Chavis Carter’s girlfriend told investigators he had a gun on him

Chavis Carter’s girlfriend told an investigator he called her from the car and said he had a gun with him, police said Wednesday.

Jonesboro, Arkansas Police offered those and other details involving Carter’s shooting death on July 28th. The death was ruled a suicide in an autopsy report released earlier this week.

According to CBS News:

Chavis Carter’s girlfriend also told the investigator that Carter said he loved her and that he was scared, according to the police statement, which did not identify the woman. Phone records showed Carter made two calls, at least one of which was from the back of the patrol car, police said.

Benjamin Irwin, an attorney representing Carter’s family, said Wednesday that he was reviewing the latest information from police.

“I think the critical points still remain that this young man was in police custody,” he said. “He lost his life at a time when they had a responsibility and duty to protect him.”

Police have been facing scrutiny since they said officers searched Carter twice but didn’t find a gun before he was fatally shot in the back of a patrol car. Race has also been an issue since Carter is Black, and the two officers that arrested him were white.

The police statement stated the officer missed the gun.

“It is presumed that Carter secreted the gun in the rear of the car after the pat-down but before the cuffing and second search,” the statement said.

The statement said it was a brief preliminary statement, and stating Carter’s investigation isn’t complete.

However, the statement said evidence and witness statements were consistent with the medical examiner’s conclusion that Carter killed himself.

On Chavis not being checked for residue:

The Arkansas state crime lab confirmed Wednesday that it did not perform gunshot residue testing on Carter, saying it doesn’t do that kind of analysis on victims of homicides or suicides.

The confirmation came after Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates told The Associated Press that the department had requested the testing but that it wasn’t done because of the agency’s policy.

The lab’s chief criminalist, Lisa Channell, said the testing can indicate whether a person was in an environment with gunshot residue, but “it cannot tell you whether the person pulled the trigger or not.”

The crime lab’s policy is not new. A 2001 memo sent to law enforcement officers said being in close proximity to a gun when it’s fired can lead to positive gunshot residue test results and that negative gunshot residue results don’t mean someone didn’t fire a gun.

Still, Irwin questioned why the test wasn’t conducted.

“To me, that’s horrible,” he said.

Police previously released video recorded from dashboard cameras the night of the shooting, but the footage didn’t appear to show when officers found Carter slumped over and bleeding in the backseat of a patrol car as described in a police report.

Police said there were problems with the audio and video that explain the absence of a gunshot or noise on the recordings.

Irwin didn’t buy that explanation.

“These things are crystal clear from a reception standpoint and from a functioning standpoint,” he said. “And then they just malfunction for three minutes when this young man lost his life? I am just not ready to accept that as the answer.”

The police statement came out less than an hour before Carter’s mom marched with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other supporters in Jonesboro.

“We hope that people concerned about justice, white and black, would find some common ground as we pursue this case of justice,” Jackson told reporters in Memphis, Tenn., hours before the Jonesboro march. “We simply want justice and fairness in the land. … We are convinced the explanations given so far are not credible ones.”