Dashboard camera footage shows fatal encounter with deputy
At 10:05 p.m., the dispatcher tells them all about the shooting.
Multiple callers and witnesses talk about a man walking around the 4400 block Santa Anna Drive, east of Columbia. He’s wearing a white shirt and holding a black handgun, the dispatcher says, and is knocking on doors. Shortly after that, he gets into a white car and drives away.
The people in the neighborhood know him.
“The suspect is C.J. Parker, black male wearing a white shirt with a black handgun,” the man says on one end of the dispatch to the Boone County Sheriff’s Department and Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers in the area.
The scene plays out in several dashboard camera videos obtained by ABC 17 News from the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The videos, from Boone County deputies and Highway Patrol troopers, show the night Sergeant Jason Jameson from the sheriff’s department shot Cornelius “C.J.” Parker at Highway 63 and Broadway in Columbia. It shows what authorities had said as early as a few hours after the shootout, and triple-homicide that preceded it – that after losing control on the snowy road, Parker got out of the car and pointed a gun at Sgt. Jameson, leading to the two shooting at each other. Callaway County Prosecutor Chris Wilson, specially appointed to review the case, did not file criminal charges against Sgt. Jameson, in large part, he said last month, because of the clarity of the videos.
The footage from February 28 shows a white Chevy Malibu drive west onto Route WW. The driver doesn’t slow down for law enforcement lights or sirens, and trudges through the downpour of snow towards Highway 63.
The deputy that sees this radios others en route to the subdivision. Sgt. Jameson is the nearest car behind Parker when he passes, after Sgt. Jameson pulls into an auto garage lot, waiting for the suspect’s car to come by. After a minute of driving, Sgt. Jameson’s camera catches Parker turning left onto the southbound ramp of Highway 63. Parker’s car stops near the guardrail, and Sgt. Jameson points his headlights directly at the driver’s door.
While this happened, other deputies arrived at a duplex on Santa Anna Drive, where they believed Parker shot three people he lived with there. Donald Wilson and Deborah Koontz died that night at the scene, while Willie Mays would die months later from his injuries.
Back in Columbia, Sgt. Jameson, standing just outside of his SUV, yells, “Lower you arm!” as Parker gets out of his car and points a gun at him. The two shoot at each other, with Parker running off camera further west down Broadway.
After a brief pause, Sgt. Jameson fires one more shot.
Parker, a 28-year-old originally from Grenada, Mississippi, died moments later.
Sgt. Matthew Broniec of the Highway Patrol is the second unit at the scene. Footage from his dashboard camera shows Parker lying in the snow near a pole just feet from his car.
The Highway Patrol’s investigation showed one of the Parker’s bullets hit the undercarriage of Sgt. Jameson’s SUV.
(Editor’s note, 7/28, 2:00 a.m.: The reporter in the attached video refers to Parker as “Cornelius Parker, Junior.” That name is incorrect. “C.J.”, used in this case, stands for Cornelius Jerome Parker.)
