SHOOTING ACCOUNT: Uncle of man shot by police says he was inside house, not being threatened by nephew, when fatal shots fired at nephew.


The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Emma Perritt reports here on an addition to accounts of the recent fatal shooting of Roy Lee Richards by Little Rock Police Officer Dennis Hutchins.

The shooting on East 8th Street remains under investigation by police and prosecutors. The only information released so far is a bare police report that says Hutchins and another unnamed officer responded to a call that Richards  had been in a dispute with another man, identified in police reports as his uncle Derrell Underwood (identified on the video as Darrell Underwood). Hutchins said he shot  Richards because Richards had a “long gun” pointed at the back of Underwood. Our sources have confirmed it was a pellet, or BB, rifle.

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The article is based on a video made by Black Lives Matter of Little Rock and posted on YouTube. In it, Richards’ uncle said he’d been holding Richards on the ground, but let him go when a neighbor said police had arrived. He acknowledged the nephew’s weapon,  but said he told his nephew, “What are you going to do with that beside make me mad?” He said he then walked into his house and locked the door behind him. He said he was standing in a hallway in the house when he heard gunshots and that another man was with him.

“When Roy got shot, I was in the house,” Underwood says in the video. “I didn’t hear the police say anything.”

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The video  includes recording of calls to the police, including one from his uncle saying he just wanted his nephew away from his house. The video suggests only four seconds elapsed in the recording of a female neighbor’s call to police between the time of an excited male voice and shots being fired.

Black Lives Matter wants an independent investigation of the shooting.

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