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Questions Remain in Khalil Ahmad Azad’s ‘Accidental Drowning’ After Police Chase

‘They Said He Was Beaten Worse Than Emmett Till’

Khalil Ahmad Azad’s family and loved ones will meet from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. CST Saturday to celebrate his life along the same shores where it ended in Robbinsdale, Minnesota.

Demanding an Investigation

Nonetheless, the Hennepin County medical examiner labeled his death an “accidental drowning,” in spite of his family saying he knew how to swim. 

“So they claimed he drowned, but he’s 6 feet tall and was found in like two or three feet of water,” Crews said. “[The report] says he had no life-threatening injuries, but we could see there’s a lot of injuries on his face. There was trauma to his face.”

“They said there was nothing on his body. There was. There were bruises on his body also.”

“And his dreads were pulled from his scalp,” Henderson added.

The body camera footage that Robbinsdale Police Department released six months after Azad’s mother requested it, along with the medical report, only raised more questions than answers for his loved ones, which prompted them to demand for an outside investigation on both the police department and medical examiner’s office, along with the removal of their K-9 units.

So they claimed he drowned, but he’s 6 feet tall and was found in like two or three feet of water.”

— Traheren Crews, founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota

“While watching the body camera footage a number of discrepancies also stood out to us,” Azad’s family wrote in a statement. “We also noticed parts of the audio cut out for significant amounts of time. In addition, we noticed skips, pauses and freezes of the body camera footage, with multiple moments of blurriness, which leads us to believe that the original footage was tampered. We are concerned, because there were absolutely no time stamps on the footage we watched.”

We want full transparency about the agencies who were called to secure the perimeter. … In light of the footage we received from Robbinsdale Police Department, we are also demanding footage from additional agencies involved: New Hope, Crystal, Plymouth, and Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department & State Trooper Patrol.”

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is conducting an independent investigation on the Robbinsdale Police Department as it looks into the family’s claims that Azad was brutally beaten to death by police, mauled by K-9s and thrown into the lake.