Burlington’s police department blames an apparent medical crisis for the death of a man whom police officers found in a parking lot along Chapel Hill Road in the small hours of the morning on Wednesday.
In a news release later that day, the police department recalled that its officers received word about this man’s episode at 3:06 a.m. while they were responding to other calls in the area. They went on to converge on the parking lot along the 700 block of Chapel Hill Road, where they pronounced the man dead.
The department has issued this brief account of the call in response to claims on social media that have accused the responding officers of shooting the man.
“This information is false,” Josh Light, an assistant chief with the department declared in the agency’s news release. “There was no shooting…and video surveillance shows the individual falling, possibly having a medical emergency in the parking lot, and dying as a result.”
Light went on to add that the department has decided not to release the name of the deceased yet in order “to help the family as they decide how to navigate the loss of their loved one.”
