‘He didn't deserve this’: Family and friend of Jonathan Price say his killing was a wakeup call

Jonathan Price, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer after breaking up a domestic dispute on Oct. 3 in his hometown of Wolfe City, Texas. Many people within the small town are realizing that racism is not just a big-city issue, but a country-wide problem. Now, the entire town is rallying behind Price, demanding justice and accountability by way of a murder conviction for the officer that killed a beloved man within the community.

Video transcript

VICTORIA JONES: He actually died on his due date. I just got induced early, so his due date was October 3, and if we would've had him October 3 or any day later, his name would've been Jonathan.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

DERRICK INGRAM: Well, my name is Derrick Ingram. I'm a nephew of Jonathan Price.

VICTORIA JONES: I'm his wife, Glenn. I go by Victoria. Like he said, Jonathan was his uncle, which is my mother in law's youngest brother.

That night, we were kind of just chilling with the baby, and we got a phone call that he had been shot. So then, I guess, a couple friends were there, or a childhood friend of his was with them, and kind of gave his side of the story. And what they told us was, you know, they were at the gas station, just coming back into town. A woman and her spouse were getting into it, and he kind of stepped in and intervened like, hey, you know. And then the guy got physical with him, so it turned into an altercation.

It went from inside the store to outside the store. A bystander called the cops, or maybe someone in the store called the cops. Cop showed up. As Jonathan, like, raised his hands to try to explain the situation, I guess the cop wanted to detain him, so he started to walk back with his hands up. And that's when he was tased and shot.

DERRICK INGRAM: I mean, it just makes me, like, open up my eyes and, like, really pay attention to what's going on in the world. Like at first, I wasn't, like, taking Black Lives Matter seriously and things like that. But when it hit home, bro, took it to another level. So I just want justice, bro, for whatever's going on. Like, he didn't deserve it.

CASE ROUNDTREE: My name is Case Roundtree, and I'm just, I would say, a childhood through lifetime friend of Jonathan Price. It's eye-opening, for sure. It's hard for me to believe that that didn't have an effect on the officer showing up there and somewhat contacting Jonathan first, you know? I just know Jonathan's such a great guy. I just can't believe that happened to him.

I've always known that police brutality is there. I just see it as, you have good people and you have bad people. And there's good cops, and there's bad cops; good white people, bad white people; good Black people, bad Black people. I mean, that-- that's the way I view it. Jonathan was a good guy, very good guy. And I just think the police officer acted completely wrong. And I just don't think he should have been in that position.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

DERRICK INGRAM: My uncle was involved in the community. He was a motivational speaker. He was a mentor to, like, many young students. He trained.

VICTORIA JONES: He was involved with the elderly. You know, he helped take care of his grandmother, who's, you know, early stage dementia.

DERRICK INGRAM: Yup.

VICTORIA JONES: He helped his mother, you know, around the house. He has white family that he considers family. So I think everybody in that community, white or Black, they're outraged right now. They're mad because they're like, OK, Black [? Lives ?] Matter, but you took one of the ones that genuinely saw no color. Like, genuinely didn't matter if you were Black, white, Hispanic, like, he didn't approach you differently. He treated you as if you were just the same as him, and that could have been his downfall.

CASE ROUNDTREE: Nothing is going to fully make us feel better. I mean, of course, we would all love to see him-- verdict come out, and-- and him be in jail the rest of his life. So he can ponder on this, and think on it the rest of his life, and realize what he did. It's a terrible thing. And it should have never, ever happened.

DERRICK INGRAM: I would like a conviction, to be honest. I mean, just him being in jail is not enough, can't bring my uncle back. Money don't save it--

VICTORIA JONES: --be held responsible for it. We-- we have all these open cases, still, you know, Breonna Taylor.

DERRICK INGRAM: Yeah.

VICTORIA JONES: And all the other-- all these other things that happened just recently. The cops haven't even been arrested.

CASE ROUNDTREE: You know, a lot of people talk about his smile, and it's so true. His smile and his laugh would make everybody laugh. It was one of those contagious laughs, where when he laughed, I mean, you were laughing. The whole room's laughing.

Always very goal oriented, very looking into the future. He wanted to be an entrepreneur and own his own gym. His legacy will definitely live on there in Wolfe City and, I hope, further than that. I mean, he deserves to be known elsewhere, and how he was such a good guy, and that he didn't deserve this, so.

[MUSIC PLAYING]