JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The mother of a 22-year-old man shot and killed by a Jacksonville police officer said the young people in the city are at war with each other.
Vernell Bing Jr. was shot once in the side of the head after leading officers on 3.7-mile, high-speed chase that ended when it appeared he intentionally drove into an officer's cruiser on a Springfield street, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
Bing's mother, Shirley McDaniel, said her son had a criminal past, but he's not to blame for the deadly incident.
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“They’re going at each other, because it’s a war out here. And the leader of that war is JSO, right in this city, it is,” McDaniel said.
JSO Chief Chris Butler said Bing was in a red Chevrolet Camaro wanted in connection with an April shootout that was spotted Sunday afternoon in Northwest Jacksonville.
After the collision, the Camaro's metrics showed it was going 53 mph and not braking when it struck Officer Tyler Landreville's oncoming cruiser on 9th Street.
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The police cruiser was disabled, and Bing's car left the road and struck a building. Butler said Landreville got out of his car and walked toward the Camaro without pulling his weapon. He ordered the man, who was out of his car, to surrender, and something caused Landreville to pull his gun and fire five times, hitting Bing once in the head, Butler said.
Bing, who was unarmed at the time, died the next day at UF Health.
McDaniel said her son had paid for the crimes he committed. She said the bigger question is: How did he get to that point?
“Everything that our kids got in the community, as far as drugs or anything, y’all brought it there,” McDaniel said.
Standing at the corner where Bing was shot, his cousin, Tasha Thomas, told News4Jax she didn’t think he ever had a fair chance in life.
“At the end of the day, he was profiled. It's no doubt about that,” Thomas said. “He was racially profiled. He was stereotyped. He has been stereotyped as a kid.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Bing's family with expenses
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Several community and civil rights groups have joined Bing's family to ask for an independent investigation into why Landreville fired his weapon.
They say they want change from the status quo and have been holding rallies both at City Hall and at the intersection where Bing hit Landreville head-on before being shot.
Butler said JSO will be handling the investigation, but Bing’s family said that’s not good enough.
“There is going to be an independent investigation that’s going on,” Thomas said. “That’s being worked out with his mom as we speak and other organizations that we have going on, set aside from what JSO and their autopsy is saying, because we don’t think it’s credible.”
Several civil rights groups also won't accept a lack of an independent investigation.
“Most of these investigations are internal investigations, and it's sad to say, but we don't believe the results that they come up with,” said Ben Frazier, spokesman with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “We don't believe the results they come up with nationally. We don't believe the internal investigations conducted by the JSO right here in our own hometown. We don't believe it. We think it's a cover-up. We think the Justice Department needs to review all past police shootings in this town.”
Frazier called for not only an independent investigation but a long-term goal of a partnership with the community to keep everyone accountable.
McDaniel said Tuesday at a City Hall rally that change is required.
“We want it to be fixed where if they shoot another child, we want all this corrected,” McDaniel said. “We don’t want it to keep going on and on and sweeping it under the rug. It’s time to lift that rug up and see how much dust is under there.”
McDaniel stood at Jacksonville City Hall with activists from the New Black Panthers and Kemetic and said that just having Landreville, a seven-year JSO veteran, fired isn’t enough. Sunday's incident was Landreville's first officer-involved shooting.
“However this battle goes, that’s how it’s going to go, but I’m going to stay standing until it ends,” McDaniel said.
Another rally was held Tuesday at the intersection where the shooting happened. The group The Kemetic Empire helped organize the event.
People gather to cook out and support Bing's family, all while building up the growing memorial for him.
"We hate building these (memorials), but it's a constant reminder of police brutality in this city, the excessive force that's used on this particular community," said Diallo Sekou with The Kemetic Empire.
Sekou said what happened is an example of continued police brutality targeting the black community.
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"We want the officer who shot Vernell Bing to be arrested and fire. We want body cameras. We also want cameras for the vehicles that patrol predominantly black neighborhoods," Sekou said. "We generally want to empower the community as well. We're not just out here dealing with the reactionary, and being emotional, but using this moment to educate and empower the community."
The group also handed out brochures at the rally that provided instructions how to file a complaint with the Department of Justice.