- Police Brutality Watch

Cops Claim they thought Jernard Thomas had a gun. But Witnesses Say Police Saw & Acknowledged that the Gun fell to the ground during the chase.

A large pool of blood stained the grass in front of a back-yard woodpile where Jenard "Nordy" Thomas was fatally shot by two New Orleans police officers Thursday night. The officers, Scott Rodrigue and Joseph Waguespack Jr., fired seven or eight shots after Thomas, according to police, stuck a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol in Rodrigue's ribs. Thomas' father, however, is adamant that the plain clothes officers shot an unarmed man. Jerry Thomas said the gun his son had been carrying in his waistband fell to the ground before he bolted into the yard of a home on Piety Street. "I saw the whole thing and my reaction is this: murder," said Thomas, who had followed his son and the officers into the yard. "They knew he didn't have a gun because he dropped it in front of the house. Some other cops brought it to the back and said, "Here's the gun." Another witness also said he saw the gun on the ground near the front of the house. "He did not have a gun when they shot him," Omar Taylor said. Earlier that night, Jenard Thomas, 25, and Taylor, who lives on the same block, went to a nearby salon to have their hair braided. The officers approached because Thomas acted suspiciously, Defillo said. "When the officers made eye contact, he clutched his waist with both hands," Defillo said. "At the same time, he took off running, which was probable cause under the law to go after him." At the shooting scene, a small bit of evidence -- apparently overlooked during the initial investigation -- seemed to raise additional questions. Several streaks of blood are visible on the side of a rickety wooden doghouse in the front half the yard, about 30 feet from the woodpile. If the blood was from Jenard Thomas, it would cast doubt on the police account that the entire confrontation unfolded in a back corner of the yard where Thomas allegedly pulled the gun. A high school graduate who attended Southern University at New Orleans, Thomas was a devoted father who supported his three children by working at a T-shirt shop when he wasn't in classes, family members said. [more] and [more]