Slain boy’s father says officers shot them without warning
MARKSVILLE, La. — Christopher Few remembers hearing the gunshots that tore into his flesh and killed his 6-year-old autistic son. The barrage of bullets didn’t stop when he stuck his hands out the window of his car in a sign of surrender.
But the 26-year-old father of Jeremy Mardis testified Tuesday that he never heard any warnings before two Louisiana law enforcement officers fired 18 bullets at his car at the tail end of a 2-mile chase.
“The only thing I heard was gunshots. Then I heard verbal commands after they were through firing,” Few said during the second day of trial for Derrick Stafford, one of two officers charged with murder over the November 2015 shooting.
Few, whose testimony marked his first public statements about the deadly encounter, said he learned of his son’s death when he regained consciousness at a hospital. That was the day of Jeremy’s funeral, six days after the shooting in Marksville.