Originally published at National Justice.
6/28/21 National Justice has received word that the photo circulated belonged to a different Mike Davis at Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office.
We are retracting this part of the story until more information becomes available.
A 17-year-old boy, Hunter Brittain, was shot by police near Cabot, Arkansas last week in what witnesses and family members are saying was a homicide.
According to his grandmother, a witness who was his passenger, and his employer, Brittain, who is white, got up in the middle of the night to try and fix his truck after being called to report to work at his construction job at 6 AM.
After leaving the auto shop to test drive his vehicle, Brittain was stopped at a traffic light by a Lonoke County Sheriff’s Department deputy.
According to another teenager, who was in the truck during the incident, Brittain’s truck was not coming to a full stop when he pulled over, so he got out and attempted to put a can of motor oil behind the tire to stop it from rolling.
It was then that Sgt. Michael Davis, who has been on the force since 2013, opened fire and killed him.
Only Black Lives Matter?
The local community has reacted with fury at the incident. They have been protesting every night since the incident. One video on Facebook shows trucks doing burnouts in the parking lot of the local Sheriff’s office to express their rage.
Sheriff John Staley has attempted to quell crowds, led by Brittain’s heartbroken grandmother, that have been making noise outside his police department by telling them that they were suspending Davis and that Arkansas State Police were investigating the incident.
But Staley and local media have not released a photo of the officer in question, nor any details outside of his name. Nobody has even confirmed if Davis even had his body camera on during what appears to be an appalling act of callous disregard for human life.
While the NAACP and Urban League have released statements condemning the police shooting, attempts by some younger members of the protest to generate national attention to this case by tying it to the Black Lives Matter movement have failed.
So far, national media has refused to report on this textbook case of police malfeasance, despite the fact that the victim is highly sympathetic.. As of this time, there has been no interest from the FBI to look into whether Brittain’s civil rights were violated. The people protesting appear to be white and local, suggesting that regional Black Lives Matter and leftist groups are not offering any meaningful support.
Lonoke County is poor and overwhelmingly white, with a per capita income of $17,397, which is well below the federal poverty line. This allows institutional abuses to go unchallenged.
National Justice will continue following this story as it develops.