History

Any time any information about a case is updated, a new version is created. This page tracks the changes made to the case over time including summaries to explain those changes where possible. As of now, the changes to the following attributes are tracked: address fields, content sections for overview, community action and litigation as well as the case's title, date, photo and video links.

Properties not currently being tracked in case history include changes to subjects and comments. In the future we will capture those changes as well. In the meantime, editors should note that changes to link associations will create a new version of the case.

  • Date: 30.04.2017 22:51:10 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    New Entry
  • Date: 30.04.2017 22:52:57 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Photo
  • Date: 30.04.2017 23:11:22 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Agency
  • Date: 1.05.2017 03:33:27 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Link
  • Date: 3.05.2017 10:39:50 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Police Chief retracts claim that car was being driven towards in reverse in an aggressive manner.
  • Date: 3.05.2017 10:43:20 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Vigil held
  • Date: 4.05.2017 11:45:08 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Prosecutors consider murder charge
  • Date: 5.05.2017 22:21:24 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Officer charged with murder
  • Date: 6.05.2017 02:03:57 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Family statement in response to officer being charged
  • Date: 7.05.2017 00:59:49 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Moments ago, Charmaine and Odell Edwards buried their baby boy. In a private funeral for friends and family, through tears, sobs and wails, loved ones recounted their memories of a young man who was universally loved by all.
    
    Jordan Edwards, 15, should be playing basketball or video games with his friends today, wrapping up what could only be called a perfect freshman year at Mesquite High School outside of Dallas.
    
    Instead, he's gone. He's never coming back. No more football. No more basketball. No more 4.0 GPA. No more girlfriends. All of it — it's all gone.
    
    When Officer Ray Oliver of the Balch Springs Police Department fired three completely unnecessary shots from a rifle into a car full of innocent teenagers, he brutally ended the life of a star, an eagle, a son and brother with limitless potential. The loss has gripped the nation, turned a community upside down, and forever traumatized a family in the most painful way imaginable.
    
    The Dallas County District Attorney's Office was right to file murder charges against Ray Oliver on Friday evening. The chief of police was right to fire him. Both of those steps, however rare, are not enough.
    
    We've seen this before. A termination and an arrest are not a conviction. Ray Oliver must be convicted for this crime. He must serve hard time in state prison for what he did.
    
    Even then, the scales of justice will not be balanced. The injustice of having Jordan Edwards snatched from this earth with a bullet to his forehead will not be made right by sending his murderer to jail. It must happen, but it's not enough.
    
    The family of Jordan Edwards should receive a record financial settlement for what's been heaped upon them. Negotiations for this settlement should not drag on. The county should literally find the highest settlement a family has ever received for police brutality and top that amount. That's what has to happen here.
    
    But even then, it will not be enough. Because here is what I know: Odell and Charmaine Edwards would trade all of that — the convicted officer and a huge sum of money, to have their son back.
    
    If justice is fairness, if justice is balance, then I truly don't know how Dallas makes this right. Justice would be Jordan Edwards being alive and well — without most us even knowing his name or his story, because he's just an ordinary boy in an ordinary family living his life.
    
    But we don't have that option.
    
    In the days ahead, based on my conversations with the family of Jordan Edwards and their legal team, I am expecting them to call for much more than a conviction in the murder case against Roy Oliver.
    
    The family and their attorneys must be allowed to see every second of the body camera footage from this past Saturday evening. Jordan's brothers have both said it will show the officers not only being flagrantly disrespectful and offensive after the shooting, but also explicitly racist. These other officers, who detained Jordan's brothers and their friend, should be held fully responsible.
    
    Every single piece of paperwork related to this case must released to see if any false reports were filed. My expectation is that there were, particularly based on the patently false statement released by the department in the days after the shooting — which they eventually recanted. Every single officer who filed a false report must be fired and even charged with violating their oath of office.
    
    Lastly, the family is going to call for significant policy changes to be addressed that impact policing (and police brutality) in Dallas, in Texas, and throughout the country.
    
    This family, before any of this ever happened, already had enough on their plates in their everyday roles as parents and spouses. Now, as victims, they find themselves considering a new role as advocates for change. They didn't ask for this, but here we are anyway.
    
    The Edwards family now joins a long, tragic line of tens of thousands of victims of police brutality in America, but now our country has a chance to at least attempt to do right by this family. I haven't always been this way, but I'll believe it when I see it.
  • Date: 8.05.2017 09:11:29 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Father sues Murderer of son
  • Date: 8.05.2017 09:32:07 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Video with family lawyer
  • Date: 9.05.2017 19:29:45 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    video link
  • Date: 9.05.2017 19:35:46 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Links
  • Date: 9.05.2017 19:38:21 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Links
  • Date: 12.05.2017 13:57:06 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Department of Justice to investigate the murder
  • Date: 14.05.2017 23:25:52 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Wreath laying ceremony
  • Date: 16.05.2017 07:19:51 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Dallas County committed to conviction
  • Date: 17.05.2017 01:43:23 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Video emerges of more Balch Springs police misbehaviour from 2016 with a man handcuffed behind his back being tasered as an act of spite.
  • Date: 18.05.2017 02:04:16 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    May 2017 Dan Rather Tribute
  • Date: 18.05.2017 02:33:57 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Agency
  • Date: 20.05.2017 03:59:46 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Link - How to dismantle racism and prevent police brutality
  • Date: 9.06.2017 04:10:45 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Link
  • Date: 15.06.2017 20:43:54 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    June 2017 Action against police violence
  • Date: 18.06.2017 06:12:54 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    June 2017 Rally for Jordan in Dallas
  • Date: 17.07.2017 19:55:04 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    July 2017 Officer indicted
  • Date: 20.01.2018 09:33:25 UTC
    Edited by: Darius
    Description of changes:
    No edit summary is available for this version.
  • Date: 20.01.2018 09:35:18 UTC
    Edited by: Darius
    Description of changes:
    Cast of Netflix "Dear White People" create a Jordan Edwards scholarship fund.
  • Date: 18.06.2018 03:38:56 UTC
    Edited by: Guest
    Description of changes:
    Cast of Netflix "Dear White People" create a Jordan Edwards scholarship fund.
  • Date: 23.08.2018 17:37:20 UTC
    Edited by: Darius
    Description of changes:
    expert witness testifies that officer used excessive force.
  • Date: 29.08.2018 00:43:34 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Link
  • Date: 29.08.2018 04:06:39 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Link
  • Date: 29.08.2018 04:09:40 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Young turks video
  • Date: 29.08.2018 04:12:38 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Video
  • Date: 29.08.2018 04:14:16 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Delete video
  • Date: 29.08.2018 04:45:10 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    court video
  • Date: 29.08.2018 04:48:58 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Court video
  • Date: 30.08.2018 12:26:09 UTC
    Edited by: Darius
    Description of changes:
    Adding detail and additional link to the conviction news.
  • Date: 30.08.2018 12:32:12 UTC
    Edited by: Darius
    Description of changes:
    Adding working video link
  • Date: 31.08.2018 14:53:22 UTC
    Edited by: Darius
    Description of changes:
    Adding info on sentencing.
  • Date: 18.09.2018 15:21:52 UTC
    Edited by: Stephen Berry
    Description of changes:
    Convicted Killer, Former Officer Roy Oliver Sent To Prison In Huntsville
  • Date: 25.04.2019 12:03:50 UTC
    Edited by: EBWiki Team
    Description of changes:
    Officer files an appeal.
  • Date: 25.04.2019 12:03:50 UTC
    Edited by: EBWiki Team
    Description of changes:
    Officer files an appeal.
  • Date: 11.08.2020 21:51:56 UTC
    Edited by: EBWiki Team
    Description of changes:
    Appeals court upholds officer's murder conviction.
  • Date: 1.04.2023 14:17:39 UTC
    Edited by: EBWiki Team
    Description of changes:
    Father testifies at civil trial.
  • Date: 1.04.2023 14:17:39 UTC
    Edited by: EBWiki Team
    Description of changes:
    Father testifies at civil trial.
  • Date: 4.04.2023 14:52:13 UTC
    Edited by: EBWiki Team
    Description of changes:
    jury awards damages to Edwards family.
  • Date: 4.04.2023 14:52:13 UTC
    Added by: EBWiki Team
    Description of changes:
    jury awards damages to Edwards family.