The mother of an unarmed black teen who was shot by Pasadena police in March said Saturday that details released from her son’s autopsy report has only increased her pain and frustration.
Kendrec McDade was shot just before 11 p.m. March 24 while running away from a man claiming McDade and a juvenile friend had allegedly tried to rob him.
Autopsy Report: Kendrec McDade
The case became the center of controversy because the 911 caller admitted to lying about being robbed by two males with guns so he could get a quicker police response.
The McDade shooting drew parallels to the shooting in Florida of Trayvon Martin.
McDade’s death pitted the black community in Pasadena against the police department and prompted a federal civil rights lawsuit by the McDade family alleging police bias against blacks in the city.
“I go to the graveyard almost every day,” said McDade's mother, Anya Slaughter, from the offices of the family lawyer, Caree Harper. “It’s hard for me to let go.”
“I wish this never happened because he was always there for me. I can't do nothing without him,” said McDade’s sister, Alana Brady.
The autopsy report, which was released to the media on Friday, found McDade was shot at close range seven times by two Pasadena police officers.
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The Pasadena police department says the autopsy showed McDade had no gunshot wounds to the back.
But attorney Harper took issue with that, pointing out that entry wounds in the back of McDade's arms show that he was turned around when the officers fired.
McDade was handcuffed after he was shot, as per Pasadena police protocol, but McDade’s family says it took too long to get him medical care.
Paramedics found McDade lying face down in the middle of the street with his hands cuffed behind his back, the autopsy report said.
“They noted the decedent to be combative and restrained him,” wrote coroner’s investigator Kelli Blanchard in her report on March 27.
He died March 25 at 12:28 a.m. at Huntington Memorial Hospital.
The family called irrelevant the report's finding that he had alcohol and marijuana in his system.
“I want the officers to be prosecuted for what they did,” said father Kenneth McDade. ”I don't want them to be treated like they're getting patted on the back because that's what it looks like to me.”
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