Police in Tennessee are under scrutiny after a video emerged of officers brutally beating a man accused of shooting his med student ex-girlfriend during a charity walk over the weekend.
After allegedly shooting Ellie Claire Young, 22, 24-year-old Jackson Hopper led police on a multi-county chase, which ended when officers overturned Hopper’s car with a PIT maneuver, killing him. Pulled out, and then punched him continuously for about 30 seconds, a cell phone video taken by a bystander shows.
Mugshots showed Hopper with a swollen face and black eyes.
In a Facebook post, the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office — where the arrest occurred — said it was “conducting an internal affairs investigation into any allegations of officer misconduct.”
The horrific scene began when Hopper reportedly found Young, a medical student at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, sitting in her parked Jeep near the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer program.
Witnesses said Hopper fired two shots at her vehicle before killing her after she fell from her vehicle in the parking lot.
During the ensuing multi-county police chase, Hopper allegedly tried to run over an officer who was laying out spike strips, police said, adding that a gun was found in his Honda CRV.
“Ellie was just a light in this world. It’s going to be tough without him,” Young’s brother-in-law, Zachary Harris, told The Post.
“Ellie was very nice. She went to church. A close friend of Hopper’s told The Post, “No drinking, no swearing, no drug use…honestly, he’s just like Hop.”
“Honestly, he was the nicest guy I’ve ever met. I never thought he could do something like this.”
The friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he introduced Hopper and Young when they attended the University of Tennessee Memphis together.
“I was the one who set them up. They dated very happily for three years. I’ll call them and check on them and see what’s going on. They had plans to move in and get married while she was in med school,” the friend said.
He said “Hop” – as his friends knew him – never got into fights, only spoke lovingly of his girlfriend, and was always ready to support a friend in need.
“When I was going through hard times, he would pick me up and take me out for a cheeseburger,” the friend said. “One time another friend of ours needed $250 to take his (professional certification) exam, and Hop gave him the money.”
When the friend last spoke to her in June, she said that Hopper had a good job as a bookkeeper at a trailer company and that it seemed she and Young were still together.
He said that he had no idea what his friend might have expressed displeasure about.
“It could be a lot of things that built up over time. When her friends moved away after college she kind of lost her support system. He didn’t really have a father growing up. His mother was a single mother and worked very hard to put Jackson through college.
He added: “What he did was really horrible. I can’t defend him. But people online are saying that he was such a violent person, and I want to say that that’s not true at all. He was a really nice guy, and I don’t know what happened over time that pushed him beyond what he was.”
(TagstoTranslate)US News(T)Car Chase(T)Crime(T)Memphis(T)Homicide(T)Tennessee
