‘We just want to get to the truth’: Jabari Peoples’ family still seeking answers

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Thick green trees loom over the unlined road to Aliceville, in West Alabama. Peeking through those trees are glimpses of farmland and fields of cotton. This is the area Jabari Peoples used to drive in his black and red Mustang. 

“I gave him a Mustang on his 18th birthday,” William Peoples, Jabari Peoples’ father, said. “It’s a Mustang 5.0. It’s a 2006. And he loved it.” 

Eighteen-year-old Jabari Peoples was shot and killed by a Homewood police officer earlier this year. His family is still reeling from the loss and maintain their disagreement with police’s account of the incident. They talked about who Peoples was in an interview with WBHM.

The man he was becoming

Peoples was an athlete, a football and track star. He loved working on his car. His mother, Vivian Sterling said he was the youngest, with eight older siblings.

“His nickname in the family was ‘Baby,’ because he was the baby,” Sterling said. “And he was everybody’s baby. People used to tell me, you need to let that boy grow up. But I couldn’t.”

Peoples’ curiosity often drove him to dogged research. He wanted to know exactly how to upgrade the engine in his Mustang before ever picking up a tool. He had a goddaughter and a close-knit extended family. His parents said he had an eye for fashion, showing off a picture of him in a gold brocade jacket and black turtleneck. He holds out his fist to the camera, showing off a gold ring.  

As they parsed through memories of their son, they laughed and reached for each other’s shoulders. A warm smile lit up their eyes as they exchanged a knowing look, lost in a shared memory. But the moment passed quickly. 

“We really were just looking at him and waiting on him to do all of these things that he was planning to do,” Sterling said. 

His parents don’t just grieve the boy who died. They grieve the man he was becoming.

“He wanted to go to school, get several degrees, go to the military, become a detective, own a detective firm,” Sterling said. 

He was going to Alabama A&M for college. They said he was researching how to get his pilot’s license.

“It blew me away when they say they want to be a pilot,” William Peoples said, laughing. “I said, well, I’m scared of heights.”

“Neither one of us has ever been on a plane,” Sterling added. “But I said, if I would have got on one, it would have been with Jabari.”  

When asked if Jabari Peoples ever got to ride in a plane, they fell silent and their faces dropped.

“No,” William Peoples said. “No, he never got to fly.”

A fatal police shooting

Authorities said Jabari Peoples reached for a gun when a police officer approached him the night of June 23 in a Homewood park. But the family still disputes that. His parents said he never would have acted out around a police officer. They trained him on how to be careful around police.

“We said to respect them,” William Peoples said. “And not to give them any reason to do something to you.” 

Nearly 1,400 people were killed by cops in 2024. That’s according to an online database tracking fatal police shootings, the Mapping Police Violence project. It also reported that Black Americans are nearly 3 times as likely to be killed by police.  

In the weeks after his death, the family pushed for bodycam footage to be released. When the family was eventually allowed to see it, neither of his parents could bring themselves to watch it. 

“I didn’t want to see my son get shot,” Peoples said. 

“It would’ve been like him dying all over again,” Sterling added.

But Angel Smith, Peoples’ sister, did see the video. At a press conference after viewing the footage, she said the video was heavily edited, hard to decipher and showed only a small portion of the incident. Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said the video confirmed Peoples had a gun and ruled his death as justifiable. Carr’s office did not respond to questions about if the footage was edited. Homewood Police did not address the issue either and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency did not comment. But the family still wants all the footage released publicly, including the police cruisers’ dash cams or the park cameras. 

“We just want to get to the truth,” Peoples said. “Unedited. Let it be known. Don’t tarnish his name.” 

With his son now gone, William Peoples said he struggles to eat and make it through each day. 

“It’s a hard job, but it’s gonna work,” Peoples said. “I’m not gonna give up. I will keep fighting for my son until the day I leave here.” 

He said Jabari’s room and possessions remain where he left them. And that Mustang is still parked in the yard.