Nine police officers in Tennessee opened fire on a 37-year-old man on Thursday afternoon after a confrontation on an interstate highway in Nashville. The man, who police said had been sitting on a guardrail on the busy roadway, died.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation identified the victim late Thursday as Landon Eastep. Samantha McGill-Barge, Eastep’s sister-in-law, told The Daily Beast she was baffled that he was on the highway Thursday.
“I wasn’t aware there was anything wrong,” she said. She added that Eastep’s widow was in contact with a lawyer but had no plans to take legal action. The two had dated for nearly four years and been married just shy of a year, McGill-Barge said.
“He loved my sister and my kids very much and, to my knowledge, was a good guy. It’s a very unfortunate situation. I’m in shock. I was at home with my kids when I found out,” she said.
McGill-Barge wrote in a fundraiser for Eastep and his wife that he had been “murdered by several officers.”
“This man had only a box cutter and had already shown it to officers before they killed him in cold blood,” she said. “He was shot for no good reason at all and he did not deserve to die. He has left behind his wife, and she has no means to financially care for herself during grieving, bury Landon, or even provide any services for her husband.”
Nashville court records indicate Eastep had an outstanding charge of domestic assault with bodily injury from November. His next court date was scheduled for April.
In a video filmed by a bystander and posted to Twitter by news outlet WSMV, Eastep can be seen standing still in the right lane of the highway as almost a dozen Tennessee Highway Patrolmen and Nashville Police look on, guns drawn. The entire highway is blocked on both sides. Eastep raises his arms towards police, and the video pauses. Multiple gunshots can then be heard.
BREAKING: TBI is investigating a deadly officer-involved shooting on I-65 in Crieve Hall this afternoon. See the latest information on the investigation. https://t.co/BN83p7EzNN pic.twitter.com/eO8YAMShYV
— WSMV News4 Nashville (@WSMV) January 27, 2022
In a press briefing, Nashville Metro Police spokesman Don Aaron said a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer was traveling along the interstate on Thursday afternoon when he noticed Eastep sitting on the guardrail.
When the trooper stopped and spoke to Eastep, trying to get him off the highway, the man pulled out a box cutter, Aaron said. An off-duty Mt. Juliet police officer, who was traveling home with his family, saw what was happening and stopped.
The two tried to deescalate the situation for the better part of half an hour, according to Aaron.
“The man was holding a box cutter in his left hand. His right hand was in his pocket,” Aaron said. But as police officers arrived and continued speaking to Eastep, he “suddenly” pulled an unidentified “shiny, silver cylindrical object” out of his right pocket, Aaron said.
Nine officers then shot Eastep, according to Aaron, who added that police have not yet determined what the object was but that it was not a firearm. No Tasers were used before the gunfire, though at least one officer had one on standby, he added.
“Once the shiny cylindrical object was seen, the officers fired. Not knowing what that was, the officers were firing in defense of themselves, not knowing what potential threat could have been in that right hand as it quickly emerged out of his pocket,” said Aaron.
Eastep was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead.
“Through the conversation, the trooper believed it would be OK. It was the pushing away from the trooper and producing the box cutter that escalated it up to a greater law enforcement response,” he said.
Traffic on both sides of the highway was backed up for miles following the confrontation, according to The Tennessean.
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stupid is stupid. should have complied with the officers.
It helps to makes up for all the policemen that have been killed for no reason in America
I don’t blame the police officers, what was he doing up there in the first place? It looks to me like he wanted the police to kill him, murder by cop. So many police have been ambushed and killed for no reason. and until our government starts to see the problem they created and put the criminals in prison and on some throw away the keys the killing will never stop against the innocent police and people.
Nine Police Officers open fire with their guns on one single individual who attempts to show them that he is
unarmed and no threat to them, which is anyway what I think he was trying to do, and he’s immediately shot dead!
Please remind me to never visit the USA, where tourists from other countries are routinely killed in cold blood
by nervous and untrained and unintelligent police officers, like for instance that poor woman from Australia living in Minneapolis, by an idiot from Somalia in a police uniform who promptly shot her dead after she had called the police, and came out to greet them in her pajamas in the middle of the night!
You are right Daniel, never visit the USA. You are an idiot.
Stay TFA BRAINLESS.We don’t need or want you here BEATCH
I support our police people like you who second guess officers who have to make split second decisions while hiding behind a computer are cowards. I am a Minnesotan and the two cases are comparable. The guy with the boxcutter could have pulled out a gun and shot those officers. When you don’t LISTEN to police things can go bad fast and all this guy had to do was listen to the police. Since he chose not to he paid the price, what many of these types of shootings have in common is people who won’t listen or resist arrest bringing it all on themselves. You must be a liberal in your world everything is the cops fault they could have always something differently according to you cowardly second guessers.
Stay TFA BRAINLESS.We don’t need or want you here BEATCH
Thank you exactly what I was thinking.
Nine people shooting one person in order stop someone from sitting on a guardrail appears to be awful close to murder. Why didn’t the guy who had the taser use it rather than killing the man? I would think that killing would be the last thing the nine police would want.
1cop 1gun was all that was need. Not 9 cops 9 guns.
There has to be a better than this. As far as law enforce officers getting kill that is a tragic waste also. The gun can’t be the answer. But what is the answer I can’t honest say I know.
But that wasn’t the answer. Now how do you get people to trust law enforcement officers.
And how do you get law enforcement officers to stop using “they were in fear for their lives.”
Just because you carry a gun doesn’t mean that’s the answer to every situation.
There has to be an answer that works for everyone.
1cop 1gun was all that was need. Not 9 cops 9 guns.
There has to be a better than this. As far as law enforce officers getting kill that is a tragic waste also. The gun can’t be the answer. But what is the answer I can’t honest say I know.
But that wasn’t the answer. Now how do you get people to trust law enforcement officers.
And how do you get law enforcement officers to stop using “they were in fear for their lives.”
Just because you carry a gun doesn’t mean that’s the answer to every situation.
There has to be an answer that works for everyone.
The sad part is Unfortunately they do this to good people veterans and other people who haven’t got the help that they need ,and then they wonder why they’re gunned down in the street by people that are fed up with this new world order militaristic Police Departments, the police department is here to serve the public not to serve the corrupted communist government that trying to push an agenda, they need to look for the citizens not for the corrupt government this is going to happen more and more until these officers wake up and start making changes and demanding that their limitations on what they can do with innocent people ,or people who aren’t committing a violent crime has to be addressed
So cops are supposed to know who is mentally ill? Maybe people who have someone in their family who is mentally ill should get them help since it’s their family. You losers who sit behind a computer second guessing those who risk their lives to keep people save make me sick. I would guess JOHN that you have never risked anything in your pathetic little life, typical scumbag liberal.
1cop 1gun was all that was need. Not 9 cops 9 guns.
There has to be a better than this. As far as law enforce officers getting kill that is a tragic waste also. The gun can’t be the answer. But what is the answer I can’t honest say I know.
But that wasn’t the answer. Now how do you get people to trust law enforcement officers.
And how do you get law enforcement officers to stop using “they were in fear for their lives.”
Just because you carry a gun doesn’t mean that’s the answer to every situation.
There has to be an answer that works for everyone.
They don’t have to stop using in fear for their lives because that’s what happens. How about all these families who have someone with mental illness they get them help. Officers don’t know these people and being they are unstable they are dangerous. These families always profess to care so much for these people and talk about how wonderful they were then they should get them the help they need not expect strangers to know their background. Those of you who want to criticize police and always blame them should find someone else to call when they’re in trouble, because you know you wouldn’t want to be shot.