Must-Read Story:
The Police Account
Winn and Scheuermann, who were SWAT team members at the time, said they'd gotten a tip that somebody had stolen a Kentwood Springs bottled water truck. The person -- or people -- who'd heisted the truck were robbing, raping and murdering flood victims, according to the information Winn and Scheuermann received. The officers went searching for the vehicle and discovered several Kentwood Springs trucks parked on the Claiborne Overpass near the Superdome.
As another group of officers approached the trucks, Winn and Scheuermann watched from a ramp overlooking the overpass. They said they observed McCann standing near one of the trucks, clutching a handgun. McCann appeared to be planning to ambush the approaching officers, Winn and Scheuermann said. Armed with assault rifles, they fired an undisclosed number of rounds at McCann, hitting him at least once.
But when they apprehended him, the officers didn't find a gun: "We couldn't find it," Scheuermann said in a statement to an NOPD investigator.
McCann was taken to a hospital in Baton Rouge. He survived. The police report said he "suffered from a single gunshot wound."
McCann's Account
McCann said, in a lawsuit and in conversations with friend Corey Smith, he'd been shot by the police for a crime he didn't commit.
McCann told Smith he'd been standing with a group of flood victims near the Kentwood Springs truck when police yelled "Halt!" and began firing. His suit states that the officers shouted "orders for the crowd to disperse" before shooting McCann. According to the suit, McCann wasn't brandishing a gun. Smith also said McCann didn't have a gun -- the claim, he argued, is "totally bogus."
While the police report said McCann had a single wound from the shooting, his suit said otherwise, alleging he was shot three times and sustained injuries to his "rib cage, hip, kidney and shoulder." The suit said his mother was present when the shooting occurred.
Smith remembers McCann having "at least five wounds" from the shooting.
In August 2008, while that suit was pending, McCann was lured from his house and killed in a shooting that remains unsolved.
