CHANDLER, Ariz. — Seventeen-year-old Anthony Cano was in agony, but still courteous.
Handcuffed on the ground, face down, but still cooperating. He pleaded for help but died 25 days after being shot twice in the back by a Chandler police officer.
“He did ask the policeman 'call my mom and I don’t want to die,'” said Silvia Morales, Cano’s grandmother. “He fought, he fought a hard fight to stay alive."
Morales is one of the few family members that say they watched the full unedited body-cam video police released Thursday, after two months of family pleas.
“I learned that Anthony didn’t have a chance. I learned that it could have been avoided,” Morales said. “I learned that he didn’t have to chase him for a light that was out on his bike, they say."
His grandmother said she watched the video twice. The first time it was too emotional to fully comprehend what she had seen.
Since Jan. 2, the day of the shooting, family had been pushing for the Chandler Police Department to release the full video, after they initially put out an edited version on their Facebook page 13 days after the incident.
After watching the full version, the family says it solidifies their calls for justice after they claim the second shot fired by the officer was unjustified.
“How do you go from pointing up, to pointing down, to a kid who is not even moving," said Johnny Parra, one of Cano’s brothers. “It messes with me, after watching that video."
Parra says he’s been playing the video of the shooting in his head repeatedly. Every time, it becomes clearer to him that the officer firing his weapon twice on his little brother wasn’t necessary after he says Cano was already on the ground hurt and defenseless.
WARNING: The content of the video below may be disturbing to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.
“The first edited video you don’t hear anything that my brother says in this second video,” Parra mentioned. “It just shows they were trying to hide he was actually a good kid."
Family says Cano, or "Peanut" as they used to call him, had more to give the world, that he skipped the seventh grade because of how smart he was and he attended Bible study on Wednesdays.
In the unedited video, Cano can be heard apologizing to officers and said, “I was throwing the gun away,” to which the officer that show him replied, “I thought you were pulling it on me. That was (expletive) stupid."
“To hear him begging for his life and saying that he can’t move, put your hands behind your back, and everything, just hurt," said Nicholas Lopez, one of Cano’s long-time friends. “I just stopped watching [the video] from there because it was too unbearable to keep on watching."
Now, with the full video released, family calls for action from the department, especially for the officer involved.
“I hope that he doesn’t have a job after all of this is over," Cano’s grandmother said.
After asking her if she wanted the officer involved fired, she said “yes." Although Morales says it won’t be justice for Peanut, because it won’t bring him back.
“It wouldn’t change anything, my brother will still be dead but maybe it will save other kids, other adults who might come across [that officer]," said Parra.
The family will be staging outside Chandler City Hall on Friday at 6:30 p.m. in hopes of speaking with city leaders.
A civil lawsuit has been filed. An investigation into the shooting is underway.