Cops: Phone Looked Like A Gun

La. Chase Ends With Suspect Shot Dead, Eight Bullets In The Back

(CBS)  For five miles Shreveport police chased a suspected drunk driver who was weaving in and out of traffic.

The chase, CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, ended in tragedy and simmering city.

Police videotape showed the suspect finally getting out of his car and pointing a shiny chrome object in what police took to be a shooter's stance.

Shots were fired, and 25-year-old Marquise Hudspeth was killed; shot eight times in the back.

The object in Hudspeth's hand turned out to be a cell phone.

And after a local investigation, all officers involved with the shooting came out with clean slates.

"We feel like they acted in self-defense and that this was a justifiable homicide," said Paul Carmouche, Caddo, Louisiana District Attorney.

But many Shreveport residents were outraged, especially members of its black community.

"That man was shot down like a dog," said one resident.

"No justice, no peace. We will burn your town down," shouted a protester.

Critics want the officers arrested, and the police chief fired.

"I hate what was done to him. It's not a day that doesn't go by that I don't miss my son," said Hudspeth's mother Larita White Jones.

Police deny any racial overtones.

"On 9-11 we were called heroes. And on other days we're the lowest of the low," said Chief Mike Halphen, Bossier, Louisiana Police Chief.

The case, which Shreveport's police chief has dubbed a "sucide-by-cop," is now in the hands of federal investigators.