Man Shot While Handcuffed: FBI Investigating

By: Jenée Desmond-Harris | Posted: August 3, 2012 at 12:09 PM

Chavis Carter (CNN via WREG)

Police say 21-year-old Chavis Carter shot himself in the head while handcuffed in the back of a police car in Jonesboro, Ark. His family members think it's impossible that he pulled the trigger on himself, and believe the officers were responsible and are trying to cover it up.
On Thursday the FBI announced that it will step in to determine what really happened, the Huffington Post reports:

Carter suffered a single, fatal gunshot wound to the head. He was detained on Saturday night following a traffic stop in Jonesboro, about 2 1/2 hours north of Little Rock, after officers said they found marijuana and empty baggies. Officers searched him twice, handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a police car, police said. Not long after, police said, he was found slumped over, with his head in his lap and a gunshot wound to the head.

"We"ve been asked to get involved," Kim Brunell, a spokeswoman for the FBI"s Little Rock office, told The Huffington Post on Thursday. The bureau's ballistics experts will join the probe, she said.

Police said Carter retrieved a gun that he"d concealed, raised it to his head and pulled the trigger. A clear case of suicide, they said. The handcuffs, they said, were "double locked.

Read more at the Huffington Post.