Brevard County

WATCH: Demonstrators march through Cocoa after deputy fatally shot boy, 16, man, 18

COCOA, Fla. — Demonstrators marched through Cocoa less than a week after an 18-year-old and 16-year-old were shot and by a Brevard County deputy.

Community members gathered at Metropolitan Baptist Church near the intersection of U.S. 1 and State Road 520 on Wednesday afternoon before starting on a march through the city.

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Sincere Pierce, 18, and 16-year-old Angelo “A.J.” Crooms were both killed in the shooting Friday morning as two deputies were attempting to conduct a follow-up investigation on what they believed was a possibly stolen car that had just fled from another deputy near Cocoa, Sheriff Wayne Ivey said.

Cocoa police tweeted on Wednesday that they were closing the intersection near where the rally began. The intersection reopened just after 6 p.m.

Crooms’ mother spoke to Channel 9 for the first time following the shooting at the rally calling for justice.

“I wanna see justice for my son,” Crooms’ mother said. “I don’t want this swept under the rug. I want those cops charged. I want those cops charged for what they did to my son. They killed my son they had no right. He didn’t go at them with the car for them to shoot him.”

WATCH LIVE: Rally in Cocoa over deputy-involved shooting that left boy, man dead

WATCH LIVE: Demonstrators are marching through Cocoa, five days after deputies fatally shot a boy, 16, and a man, 18. LIVE UPDATES >>> at.wftv.com/3pEV5pe

Posted by WFTV Channel 9 on Wednesday, November 18, 2020

The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office released dashcam footage of the shooting on Tuesday.

Watch the footage below. Warning: Contains graphic content

Investigators said the deputies involved, Jafet Santiago-Miranda and Carson Hendren, have not yet been interviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is investigating the shooting.

The sheriff’s office also said that two guns were recovered from the teen’s car.

FDLE will present its findings to the state attorney’s office for review to determine of there were any criminal violations.

Both Pierce and Crooms' families have retained legal representation following the shooting.

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Attorney Natalie Jackson is representing Cynthia Green, who raised Pierce from the time he was two days old, and attorney Ben Crump is representing Pierce’s biological mother and father and Crooms' parents.

Jackson called for transparency in the investigation into the shooting, which she says so far has not happened.

“If there’s going to be transparency, there needs to be complete transparency not a driveling of information to fit you’re narrative,” Jackson said.

Crump released the following statement regarding the dashcam footage that was released Tuesday:

“After reviewing the limited footage released by Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, it is painfully troubling to us that this teen driver and the teen backseat passenger were terrified and drove around deputies who approached the vehicle with guns drawn. Believe your own eyes. The video shows the deputy was still shooting as the car cleared him and posed no threat.

“Claiming that this deputy discharged 10 shots to get himself out of harm’s way is a clear attempt to justify the killing of these teens. If anything, the deputy appears to have moved closer to the vehicle to get a better shot. The video shows that the deputy continued to fire shots into the side of the vehicle as it was passing him, after he was out of harm’s way. This disturbing incident, which cost the lives of two Black teens, again documents the dangers of driving or even riding while Black -- since the deputy also shot into the backseat, killing a passenger.

“We demand that BCSO release all footage in the case, including the dashcam footage from the other vehicle, and any neighborhood surveillance videos. We urge anyone with additional video evidence, including neighbors with home surveillance cams, to come forward so that we can have a clearer picture of the facts in this case.”

Read previous coverage of the shooting below:


Sarah Wilson

Sarah Wilson, WFTV.com

Sarah Wilson joined WFTV Channel 9 in 2018 as a digital producer after working as an award-winning newspaper reporter for nearly a decade in various communities across Central Florida.