KCBD Investigates: Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office releases body camera footage from deputy-involved shooting of Erskin Jenkins

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - The Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office has released body camera footage showing what happened before a young man was shot and killed by a deputy in November.

The family of Erskin Jenkins, 20, continues to demand justice and answers.

Sherriff Kelly Rowe says there has been a lot of what he calls “misinformation” shared about this case, so he hopes releasing the footage will clear some things up. Meanwhile, Jenkins’ family and organizers on their behalf claim the sheriff’s office has left them in the dark.

The Texas Rangers’ investigation reveals dispatchers received a 911 call the night of November 23 at 10:16 p.m., less than 30 minutes before Jenkins was killed.

“One of our guests, he was hanging out and then he got too wasted and he’s waving around a gun and he’s threatening to, he’s not really threatening to kill anyone, but he’s really emotional, and he’s all over the place,” the caller said.

The call came from outside a home in South Wolfforth, after a “Friendsgiving” celebration turned into a nightmare.

“He is armed, just letting y’all know, but he’s a kid, he’s a good kid. He’s just really emotional. He’s all over the place,” the caller said.

About three minutes later, a Wolfforth police officer arrived on scene and asked if Jenkins was threatening to shoot anybody.

“He wasn’t threatening or anything, he was just holding it. He felt very unsafe,” one young man on scene told the officer.

Another young man tells the officer four people were still inside the house, hiding from Jenkins.

“He keeps talking about how his father says he’s weak unless he can kill,” another said.

When Lubbock County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, the Wolfforth officer explained what’s going on.

“We’ve got a guy with a gun inside. There’s a lot of other kids hiding inside and he said that he thinks he needs to kill people. So, we don’t have a choice but to go in, as far as I’m concerned,” the officer said.

He asks one of the residents to try and call Jenkins, but after several tries, Jenkins didn’t answer.

“He was literally just sitting down and out of nowhere he just started grabbing people and saying like I need to talk to you and started trauma dumping,” one witness said.

The report from the Texas Rangers reveals the night started as a more intimate Friendsgiving dinner but turned into a full-blown party with up to 30 people.

One person who lived at the home told Rangers Jenkins was usually a quiet kid who kept to himself, but they had spent more time together recently. He says Jenkins told him he didn’t want to drink that night, but his autopsy reveals he had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit for someone of age.

Witnesses say Jenkins was starting to talk nonsense, and at one point collapsed. One witness told Rangers Jenkins said he had to be strong because he had a rough family. That witness said he believed Jenkins thought people were talking about him and pulled a gun from his waistline.

That’s when he says someone yelled “gun,” and several people left the house. The report shows a few young men stayed inside to try to calm him down, while one young woman hid.

She told Rangers she could hear Jenkins screaming and banging on things, crying and saying his parents weren’t very nice to him. Another witness says when Jenkins pulled the gun out again, the three young men left in the house hid in the laundry room.

While officers and deputies tried to figure out what was happening, they formed a perimeter around the house. They could see Jenkins through the back door window, with a gun in his hand.

While deputies kept an eye on Jenkins, officers in the front were able to help get the three men outside of the house.

The attention then moved to evacuating the young woman in the closet. Through a witness, a law enforcement officer was able to contact her and ask if she can get to the window and get out. He then asks the resident if the back window opens. He tells the officer it doesn’t and asks him not to break it.

Moments later, video shows the officer trying to break the back bedroom window with a tool and then a flashlight but is unsuccessful.

While he is trying to break the window, footage from another law enforcement officer’s camera shows that’s when Jenkins gets up from the floor with the gun in his hand.

The deputy then fires several shots at Jenkins, killing him.

The officers then call the young woman to the window. She’s able to open it and leaves the home.

Six months later, KCBD sat down with Sheriff Kelly Rowe to break down his deputies’ response, after several calls from the family for answers. We asked if this was an excessive use of force from his deputy.

“Not in any way, shape or form. It’s a tragic event. It’s unfortunate. Sadly, I see more and more of it,” he said.

In March, the Texas Rangers presented the investigation to the district attorney’s office and a grand jury for review. Neither requested further action in the case and no criminal charges were filed against any officers involved.

“The rest of it, at that point, becomes Monday morning quarterbacking at that point. That’s why again, you know, and unless you’re on that scene, unless you’re seeing what those guys are seeing, you know, while they’re trying to respond. But in the scheme of things, I don’t know as quickly as that evolved at the end that there was anything different we could have done,” Rowe said.

Jenkins’ family has called for Sheriff Rowe’s and the district attorney’s resignations, claiming they have left the family in the dark.

“He was a light that could not be dimmed, but that light was stolen by the Lubbock County Sheriff who took his life, and with it, shattered mine.”

The family hosted a protest and a press conference, calling for justice.

“Still over six months after this case began, there still aren’t any answers,” Stuart Williams, the chairman of the Lubbock Coalition of Black Democrats said June 21.

Jenkins’ family and its team say they have not seen any video released from the case.

The Rangers’ report reveals the same compilation of body camera footage the sheriff’s office released to KCBD was presented to Jenkins’ mother and their attorney in December.

“They were given the opportunity and chose to walk out of the video presentation within a minute or two, is my understanding. Their attorneys that were with them at that time watched the video to its conclusion,” Rowe said.

Rowe says the sheriff’s office didn’t release some other information earlier on because the family secured legal counsel and gave all indications they are pursuing legal action.

“Given the significant amount of misinformation that’s been put out there about this particular case, we all came to the agreement it was time to release everything, and everyone can see it and understand what happened that night,” he said.

Rowe says the family has a right to question, but the courts will ultimately decide if his deputies did what they were trained to do.

“I am completely confident in the integrity of the investigation, its findings and its conclusion,” he said.

Rowe says he doesn’t understand why Jenkins brought the gun to the party in the first place. The sheriff also says it was illegally left in his care by his mother.