Tyler Perry is set to pay for the funeral of eight-year-old Secoriea Turner, who was shot and killed near Rayshard Brooks‘ memorial site on Saturday.
Police on Tuesday released a short video of an armed man who they described as a person of interest in the girl’s shooting. Atlanta police Lt. Pete Malecki said the video comes from a surveillance camera near where Turner was shot while riding in the back seat of an SUV.
“I’m outraged today because I’d rather be paying for eight-year-old Secoriea Turner’s college than her funeral,” Perry said in a statement to People, adding, “When does this end?”
“And when we are killing each other, including our innocent children, I am outraged,” Perry continued. “It doesn’t matter what colour wrong comes in, wrong is wrong.
“Who said that outrage has to choose a side?” Perry told the outlet. “When so many Black people like George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks were killed I was outraged and did what I could to help their families. When a white police officer was shot in the head trying to stop a shoplifter in a suburb outside of Atlanta I was outraged and I did what I could to help him and his family.”
The film mogul previously paid for the medical expense for Matt Cooper, the officer who was trying to stop a shoplifter at a Walmart in Georgia in September 2018 when he was shot in the head.
Perry also covered the cost for the funeral of Brooks, who was killed in a scuffle with Atlanta police outside a fast-food drive-thru and was shot twice in the back. He also plans to cover Brooks’ children’s tuition for college.
Turner was riding with her mother and another adult Saturday night near a Wendy’s that was burned after Brooks was fatally shot by a white police officer in the restaurant parking lot last month.
When the SUV Turner was in tried to enter a parking lot, they were confronted by “a group of armed individuals” blocking the entrance, police said.
The girl’s mother, Charmaine Turner, said shots were fired and her eight-year-old daughter was hit before they could make a U-turn.
A video released Tuesday shows a man in a white shirt and dark pants carrying an AR-15 rifle with a tan stock and grip.
“I’m going to ask, I’m going to plead, for the assistance of the public in helping us get a person of interest identified in the case,” Malecki told reporters. “I’m confident that somebody, somebody knows the name of this male.”
Malecki said police believe “numerous armed individuals” were present at the barricade on University Avenue and that at least four people may have participated in the shooting. He said police believe at least eight gunshots were fired into the Jeep after Turner tried to drive across the barricade.
—With files from The Associated Press