So a guy buys a pellet gun at a pawn shop, is walking home with his unloaded purchase and gets gunned down by cops because of frightened 911 callers.
Now his killer, who received a commendation for heroically putting a round into an unarmed man is involved in an apparent cover-up of this incident. Another case of Walking While Black with a poorly wrapped package.
Remember, when you purchase even a pellet gun, you probably should cover it completely, because stupid, as we know from now several Walmart aisle shootings of Black men handling pellet guns.
And never sing to yourself while walking down the street because someone might think you're, well crazy, especially if you carry your "firearm" in a threatening way across your shoulders and behind your neck with both arms because only exhibition trick shooters do that.
And another aspect of the police account is also being contradicted — by a man who called 911 in alarm when he saw McBean walking around with the air rifle but who also says McBean never pointed it at police or anyone else.
Michael Russell McCarthy, 58, told NBC News that McBean had the Winchester Model 1000 Air Rifle balanced on his shoulders behind his neck, with his hand over both ends, and was turning around to face police when one officer began shooting.
"He [McBean] couldn't have fired that gun from the position he was in. There was no possible way of firing it and at the same time hitting something," McCarthy said. "I kind of blame myself, because if I hadn't called it might not have happened."...
McCarthy called 911 and the tapes show he told the dispatcher, with urgency and alarm in his voice, that it looked like a .22 caliber rifle or a pellet gun. "I will say this: He's not like acting crazy or aggressive with it, he's not shaking it or nothing," he told them. "I'm not going to say he's waving it, he's just walking along with it."
Two other people also called 911. One of them, a woman, said: "He's carrying what looks like some sort of BB gun, shotgun, I don't know what it is [but] it's camouflaged, and he's screaming really loud to himself. It could be a fake gun, but it looks like it could be real, too."
Nearly two years later, the shooting is still the subject of an "active investigation" by prosecutors. McBean's family filed a wrongful death and misconduct lawsuit against the sheriff's office several weeks ago.
Their attorney, civil rights lawyer David Schoen, says the photo of McBean with the headphones — which he provided to NBC News — is evidence of a "coverup."
The witness who took it, a nurse who asked to remain anonymous, says she pointed out the earbuds to police at the scene, after they rebuffed her offer to provide first aid to the dying man.
A transcript shows that Deputy Peter Peraza, who fired the fatal shots, repeatedly told sheriff's investigators that he did not see anything in McBean's ears.
And the homicide detective who led an internal review told McBean's relatives in an email that officers on the scene "confirmed" he was not wearing a earpiece — after the family explained that he always had them on when he was out walking. The detective said the buds were found in his pocket, with his phone, at the hospital.
"I was highly upset," McBean's mother, Jennifer Young, said of the moment she learned about the photo. "I said, 'They lied to me. What else have they lied about?'"
The Broward Sheriff's office declined to comment on the lawsuit, the investigation and its decision to give Peraza a commendation three months after the shooting.