The Wilmington Police Department released body cam footage Thursday from the police-involved shooting of 19-year-old Kadir Skinner, who died as a result of his injury.
City Councilmember Yolanda McCoy is the Public Safety Committee Chair. She said she’s glad the footage was released but the PD needs to improve its communication policies.
“There are definitely steps that we need to take in order to make certain that we preserve the investigation,” McCoy said. “But at the same time, I think it's played out a little longer than it needed to… It was never so much about the community as much as it was trying to let the parents understand what happened. Why was our son, you know, why did this happen to our son?”
Councilmember Shané Darby said the released footage left her with more questions than answers.
“I think justice comes in many forms, right?” Darby said. “And I think conversation is justice – it’s actually reparations. And then I also believe justice in the police officer actually being charged or being held accountable for his actions.”
The Wilmington Police Department has kept the names of the police officers at the scene confidential, and the officer who shot Skinner is currently on paid administrative leave.
“If we make mistakes, if we slip up, we still are being held accountable for our mistakes as well,” McCoy said. “And so just because a person has a badge doesn't mean that they no longer have to be held accountable… because of the fact that the police were involved, there should have been some type of response from either administration or City Council much sooner than it happened.”
City Council members held a public news conference about a week after Skinner’s death. The Mayor and his administration did not attend and published a written press release shortly after.
McCoy said the city’s leaders need to be quicker to act in the future.
“I think that we got a little turned around trying to trying to motivate our administration to do the thing that we probably should have just went ahead and did,” McCoy explained. “... About a week later, we just went ahead and took care of it because we weren't able to get the administration to move.”
Darby said she is an abolitionist, meaning long-term goals for the future are to end the carceral system as it currently exists.
“But I think that is a far out goal and something that we can work towards,” Darby said. “... But for right now, the answer is reform… on a city level, where I have control, for Wilmington PD internally, like in their department and externally to become a better department, right? For them, for the community, what does that look like?”
Darby said she wants to see legislative policies put in place after an external audit of the PD to put an end to discriminatory practices at the hands of law enforcement.
