JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The officer-involved shooting of 34-year-old Justin Reed, has been deemed justified by the State Attorney’s Office.
On November 4, 2020, three Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office undercover officers were sitting in a parked car on the 500 block of East 63rd Street as they were investigating a gang in the area. The house they were parked in front of belonged to Justin Reed.
Reed approached the men with a large semiautomatic riffle with an extended magazine. According to the SAO report, Reed came up to the car and yelled, “Who the fuck are you looking for?” while banging the barrel of the rifle on the hood.
Security footage from a church across the street shows Reed then aimed the rifle at the officers. Officer G.A. Taylor drew his gun and rolled down his window so that Reed could see they were the police while Officer M.L. Mullis allegedly said, “Police.” The report states that Taylor ordered Reed to drop his rifle but Reed ignored his commands and continued to point the rifle at the officers. Officers Taylor and Mullis fired at Reed, striking him twelve times.
Body camera footage of the shooting is not available because the cameras weren’t on. The SAO report states that because the two officers were not engaged in police activity while they were sitting in the car, the cameras were not on. Taylor and Mullis turned their cameras on at some point after the shooting, but the footage did not capture the shooting. Detective I. Fields was also in the car at the time of the shooting. He activated his camera immediately after the shooting. There was a security camera across the street that captured the footage of the incident, but not the audio.
Reed died at UF Health from his injuries. A toxicology report shows that there were THC and bath salts in Reed’s system.
The investigation shows that Reed did fire his gun once, after Fields noticed bullet damage to the roof of the car weeks after the shooting. Crime scene detectives photographed the damage and recovered a bullet fragment from the headliner of his the car. As a result of this, an enhanced review of the church security video was done and shows that Reed fired his rifle at the police vehicle during the incident but was not the first to fire.
The State Attorney’s Office found that Reed was not protected by the Stand Your Ground law as the officers were legally parked on the street, acting in an undercover capacity.
“The fact that Reed may have mistaken the police for someone else does not authorize Reed’s use of force or change this analysis,” the report states.
The shooting was deemed justified as Reed “posed an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to the officers. Both Officer Taylor and Officer Mullis fired their guns in self-defense, fearing for their lives and the lives of their fellow officers.”
This was the first officer-involved shootings for Taylor and Mullis.
Shortly after the shooting, friends and families spoke with Action News Jax and said that Reed was supposed to get married next month.
“[Reed] was a wonderful and nurturing man,” Adira Roberts, a family friend said. “He was a great father, and he was just trying to protect his family. That’s a man’s job to protect, provide and pursue. He was just trying to protect his family.”
Community activist Ben Frazier said back in November that Reed was trying to take care of his family.
“Concerned about the welfare of his woman and his children. Love for his children. Wanting to take care of his family, and he sees a car out front. Doesn’t know who’s in the car. Doesn’t know what they want. He investigates to make a determination, and low and behold, it turns out to be undercover police officers. No way for him to make that determination. He was not the enemy,” Frazier said.
The report does state the State Attorney’s Office interviewed Reed’s fiance, Shakeisha Watson, three separative times. She lived at the house where the shooting took place with her children. Her three interviews did not match up, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
In the first interview, Watson told police a fake name and said she was out walking the dog and didn’t see the shooting. After being confronted by police the day after the shooting, she said Reed was her boyfriend and saw Reed walk towards the parked car with a rifle but did not know from where Reed got the rifle. She saw Reed approach the car and heard Reed say, “Who are you looking for?” two times and then saw two police officers shoot Reed. Watson said the police did not announce who they were when they got out of the SUV and shot Reed.
In the last interview with police, Watson told police that she lied to them. She said Reed was her fiancée, and they lived together. Watson said she and Reed saw the parked car, and Reed told her to go inside. She was watching through the front blinds when Reed walked towards the car. She said she did not see Reed with the rifle and did not know from where it had come. She denied having it on her property. Watson then heard Reed say, “Who are you looking for?” as he was bending over the front passenger side of the SUV. Watson went to the back of her house and walked around to the side and down the driveway when she heard Reed say, “Who the fuck are you looking for?” and then saw the flashes of the officers’ guns. She said all three officers were shooting. However the State Attorney’s Office says this statement was inconsistent with the security video.
Reed was not allowed to have a gun as he has a criminal history including four felony convictions and 27 misdemeanor convictions. At the time of the shooting, Reed had two pending cases. One was for possession of a controlled substance case. The other was a pending domestic violence arrest warrant request with Watson listed as the victim.
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