Story out of Marksville, Louisiana:
A deputy city marshal charged with murder after a police body camera captured a 6-year-old boy's fatal shooting is asking a Louisiana judge to throw out his indictment, saying he acted in self-defense by opening fire on a car driven by the boy's father.
Prosecutors from Attorney General Jeff Landry's office said the video shows two deputy marshals firing from "a safe distance" as Christopher Few's car was backing away from them. "Perhaps most important, it shows Few with his hands in the air pleading for the officers to stop firing. They did not," prosecutors wrote in a filing this week.
But Derrick Stafford's attorneys say the video recording lacks audio for the first 27 seconds, making it impossible to determine if Stafford started shooting before or after Few raised his hands inside the car. Neither deputy knew that Few's son, Jeremy Mardis, was strapped in the front seat until after they stopped shooting, Stafford's attorneys added.
State Police have said the deputies opened fire on Few's car after a pursuit joined by a third deputy marshal and Marksville Police Sgt. Kenneth Parnell III. A police report says video from Parnell's body camera shows Few's empty hands were raised and visible inside the vehicle when gunfire erupted. The video hasn't been publicly released.
Stafford and Greenhouse await separate trials on second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder charges. Few was critically wounded in the shooting. Cont.
Story from - KATC/AP
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