After months of stonewalling, the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office has finally released body cam footage of the November shooting of 20-year-old Texas Tech student Erskin Jenkins. Deputies were called to a “Friendsgiving” gone horribly wrong, where Jenkins—intoxicated and allegedly waving a gun—was shot five times by a deputy after refusing commands and raising his weapon.
The story might’ve ended there, but the Sheriff’s Office decided to play a little bureaucratic hide-and-seek first. They fought to withhold records, then quietly gave them to one outlet before begrudgingly releasing them to others weeks later. Their reasoning? “Officer safety” and, of course, protecting “law enforcement techniques.” Translation: hoping the bad PR would die down before the tape came out.
The footage shows chaos: friends hiding in closets and garages, deputies breaking windows to evacuate people, and Jenkins stumbling between drunken nonsense and serious threats. The Texas Rangers’ report confirms his BAC was twice the legal driving limit. The deputies were cleared back in March, but Jenkins’ family is still demanding full transparency, accusing county officials of manipulating the narrative and disrespecting their son’s memory.
So, months later, the Sheriff’s Office finally gives the public a peek behind the curtain—but only after carefully staging the reveal. Transparency, Lubbock-style: first deny, then delay, then drop the video on a Friday night and hope everyone’s too distracted to notice.
