A day after Fort Wayne Mayor Sharon Tucker announced she would release the bodycam video of the police action shooting of 22-year-old Linzell Parhm once his family has seen it and given their blessing for its release, the Fort Wayne Police Department released the video to the public.
The video began with the officer, identified as seven-year department veteran Mason Wills approaching the vehicle he’d just pulled over.
Parhm was sitting in the front passenger seat. The officer instructed Parhm and the other person in the vehicle to keep their hands on the dash and not to reach for a gun, not visible on the body camera footage, but seen by the officer in the vehicle.
For a yet unknown reason, Pahrm was seen moving his hands away from the dash, and after three warnings from Wills to Parhm to keep his hands on the dash, Wills fired twice into the vehicle.
The video showed other officers arrive and recover a firearm, a Draco AK-type pistol, from in front of Parhm’s seat in the vehicle.
Police have not yet said what prompted Wills to pull the vehicle over.
According to Wills' service record, he's been disciplined three times in the last six years. He got in a wreck twice in a police vehicle, both prompting letters of reprimand. One came in 2018 with the other in 2021. In 2019, Wills was suspended for "failing to give a proper and thorough search of a subject in custody."
Wills has also received three letters of commendation, coming in 2022, and two last year. Wills also received an award of excellence last year.
The investigation is still ongoing by multiple law enforcement agencies.
The video provided by the FWPD may be found here.
