'Just a kid in love with life': Dallas boy, 15, fatally shot by police while leaving party

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A 15-year-old boy is dead after police shot him while he was leaving a party in Texas on Saturday night.

Jordan Edwards was already heading home with his friends when police responded to noise complaints at a house party in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs.

Jordan was sitting in the passenger seat of a car with four of his friends when an officer opened fire on the vehicle with a rifle, striking the unarmed boy in the head. He died in hospital later that night. 

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Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber initially said the car was backing up in an "aggressive manner," prompting the unidentified officer to open fire. He later backed off that claim after reviewing body-cam footage from the scene. 

Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney representing Jordan's  family, spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off. Here is part of their conversation.

Carol Off: Mr. Merritt, as far as you know, what happened at this party on Saturday night after the police arrived?

Lee Merritt: When the children who were present at the party learned that the police were arriving, they began to disperse. My client was accompanied by four other young men ... and so they were going back to their car as police were arriving at the house party.

And as they got closer to their car, they began to hear gunshots in the area, and so they quickly got into their car. And as they backed up, they heard someone who was standing next to the front-right of the car holding a flash light who appeared to be a police officer shouting profanities at them.

Before they could react to the profanities, while the car was not moving, that person began to shoot into the car from the front right of the car, on the passenger side of the vehicle.

CO: The report is that the shots came from a rifle. What's the significance of that?

LM: A rifle was specifically designed to penetrate a car, so an officer using a rifle on a motor-vehicle would know that those bullets would be strong enough to actually penetrate the vehicle. It's almost with the intent of deadly force or a reckless disregard for the five teenage children within the car.

CO: Can you tell us about Jordan Edwards, the boy who died?

LM: Jordan Edwards was well-loved by his community. He was a straight-A student. He was a standout athlete who was in love with football.

Very, very well-liked throughout the athletic community, popular throughout the school, and just a kid in love with life.

CO: The call that brought the police, was it pertaining in any way to Jordan Edwards or the boys who were in the car?

LM: The call was not related to them at all. The call was a general call about children in the vicinity. I think it's important that the call was specifically about juveniles, so the officers should have been on notice that deadly force ... would be a bit of overkill, at best.

Obviously, you enter a robbery a little differently than you enter a school fight, for example.

CO: Jordan was black. Do you believe that race had anything to do with his death?

LM: There is a trend in the country ... where white officers shoot and kill unarmed black people, be that black boys or black girls.

I think we see it statistically more often than other races. I think we see deadly force and excessive force cases involving African Americans more than any other race.  And I think this falls into that narrative.

I can't say that the officer had racial motives. I have no earthly idea what he was thinking when he shot into a car full of five teenage boys.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For more on this story, listen to our full interview with Lee Merritt. With files from Associated Press.