Shreveport Blacks protest White police officers' shooting of unarmed Black man

Jet, May 26, 2003

Hundreds of Black residents of Shreveport, LA, attended a march and rally sponsored by the Louisiana NAACP on the steps of the Caddo Parish Courthouse to protest a recent police shooting that left an unarmed Black man dead.

The tension between Shreveport's Black citizens and the authorities began after Marquise Hudspeth, 25, was fatally shot by three White police officers following a car chase that ended with his cellular telephone being mistaken for a pistol. Since then mediators with the U.S. Justice Department have met with community leaders to try to ease tension between citizens and the police to allow residents to air their grievances.

On the evening of March 15 police said that they observed Hudspeth driving "erratically" just before midnight. "When police attempted to stop the vehicle, the driver refused to stop and continued driving erratically," said police spokeswoman Kacee Hargrave.

A car chase between Hudspeth and the police took place that lasted for nearly 5 miles.

According to the Shreveport newspaper the Times, Cpl. Denver Ramsey and patrolmen Michael Armstrong and Steve Hathorn were about to end the pursuit when Hudspeth pulled his gray Cadillac into a Circle K convenience store parking lot. Hudspeth got out of his car and walked away from the officers.

Police Chief Jim Roberts says that after ignoring several commands to stop, Hudspeth, who stood "4 or 5 feet" from the officers, turned and pointed a "chrome, shiny" object that appeared to be a gun but was later discovered to be a cell phone.

"He was holding it like you'd hold a pistol in your hand," said Roberts. The officers then fired multiple shots from their Glock .40-caliber handguns.

Videotape from the dashboard-mounted cameras in the patrol cars revealed that 15 shots were fired, eight of them hitting Hudspeth in the back. The tapes show him falling to the ground, at which point the officers stopped shooting.

Hudspeth's wife, Lekesha, said, "it was real messed up with the way things were handled ... real messed up with what they say he did, the things they said he had done," reports the Times.

Lekesha Hudspeth could not comment on why her husband may have been driving "erratically" because, she said, "I don't know if it that's true."

At JET press time the FBI was said to be investigating the shooting. Investigations by the police and district attorney have cleared the three officers involved who were on paid administrative leave following the incident.