A grieving father is yet to let go of his son's death and asking for police to re-open the investigation into the death of Michael Bell Jr. death. The young boy was shot in 2014, and his dad ran a $65,000 full page ad in the Washington post on Tuesday.
According to police reports, When police stopped Michael Bell Jr. on the 9th of November, 2014. He was drunk and not cooperating with the police, this action led to a scuffle, but he was later put on a hold by the police over a car in the family driveway, when suddenly an officer, Erich Strausbaugh yelled "He has my gun." Another cop rushed to where he was being held, and shot him in the head.
Michael died three hours later.
After his death, the Kenosha police department called the death "a justifiable homicide", a statement that his father believes makes no sense. When the Bell's sued the Police Department, it turns out that the stories of the four police officers at the scene did not match those of the witnesses and neighbours, or also with medical evidence.
The officer that shot Michale was Alberto Gonzalez, In the reenactment by the police said that he was positioned to the left of Michael and could not see if he had a gun or not, but according to witnesses, Gonzalez was between Michael and Strausbaugh. Also,an autopsy showed that he was shot in the right side of the head, and not the left.
The city gave the Bell's family $1.75 million before the case went to trial, still not satisfied, the father of the deceased hired a retired police detective, Russell Beckman of the Kenosha Police Department to look into the events of the day the young man was shot.
According to Beckman, police might have either missed or ignored a broken car mirror that was at the centre of the scuffle with the deceased. He then demonstrated this with an unloaded gun and a police holster similar to the one officer Strausbaugh was wearing.
Beckman explained that; "The gun comes in contact with the mirror and gets caught in the jacket gap"
Mr Bell now believes it was the mirror, and not his son that was grabbing the officer's belt, but all effort to get the state, county and Federal officials to look into the new evidence has proved to go nowhere, and Kenosha County district attorney has said that the time frame to convict any of the officers involves in the scuffle has passed.
Michal Bell while talking about his son shooting said; Unless you've gone through it, it's a degree of suffering that nobody else can understand
