic handgun in his hand that had 31 rounds.

Dayton police released partial clips of video footage — about 35 seconds long combined — from body cameras worn by two police officers who fired eight shots at Moody, who died after being struck once in the shoulder, which led to internal injuries, police officials said.

The clips end right before the moment officers opened fired on Moody. Police released images from the body camera video of a gun lying in the grass next to where Moody was killed.

About eight speakers at a recent Dayton City Commission meeting said they watched the snippets of body cam footage that were released to the public and they were troubled by what they saw.

Multiple people said they saw no justification for why the officers fired at Moody.

Several speakers said Moody was “murdered” and a few said the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office should not be in charge of the criminal investigation into the officers’ actions because it has close ties to the city and is not a neutral party. Some people are calling for police to release of all the body camera footage from the incident.

Pastor Ward said it’s possible the community does not yet have all the relevant facts and maybe there’s more to this story. But he said something about this incident does not feel right.

“If this video is all that we have, I will simply say it isn’t enough,” he said. “It isn’t enough to convince me that Brian ever pointed a gun at the officer or in any way threatened his life or safety.”

The Rev. Carrlo Heard, an assistant pastor with Omega Baptist, said he watched the body cam footage 10 times and he doesn’t see any evidence that Moody pointed a gun at the officers. He said the young man did not appear to be a threat and he was shot and killed while running away.

“It showed this young man doing what I would have done — I would have ran, a pastor, I would have ran because this is the result when police get behind young Black men,” he said.

Afzal after the commission meeting said he understands this an emotional time and that Moody’s death has caused a lot of pain for his loved ones and the community.

“I understand the pain,” he said. “My job is to wait and see what the criminal investigation shows.”

Afzal said he understands the importance of transparency, but he is limited in what he can say because he cannot interfere with an active criminal investigation into the shooting. He said every single shooting goes before the grand jury for consideration of criminal charges.

An administrative investigation would come afterwards that looks at whether department policies were followed.

Afzal said the officers will have to explain what they saw and why they took certain actions. He said body cameras don’t show everything that officers see with their eyes.

Members of the Dayton City Commission said Moody’s death is heartbreaking and they understand why the community is hurting and frustrated. But they asked the community for patience as this incident is investigated.

Commissioner Matt Joseph said the community has failed its children. Commissioner Shenise Turner-Sloss said the commission will release all the facts and information about this event to the community when that becomes available.

Dayton Unit NAACP President Derrick Foward during a press conference on Friday said the community needs to find out why police tried to make contract with Moody and what the officer was thinking when he shot the teen.

Foward said Moody was carrying a gun and he may have run away for that reason. He previously told the Dayton Daily News that Moody may have been trying to ditch his gun as he ran away.