It has been one month of delayed justice for the family of Jabari Peoples. The month has been littered with protests, marches and news conferences, as family, attorneys and community organizers demand accountability and transparency in the death of the Black teen.
A veteran police officer who remains unidentified to the public fatally shot Jabari Peoples, 18, at a park in Homewood, Alabama, on June 23. According to the police narrative, the officer approached a parked vehicle and allegedly smelled marijuana.
The officer ordered Jabari and the other occupant, later identified as his girlfriend, to exit the vehicle. The police claim the teen resisted arrest and grabbed a gun from the vehicle. The officer then shot Jabari in the back.
“I wish I could feel like this was some kind of misunderstanding or some kind of mistake, but it’s not. It’s part of a pattern of massacring Black bodies. It is state-sanctioned violence. It’s injustice. It is definitely a disgrace. This is devastating, to see the look on his mother’s face,” Rev. Dr. Wayne Taft Harris Jr. of Black Lives Matter Birmingham Grassroots said to The Final Call.
Mr. Peoples’ family believes he was unarmed and did not resist. The legal team has shared via media alerts that a witness stated the teen was unarmed.
“Contrary to reports and assumptions being pushed publicly: Jabari was not armed. He was not aggressive. He did not resist. He complied,” the family said in a statement posted on Facebook on June 24.
“Jabari was a college student. He had a family. He had a future. He was unarmed. He complied. And now he’s gone. We have not received a full incident report. We have not been given footage. We have not heard one word of explanation from the Homewood Police Department.
But we have heard the lies. We’ve read the headlines—and we’ve watched attempts to twist this narrative. Let us be clear: This was not just negligence. It was a violation of Jabari’s civil rights, of our family’s human rights, of due process, and of decency,” the family said.
Their full list of demands includes immediate public release of the full police report, all available body camera and dash camera footage, identification of the officer involved, an independent investigation and accountability at every level.
“Those are simple things,” Eric Hall, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Grassroots Birmingham, said to The Final Call. “Everybody in positions of power, from the mayor to his chief of staff to the mayor’s attorney to the city manager to everybody that’s within the Homewood government have seen the video other than the grieving mother and father who have not had an opportunity to see this video, or the lead attorneys.”
The investigation was immediately turned over to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA), the custodial agency of the officer’s body-camera video that clearly captures the incident.
The family has been fighting for justice with limited answers, as the agency refuses to release the footage. “The only right thing to do, the only just thing to do, the only transparent thing to do, would be to show the family what happened in his last moments,” civil rights Attorney Ben Crump, part of the family’s legal team, said at a July 15 news conference.
In their fight, the family sought out an independent autopsy. They moved Jabari’s body from Alabama to Atlanta for the autopsy, then back to Alabama for the funeral and burial.
The family and legal team held a news conference on July 15 announcing preliminary findings from the autopsy. Along with Atty. Crump, attorneys Leroy Maxwell, based in Birmingham, Ala., and Eric Hertz, based in the Atlanta area, are also representing the family, with legal assistance from attorneys Rodney Barganier, based in Birmingham, and Liza Park of Ben Crump Law.
According to the preliminary findings, Jabari was shot in the back with a single bullet. He did not have an exit wound, and the bullet was not in his body. The legal team noted that without the bullet and video, they cannot determine critical details like trajectory, caliber and the reason why the teen was shot.
“We don’t have all the evidence, and you cannot draw conclusions until you get all of the evidence. And so, we need to see the video before we can have conclusions. This helps the family at least have some questions answered, but it’s not conclusive yet because we don’t have the video,” Atty. Crump said.
Jabari’s family has been pleading to be shown video footage. “We buried him Saturday (July 12), and it’s hard to even think about burying your child,” his father, William Peoples, said at the news conference. “You want your child to bury you.
You don’t want to have to bury your child. No parent nowhere. Only thing we want to do is see the video. We want to see the video. Just show us what happened to our child, please.”
Jabari’s cousin, Deandra Peoples, said it feels like the family has not been shown respect. “Homewood police department nor ALEA have been in contact with the family even as far from day one. They did not reach out. It’s just heartbreaking,” she said.
The legal team filed a petition on behalf of the family asking for the disclosure of body-camera footage, incident reports and identification of the officer involved.
On July 11, the city of Homewood asked the court to dismiss the petition, citing that no lawsuit had been brought forth, the incident is still under investigation and the documents are in the hands of ALEA, which is not included in the petition. A hearing was scheduled for Aug. 4 before Jefferson County Presiding Judge Elisabeth French.
Atty. Maxwell said while the team knows ALEA is the custodial agency for the requested video, “Our petition covers much more than that.
“We know that there’s all kinds of video footage in that park. We want to see that evidence. We want to know the name of this officer,” he said at the recent news conference.
Homewood is a predominantly White city in Alabama. It is a suburb of Birmingham, with a population of 27,919 according to U.S. Census data. Whites make up 72% of the population and Blacks 13%.
Mr. Hall said the city has a history of over policing Black and other non-White people, including immigrant communities. He explained that there are certain municipalities within the Birmingham metropolitan area that Black people tend to avoid.
“We try to avoid because we know, typically, if you drive through these areas, you are going to be targeted, you’re going to be harassed and in several instances, Black lives have been killed,” he said.
He singled out three areas in particular, known as “the three H’s”: Homewood, Hoover and Hueytown. “Those three municipalities have a strong history of not respecting our identities. They over police us. They over ticket us,” he said.
Throughout the past month, family, attorneys and organizers have worked to humanize Jabari after initial portrayals of him in the news. Jabari graduated high school in 2024, where he ran track and played football.
He was studying computer information and criminal justice at Alabama A&M, a historically Black university in Huntsville, Ala. He had dreams of pursuing a career in law enforcement. He would have turned 19 on July 3.
“Let’s never forget that Jabari represented the best we had to offer, the very best. I mean, doing everything right. Never been convicted of a crime. Never even been arrested,” Atty. Crump said at the July 15 news conference.
Mr. Hall disputed the initial portrayal of Jabari as a criminal who had marijuana. They put that out there to portray him as a bad guy “and not necessarily portray him as an athlete, as an honorable individual, as a young man who was responsible, who only wanted to be in a position to secure his family,” he said.
“Jabari was a visionary. Jabari wanted to be in law enforcement. Jabari was currently working at a hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as a security guard, protecting the elderly, protecting those who are sick.”
Since the teen’s death, protesters have shown up at the Homewood Police Department, ALEA’s Homewood office, Homewood City Hall and during the World Police and Fire Games in the Birmingham area, according to AL.com.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots Birmingham launched a boycott in Homewood. “We will not spend one dime. If Black lives can’t be valued in the city, then our dollars will not be invested in that city,” Mr. Hall said.
For future officer-involved shootings, the organization is demanding an independent investigatory agency composed of community members in place of ALEA. “Because ALEA never sides on the side of justice and they never side on the side of people and they always protect officers,” Mr. Hall said.
“We need an individual organization that will look at all the facts, but more importantly, not just look to justify police behavior but ultimately stand on the side of justice and on the side of people.”
Cara McClure, an activist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Birmingham Grassroots, acknowledged the family’s nonstop fight for justice for their loved one.
“Jabari was just 18 years old and had never been in trouble. Jabari was loved. Jabari’s parents gave him the talk about how to handle police interactions. And so, I don’t know what could be done,” she said to The Final Call.
“We will pursue this case until the truth is fully exposed and justice is served—not only for Jabari, but for every family who’s been forced to bury a loved one without answers,” the family said in their statement. “Say his name: Jabari Latrell Peoples. His life mattered. His death will not be ignored. And his story will not be rewritten.”