The footage, Colonel Mike Edmonson of the Louisiana State Police told reporters, was “extremely disturbing, and it is partly why we’re here tonight with these charges.”

“I’m not gonna talk about it, but I’m gonna tell you this,” Edmonson said. “It is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen and I will leave it at that.”

Louisiana State Police arrested the officers, Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Derrick Stafford, on charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. Mardis’s father, Chris Few, remains hospitalized. The New York Times reported Mardis, a special-needs student who had recently transferred to his new school in Louisiana from Mississippi, was shot several times in the head and chest. A forensic report on how many guns and bullets were fired will be released next week, with autopsy results to follow in eight weeks.

“That little boy was buckled in the front seat of that vehicle, and that is how he died,” Edmonson said.