News

Judge to review bodycam footage before releasing to shooting victim's family

Patricia Ann King and Police Chief Blair Myhand speak outside the courtroom on Monday.

By Amy McCraw, Published: March 5, 2024

A Superior Court judge on Monday gave attorneys for the Hendersonville Police Department and Henderson County Sheriff’s Office more time to provide him with additional bodycam and dashcam footage of a shooting that left an Asheville man dead last November.

Hendersonville Police Chief Blair Myhand also agreed on Monday to show the victim’s mother surveillance footage of the shooting of her son, 30-year-old Elijah Edwards Timmons III of Asheville. That footage was not part of the request being considered by the court.

Myhand said outside the courtroom that he and the victim’s mother, Patricia Ann King, agreed to meet on Tuesday to review the surveillance footage.
City officials petitioned the court in January to release to the victim’s mother four Hendersonville police videos taken at the scene of the shooting outside the Orchard Bar & Grill on Four Seasons Boulevard at Dana Road. Dozens of people who had attended a private Thanksgiving night party at the bar spilled out into the parking lot and lingered around parked cars, the investigation showed.
King has repeatedly implored authorities to reverse their decision not to file charges after their announcement on Dec. 10 that they had found the shooting to be self-defense.
Judge Michael L. Robinson, a business court judge with chambers at the Wake Forest University School of Law, directed City Attorney Angela Beeker and Sheriff’s Office attorney Ron Justice to provide him with more footage of the shooting investigation involving the death of King’s son.
The request from King involves all footage showing her interactions with officers after the shooting and video that shows her son after he was shot.
“I’ve got to watch it all,” Robinson said while considering the request to disclose the footage to King.
Beeker told the judge that she had provided the court with about two hours of a total of 25 hours of bodycam and dashcam footage of the investigation. One segment provided to the court lasts about 30 minutes. The other segments are about five to seven minutes each, she said.
Most of the 25 hours does not include King or her son after he was shot and would not be part of what could be disclosed to King, Beeker said. But she said some footage she did not provide to the court shows brief images of Timmons's body as an officer turns while speaking or performing another duty at the scene.
She said outside the courtroom she will work for the next days to separate those brief images of Timmon’s body and brief images of King from other images that do not include either King or Timmons's body.
Justice told the judge he will do the same with about six hours of footage from the sheriff’s office. Justice said he would provide footage from the county jail that shows King after her arrest in the early morning hours after Thanksgiving Day.
The additional footage should be available for Robinson to review in the next week, the attorneys said.
When Robinson asked King if she understood his decision, she said she also wanted to see surveillance footage that showed the moment when her son was shot. King said detectives investigating the shooting showed her surveillance video of her son being shot shortly after the incident. She told the judge she believes what she saw revealed enough evidence to charge the person who shot her son.
“This is my son and I watched the video of him being killed, which is premeditated murder,” King told the judge. “He could have been charged with something…I seen what I seen. They are telling me now I seen something different.”
Myhand told the judge he was happy to show King surveillance video from the bar that shows her son being shot.
Robinson told King he could only rule on the bodycam and dashcam footage. That footage will be disclosed rather than released to King, which means she will only be allowed to view the footage, the judge said.
The footage is from bodycams worn by officers Jon Wing, Jacob Smith and Michael Paparozzi and from the dashcam in Smith’s cruiser.
Officers arrested King on the night of the shooting and charged her with resisting a public officer and assaulting an officer. District Attorney Andrew Murray dismissed those charges on Feb. 19, according to court records. Murray said his review of the evidence determined King crossed the perimeter of a crime scene the night of the shooting and interfered with an ongoing investigation.
“She was out of control attempting to get to her son who was deceased,” Murray said. “Officers had to spend time and energy preventing her from further contaminating a crime scene. She was engaging in a disturbance with multiple onlookers and saying things officers should not hear about themselves and their children, despite officers trying to calm her down and listen to reason.”
But he said he used his discretion as a prosecutor to dismiss the charges.
“In light of her son being shot and killed, I didn’t feel it was in the best interest of justice to proceed,” he said, adding that the officers involved agreed. “I hate it for everybody.”
While Robinson said he will determine what bodycam and dashcam footage King will be allowed to view, the shopping center surveillance footage that recorded the actual shooting was a separate issue she needs to address with the police department. Myhand discussed the surveillance footage with King outside the courtroom and arranged for her to see it on Tuesday, he said.