NEW ORLEANS — The infant boy injured Monday during a shootout between Mississippi police and the infant’s father died because of a single gunshot wound.
Harrison County Coroner Brian Switzer confirmed the cause of death after an autopsy on the child Wednesday morning.
La’Mello Parker who was just 4 months old, was apparently caught in the crossfire as officers open fire on his father a double murder suspect from Louisiana.
The coroner’s office said whether the bullet was shot at close range or from a distance and where the little boy was shot will be included in a final autopsy report sent to investigators and the county district attorney’s office.
Cellphone video shot by a witness on the highway showed police firing more than 20 shots at the car driven by 30-year-old Eric Derrell Smith. He was in the vehicle with his baby boy, when officers stopped the vehicle on I-10 in Biloxi.
“Once stopped, the police made no effort to communicate with this guy to engage him somehow and to talk him into giving up his weapon, getting the baby out of there,” Loyola Criminology Professor Emeritus George Capowich said.
Whether to use deadly force is a split-second decision for law enforcement. Capowich watched the cellphone video of the police stop and shooting.
He told WWL-TV, knowing there was a child in the car police had a chance to deescalate the situation after they flattened Smith tires with a spike strip and pushed him onto the median.
“The officers by not taking advantage of the fact that they had the situation stabilized, were then firing and exposing the child to the gunshots (and) exposing other people on the other side of the median.”
Capowich counted three officers out of their cars, possibly in the line of fire, shortly before the shooting started. One of them runs right past Smith’s vehicle.
A police K-9 is also seen running around the suspect’s car.
Then Smith points his gun out of the driver side window and shots are fired.
Smith was killed in the shootout.
"If the suspect in the car is jumping out, firing wildly, putting everyone in danger well then, the police have to do something because you can’t just let this person run amuck,” Capowich said. “But none of that seems to be going on.”
Just hours before the fatal shootout with police, Smith was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, 32-year-old Christin Parker and her 26-year-old nephew, Brandon Parker in Baker near Baton Rouge.
He was later spotted on I-10 near Slidell and police from many different agencies including the Louisiana State Police, Mississippi Highway Patrol and Harrison County Sheriff’s Office, followed him through Louisiana and Mississippi.
The Biloxi Police Department is heading up the use of force investigation.