A family is still waiting for answers 7 months after Mississippi police burst into their home and shot a 28-year-old man dead
Trevor McKinley's family said he struggled with drug abuse but had never resisted officers before and didn't deserve to die.
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- Trevor McKinley, 28, died in a shootout with Rankin County Sheriff's deputies in August.
- Seven months later, his family is waiting for answers from the investigation into his death.
- Insider tried to get more information on McKinley's death but has met resistance from local officials.
Charlene Quarles was getting ready to spend a hot day at the lake with her family on August 21 when two sheriff's deputies showed up at her home, barged in uninvited, and shot her grandson dead.
Six months later, Quarles is still waiting for answers about who shot her grandson — and why.
The shooting death of 28-year-old Trevor McKinley is complicated. He had a warrant out for his arrest, and his grandfather, Sonny Quarles, admits complaining about his angry behavior on a 911 call before deputies arrived at their home.
But Trevor's family are largely in agreement that he was not a danger and that deputies should have tried to deescalate the situation to prevent the confrontation turning deadly.
"I'm not saying that my son was an angel by any means," Trevor's mother, Jackie McKinley, told Insider. "But it could have been avoided."
Courtesy of Jackie McKinley
Trevor is one of at least four people who died after confrontations with sheriff's deputies in Rankin County, Mississippi, last year. Insider previously reported on the death of Damien Cameron, a Black man who died in police custody in July. Two months prior to that, another Black man, Cory Jackson, died in police custody as well. Most recently, officers responding to a call of a drug overdose in December shot and killed Robert Rushton, who they say was armed with two knives. No charges have been brought in any of these cases, which remain under investigation.
"I don't understand how they can kill somebody and then keep the case open and active so they don't have to release any information. And it's not like this is a one-time incident," Trevor's former fiancée, Ashton Durr, said. Durr said the sheriff's office has "given no explanation and proven nothing about why any of these killings were valid or necessary."
The sheriff's office did not respond to Insider's request for comment on this story, and resisted our efforts to get more information on the McKinley shooting.
Trying to get clean
The story of Trevor's death begins on June 1, when he and his fiancée got into a fight that turned physical.
Durr told Insider that the fight was about drugs. She said Trevor had been clean for several years, but that she found a stash of pills and confronted him about relapsing. She says he responded by chasing her around the house, hitting her. At one point, she stabbed him.
Police weren't called to the fight, but learned about it later through one of her friends, Durr said. She said police showed up at their house about two days later but she refused to talk to them. After that, she decided to go stay with her parents to get some space from Trevor.
"I left because I figured me staying, he wouldn't go and get the help he needed," she said.
Within a week, she said Trevor had checked himself into rehab.
After completing the program, Trevor went to stay with his mother in Tennessee and it was there that he first learned that there was a warrant out for his arrest. Jackie McKinley says her son planned to turn himself in when he returned to Mississippi.
Courtesy of Jackie McKinley
Trevor returned to Mississippi on August 7, after his mother got COVID. His father, Shannon McKinley, says that his son tried to turn himself in after returning, but was told that he would have to get two negative COVID-19 tests first. The sheriff's department did not respond to questions about this policy.
Trevor's lawyer, William Andy Sumrall, told Insider that he left a message at the Rankin County Sheriff's Office before the weekend Trevor was killed, telling them that his client planned to turn himself in on the following Monday, but he isn't sure whether they received the message.
One last get-together as a family
On the morning of August 21, Charlene Quarles said the plan was to take Trevor and his kids to a lake where Trevor had spent a lot of time as a child. Durr would join them and stay the night with Trevor in a hotel at the lake.
The couple was realistic. They expected Trevor would go to jail "for awhile," Durr said, so this was one last opportunity to be together as a family.
The morning got off to a rough start though when Trevor and his grandfather got into an argument.
Sonny Quarles told Insider that his grandson was looking for some documents in his bedroom that morning, and took out some drawers in the process. Quarles said when he asked his grandson to put the drawers back when he was done, Trevor snapped.
"He started one of them cussing fits," Quarles said. "He throwed me down, hit me in the back of the head, and kind of dazed me."
The heated exchange caused his wife to start having chest pain, and she asked him to call 911.
"I couldn't seem to get my breath that morning, and it scared me, and I told him, I said, 'Sonny you might better just call the paramedics,'" Charlene Quarles recalled.
But while her husband called 911, Quarles said she recovered and told her husband to tell them not to come.
What happened next is somewhat unclear. Sonny Quarles said he made a second call to 911, but was vague about what he told the 911 operator.
He said while he was on the call, Trevor started "cussing again."
"I said, I just can't put up with this today. And I called 911 again and asked them to come down here," Quarles said.
When asked whether he told the 911 operator that Trevor had hit him or was being abusive in any way, he said that he couldn't recall exactly what he said.
Charlene and Sonny Quarles were outside the house when police arrived on the scene. Charlene said her husband was holding the baby while she fetched a diaper bag for their trip to the lake when the two deputies rushed into the home uninvited.
"They just come flying up in the yard, two of them," Charlene said. "They jumped out of the car, didn't say one word, show nothing. One went for the front door, one went for the kitchen door."
Within minutes, the couple said they heard four shots and their grandson was dead.
Durr said she was on the phone with Trevor just before he was killed.
"He sounded like he was crouched down in a corner, hiding almost. He was like, 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry … I love you, I'm so sorry.' And then I heard some man come in, he sounded like he was right beside him and he was like, 'Don't fucking move Trevor, don't fucking run.'"
"Then I just heard scrambling and the phone dropped and it hung up," Durr said.
Ten minutes later, she said she received a call from Trevor's aunt, saying he was dead.
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In its press release after the incident, the Rankin County Sheriff's Office said that deputies were dispatched to the home for a "medical call," but before arriving on the scene, a "caller" indicated there was a "domestic disturbance."
The press release goes on to say that deputies learned that Trevor had a felony warrant for domestic violence, and that he refused multiple commands to come out of the home's attic.
"McKinley then attempted to climb down and flee deputies," the press release said. "McKinley then displayed a handgun and fired at the deputies who then returned fire, striking the suspect. The suspect was pronounced deceased at the scene."
Insider was only able to obtain scant pieces of additional information in relation to McKinley's shooting, mostly from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
Insider obtained an MBI incident report, which includes information one of its special agents gleaned about the shooting after being called to the scene.
The special agent recounts what the sheriff told him about the shooting, an account which largely echoes what the sheriff's office said in its press release.
However, the MBI agent was told that the two officers involved first tried to use a Taser on McKinley but that "it did not have any effect on the subject."
McKinley then "turned around and fired multiple rounds at the officers" before one of the officers returned fire, striking McKinley in the head.
Threats of violence
The Quarleses believe their grandson hid in the attic because he had been warned that officers would beat him up if he didn't turn himself in.
Courtesy of Jackie McKinley
"Trevor knows how they work up there. He's been up there many times in his life, and he knows they do that. They're famous for roughing people up when they go to get 'em," she said. The sheriff's department did not respond to questions about this.
Quarles believes her grandson fled to the attic because of the fear of being beaten up, and wasn't trying to resist arrest.
"He has never, in the five or six times he's been arrested in his life, has never resisted or done anything," Quarles said.
Both Quarles and Trevor's father suggested that Trevor may have accidentally pulled the trigger after officers tased him.
"Did he only fire because he was getting jolted from some electricity … is that what caused his muscles to tense and squeeze the trigger?" Trevor's father said.
But Trevor's father also admits that it's possible his son relapsed, or had finally reached the end of his tether with law enforcement.
"He's been in trouble now most of his life. Maybe he had had enough. I don't know if he had gotten a hold of some drugs and was out of his normal thinking or just reached a point where he'd just snapped."
Did officers have a right to enter the home?
The Quarleses question whether the sheriff's deputies had a right to enter their home that day.
"The very idea that they can go bust in your house, not say one word to you. I mean where's my rights?" Charlene Quarles said of Rankin County Sheriff's deputies.
But Sumrall, Trevor's attorney, told Insider that if cops had reason to believe that a person with a warrant out for their arrest was inside, cops had a right to enter the home.
Even if they did have the right to enter the home, the family believes the police should have tried to deescalate the situation first, before bursting into the house guns-blazing.
"There was no one else in the house. What's the purpose of going in and trying to flush him out?" Shannon McKinley asked.
Waiting for answers
In the more than six months since Trevor's death, his family say the only information they've received from Rankin County is the information in the initial press release.
"I want some answers," Charlene Quarles said. "If it was all upfront and done by the law, why would nobody tell you anything? It's been six months."
"We don't have a toxicology report, we don't have any information whatsoever," Jackie McKinley said. "They've released nothing to us. They wouldn't even release his body to us. We weren't able to have a funeral for three weeks."
Trevor's mother said she's concerned that her son is just one of multiple people who were killed in confrontations with Rankin County Sheriff's deputies.
Jackie McKinley said Rankin County has gotten "a bit of a reputation of killing people lately" and "it's really becoming an issue."
Soon after her son's death, McKinley said she called up Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey to discuss the recent deaths with him, but says he "basically hung up on me."
"I wanted to speak with him about his officers and maybe them being trained better," she said.
Insider requested the incident report, arrest warrant, 911 call log, call audio, and a call transcript from Rankin County. We were met with resistance from officials, who turned down most of our request, save for the arrest warrant and a heavily-redacted 911 dispatch call log.
Under Mississippi law, incident reports are public information. Rankin County, however, declined to release the report because, it alleges, the incident report in this case is an investigative report and therefore exempt from public review.
Since an officer was involved in the shooting, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is handling the investigation. As of March 3, the agency said the investigation was ongoing.
Trevor's father is trying to reserve judgment until he's heard all the facts.
"I've been trying not to pass judgment till the facts come out and are made public ... then I can make my determination as to whether I think it was justifiable or not," he said.
Charlene Quarles said she's considered suing the county, but hasn't been able to find a lawyer. She said she doesn't like the idea of suing, but believes "drastic" change is needed at the sheriff's office.
"I've lived here my whole life … the sheriffs, they still act like it's 1950," she said. "They act like I got a badge and a gun and I can kill you and ain't nothing you can do about it."
"My son had a lot of issues, he wasn't perfect. But he didn't deserve to die," Jackie McKinley said. "Now my son's life is gone and his children don't have a father. It just could have been handled differently."