Police officer who fatally shot 15-yr-old boy is fired

It happened again, this time on a residential street in this working-class

On Tuesday, the chief of the Balch Springs Police Department announced that he had fired the officer who used a rifle to shoot into a moving vehicle full of teenagers and killed Jordan Edwards, 15, who was in the front passenger seat.

The officer, Roy Oliver, joined the department in July 2011. The police chief, Jonathan Haber, declined to say what policies had been violated, citing Oliver’s right to appeal the termination. Haber said he had made the decision based in part on the department’s internal affairs investigation and the body-camera footage from the two officers at the scene, Oliver and an unnamed officer.

“You have my assurances that my department will continue to be responsive, transparent and accountable,” Haber said at a news conference early Tuesday evening.

The police chief declined to specify Oliver’s race.

Although the internal affairs inquiry has been completed, a criminal investigation into the shooting is being conducted by two Dallas County agencies, the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office. Haber declined to describe Oliver’s disciplinary record as an officer.

Efforts to reach Oliver on Tuesday night were unsuccessful.

Responding to the officer’s firing, members of the Edwards family said in a statement Tuesday that they were grateful for Haber’s decision but added that there was “a long road ahead” and called for Oliver to be charged with murder. The statement, released by S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the family, criticized the department’s treatment of Jordan’s brothers after the shooting.

Jordan was in the car with four other teenagers: Jordan’s two brothers, Vidal and Kevon, and two friends. After the shooting, some or all of the teenagers who had been in the vehicle were “immediately treated as common criminals by other officers” and “manhandled, intimidated and arrested,” the statement read. It appeared that all those who had been arrested were released.

It was about 11 p.m. Saturday when Jordan left a house party after the police arrived, responding to reports of underage drinking. The police said officers heard multiple gunshots coming from outside the residence, causing a chaotic scene of teenagers fleeing. Jordan and the four others climbed into a car. According to the law firm representing the family, they were driving away from officers, with Jordan in the front passenger seat, as one officer — armed with an AR-15 rifle — opened fire and shot Edwards in the head, killing him.