Cause of Death Revealed in Case of Teen Fatally Hit by Miss. Police Cruiser, Cops Say There's No Footage

Kadarius Smith, 17, was struck by a police cruiser in Leland, Miss. on March 21

A Black 17-year-old boy in Mississippi was fatally hit by a police cruiser in March.

Kadarius Smith died of “massive blunt head trauma” in what the medical examiner has ruled an accident, according to the autopsy report just obtained by PEOPLE.

The four-page report notes that Kadarius suffered a fractured skull and left femur, a subarachnoid hemorrhage and cerebral contusions and lacerations, among his injuries.

“The above decedent was reportedly struck by a vehicle,” Erin A. Barnhart notes in her report. The driver of the vehicle was a Leland police officer.

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who represents Kadarius’ family, said in a statement that the police officers involved in his death “need to be held accountable for their deadly actions.”

Related: Family of Miss. Teen Allegedly Run Over by Police Cruiser: 'Kadarius Is at Peace. But We’re Not'

“These autopsy findings document the cruel and tragic way that Kadarius left us – with his head crushed under the immense weight of a police cruiser,” Crump said, adding: “There is no circumstance where running over another human being with a car to the point of crushing their head is justifiable.”

The circumstances behind the fatal car crash are unclear. 

Citing an unnamed witness, Crump alleges that Kadarius was walking home with friends in the early morning hours of March 21 when “a police cruiser began chasing him.”

In a heavily redacted incident report obtained by PEOPLE, an unnamed responding officer alleges they were dispatched to a nearby home on a call claiming there were “two suspects outside of the residence with handguns.”

The two-page report lists just one suspect – a Black male – whose age is not provided and whose name is withheld. Kadarius is named in other parts of the report. There is no additional mention of the second suspect in the report.

Related: Miss. Teen Was Chased, Fatally Hit By Police Car on Walk Home, Family Says, as They Plead for Body-Camera Video

In the weeks after Kadarius’s death, his family pleaded for body-camera and dash-cam footage, which Edward J. Bogen, who represents the Leland Police Department, confirms to PEOPLE does not exist, as he says officers and cruisers were not outfitted with cameras at the time.

“In the year 2024, to not have body or dash camera technology in place is irresponsible and speaks to a widespread cultural problem in these departments,” says Crump, who has represented the family of Trayvon Martin as well as multiple Black teenagers who died in high profile police-involved deaths, such as Michael Brown and Martin Lee Anderson.

Officers are now equipped with both cameras, Bogen tells PEOPLE.

Around 1:45 a.m. March 21, police were dispatched to a Leland home, where an officer says in the incident report that Kadarius “jumped from the porch,” and “took off running.”

That officer lost track of Kadarius, who made his way to Huddleston Street, where another unnamed officer in a police cruiser — identified in the report only as a Black male — was also in pursuit of the teen, per the report. That officer “could not stop the [cruiser] immediately at that time,” thereby “hitting Kadarius Smith with the patrol unit," the report says.

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The teenager was transported to Delta Regional Hospital in Greenville, Miss., and later pronounced dead, per the report.

The report includes the narratives from the officer who chased Kadarius on foot as well as one who arrived on the scene after he was struck "laying on the ground hardly responding," but does not include the narrative of the driver of the cruiser.

In the report officers do not mention finding a gun on Kadarius or the surrounding area, and Crump says that none has been recovered.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and Mississippi Highway Patrol were tasked with investigating the incident.

By email, on Wednesday, July 17, Bogen says the police department “has never received any reports” from either agency.

Bogen declined to answer a set of questions about the autopsy report.

As of publication, the identity of the officers on scene, including the driver, have not been released, and Bogen says the driver is “back working for the PD.”

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Read the original article on People.