Auto mechanic dies in officer-involved shooting in Southaven

Daniel Connolly
Memphis Commercial Appeal
A photo of Ismael Lopez and his wife, Claudia Linares, was set up outside the home in Southaven where he was fatally shot.

Authorities are investigating an officer-involved shooting that fatally injured an auto mechanic in Southaven Sunday night. A prosecutor said the officers may have gone looking for a suspect at the wrong address, and a close friend of the man killed is raising questions.

The officers involved came from the Southaven Police Department. A staffer with the police agency referred questions to John Champion, a prosecutor serving DeSoto County and four other Mississippi counties.

He said the incident occurred around 11:30 p.m. Sunday at a home in the 5800 block of Surrey Lane.

In a news conference Monday, Champion said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is gathering information and that his role as prosecutor will be to review the evidence for possible charges against the officers involved.

He said the officers were looking for a man in relation to an aggravated domestic violence case being investigated by another agency, which he didn't name.

He also said the officers may very well have gone to the wrong house, and that the man who died had no warrants for his arrest. "He was not wanted for anything at all." 

Champion gave the following rough account of events, though he cautioned that many details are still unclear. He also said two officers were at the scene and that a pit bull dog burst out of the house, prompting one of the officers to shoot at it.

Then a man pointed a gun at officers through an open door, Champion said. The officers repeatedly warned him to put the gun down before one of them opened fire. He said he believed that one officer shot at the dog, while the other shot at the man. 

He said a gun was found at the scene.

Southaven police do not have body cameras, he said.

In a neighborhood of trailer homes, reporters, family members and friends gathered around a white building where the shooting happened.

Champion didn't identify the man slain, but family friend, Jordan Castillo, 23, said the man who died is 41-year-old Ismael Lopez.

Castillo said Lopez was a native of Veracruz, Mexico, who had lived in the U.S. for many years and formerly worked for the city of Bartlett and more recently operated a small mechanic's shop across the street from his home. He said Lopez was a father figure to him and mentored him when he was a troubled teenager.

Castillo said the slain man's wife was too upset to talk, but that she'd told him things that contradicted the official account. He said Lopez had two guns: a Glock pistol, which he usually kept in the bedroom, and a .22 caliber rifle, which he usually kept in the front room.

He said Lopez's wife told him that after the shooting, the rifle was in its usual spot.

And Castillo pointed to a hole in the porch banister and holes in the front door, saying that they indicated the shots had been fired through a closed door. "If you're shooting through a door in that manner, you don't know who's behind that door."

He said he couldn't imagine that Lopez would have come out aiming a gun at police. "It don't make sense at all." 

He also said Lopez spoke good English and would not have misunderstood commands to put down a gun - but he said Lopez's wife reported not hearing such commands.

"She said when he got up, she heard the footsteps all the way up to the door, she heard the doorknob turn, and then after the doorknob turned it was just gunshots from there." 

Castillo pointed out a brown pit bull, which he said had been shot at. The dog, named Coco, seemed docile among the small crowd of people, though it startled the visitors at one point by bolting away. Castillo said it was chasing a squirrel.

Reporter Yolanda Jones contributed to this report.