A warning to our listeners. This episode contains audio of graphic violence and police brutality.

We'll send our discretion is advised.

This is intercepted.

I'm Jack Desadaro, lead producer for Intercepted.

When a police officer shoots and kills someone and we don't see it happen, can we trust the police to investigate themselves?

That is what Antoine and Tammy Buffard were asked to do.

Their son Cortez was shot and killed by the St. Louis police in 2019.

The police kill more people per capita in St. Louis than in any other American city. 72% of these people are black, like Cortez.

Nearly two years later, the city is still investigating Cortez's case. No charges have been filed, and the Buffard family is still looking for answers.

The Chicago-based Invisible Institute recently partnered with the Intercept to examine the circumstances of Cortez Buffard's death.

The resulting investigation reported by Alice in Flowers and Sam Steclo is called the Fatal Tunnel of police killing in St. Louis remains shrouded in darkness. Here's the story.

This is a recording of an incident occurring on the evening of December 12, 2019 in the area of 535 Bates.

The first portion of this recording will be monitored by radio transmissions on the mobile reserve K9 channel at the time of 21-14.

The first portion of this recording will be monitored by radio transmissions on the mobile reserve K9 channel at the time of 21-14.

The first portion of this recording will be monitored by radio transmissions on the mobile reserve K9 channel at the time of 21-14.

The first portion of this recording will be monitored by radio transmissions on the mobile reserve K9 channel at the time of 21-14.

The second portion of this recording will be monitored by radio transmissions on the mobile reserve K9 channel at the time of 21-14.

The fourth foot 9-inch space between 535 and 533 Bates Avenue is remarkably dark, like a black hole or a tunnel with no light at the end of it.

The narrow grassy space runs about 32 feet before it dead ends into a wood fence.

That is where 24-year-old Cortez Buffard chased by a man with a gun, couldn't run any farther on that Thursday night around 9.30 pm.

8 shots were fired, 5 possibly 6 of them hit Buffard's body, front and back, from his left fingertip to the right thigh and upper back, 3 shots to his face and head, 1 in each cheek, and the fatal shot to the upper left forehead.

The medical examiner, who performed Buffard's autopsy, ruled the manner of his death a homicide.

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