Baby dies after father killed in barrage of police gunfire

BILOXI, Miss. – A baby boy taken by his father from the scene of a double homicide in Louisiana died at a hospital on Tuesday, hours after the man was killed by Mississippi law enforcement officers who fired a barrage of bullets at the car, authorities said.

The coroner in Harrison County, Mississippi, Brian Switzer, said that the baby, who was born in January, died about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday at USA Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Mobile, Alabama. Switzer said an autopsy will be done to determine the cause.

The injured baby was hospitalized after officers ended the chase by firing at the car driven by Eric Derell Smith, who died of multiple gunshot wounds Monday after he finally came to a stop in the median of Interstate 10.

Switzer told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had not yet seen the baby’s body and couldn’t say whether the boy had been shot.

The pursuit was joined by more than a dozen officers from the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Gulfport Police Department and the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department.

Smith was a suspect in two killings near Baker, Louisiana, early Monday. WBRZ-TV reported that the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office said Smith, 30, entered the home and fatally shot his ex-girlfriend and her nephew. They were identified as Christin Parker, 32, and Brandon Parker, 26.

WLOX-TV showed a video taken by a bystander of the final barrage of gunfire after more than a dozen law enforcement vehicles, blue lights flashing, followed Smith’s car.