The first time Bryant Worrell’s grieving parents saw his body, he was in a casket nine days after a Baltimore City police officer shot him to death outside their house in Southeast Baltimore.

Wilson Worrell, 48, and his wife Nancy Worrell, 51, said they watched June 17 as police shot at their 21-year-old developmentally disabled son who was running scared from police in the first block of South Robinson Street.

Paramedics said he was dead at the scene.

Police blocked Nancy from running to her son.

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During the following week, family members said they were prohibited from identifying their son’s body or seeing an autopsy report because of the ongoing police investigation.

Worrell’s property never was returned to the family.

They prayed over him June 26 and buried him at King Memorial Park in Windsor Mill.

But after reading their son’s death certificate, Worrell’s parents said they want to exhume his body and demand a second autopsy to resolve discrepancies over the cause of death, which was listed as two gunshot wounds to the torso.

“The [police] are doing us wrong; they’re hiding the truth,” Wilson Worrell said.

“We’re still here hurting, because nobody’s telling us anything.

“Everyone we called gave us the run-around and treated us like we don’t have feelings.”

Police said Officer Evert Lufadeju, a nine-year veteran, shot Worrell in the chest after Worrell pulled a gun on him, but the family said he never had a gun and was running away from police because he was scared.

“I watched them shoot my son in the back. They killed my son like a dog,” Nancy Worrell said.

“It’s in my head forever, and I’m not going to forget it; it’s not right that the officer won’t come out and tell the truth.”

The family said police then “murdered” Worrell by shooting him in the chest when he collapsed behind a house on the 3100 block of East Lombard Street.

Nancy Worrell called police about 2:30 a.m. June 17 after men stormed her house and began beating her son.

Baltimore City police spokesman Sterling Clifford has said the family’s allegations are not true, and a .38-caliber revolver was recovered at the scene.

The police investigation is ongoing.

Chief Medical Examiner David Fowler did not return calls to comment.

cpeirce@baltimoreexaminer.com