Youtube/ News 4A mother is outraged after disturbing photos of a police officer posing with a ‘thumbs up’ while holding the wrist of her dead son have emerged.
Kim Staton from St Louis, US, said she will ‘never know’ what happened to her 28-year-old son Omar Rahman who was found in a home by officers.
Omar died of an overdose but it seems the police were highly inappropriate ‘when they’re supposed to be there to help and protect’, the Sun reports.
Youtube/ News 4Ms Staton told News 4:
When they (the police) come to a call, they’re supposed to be there to help and protect, not doing what he was doing with thumbs up and a smirk on his face.
Her attorney, Antonio Romanucci, branded the photo as ‘hideous’ and said that the implications are ‘astronomical’.
The forensic camera allegedly went missing for a period of time, and an investigation is being launched into the photo.
Youtube/ News 4North County Co-op Chief Time Swope refused to go on camera and speak to the news programme, but former St Louis Chief Dan Isom couldn’t understand why the officer would be acting in such a way,
Isom said:
I don’t know why he’s raising his thumb in the air, I don’t know what he’s doing at that point, I can’t explain why you would be doing that in the photo, but certainly there are reasons why a person might turn a body over, view it, for signs of trauma.
Youtube/News 4Staton has launched a lawsuit to find ‘some answers’ while the North County Police Cooperative claim the photo is ‘stolen property’ and ‘does not believe it is appropriate to comment on a matter related to 2 open criminal investigations’.
