The family of an 11-year-old boy who was shot in the chest by Mississippi police after calling them to his home for help are suing the city and officers for $5 million.
Aderrien Murry was woken up at around 4am on May 20 by the sound of his mother’s ex-boyfriend behaving threateningly, so she asked him to call the police.
When officers from Indianola Police Department arrived moments later, Aderrien said he was asked to step out of his room.
When he did, he was shot, and was lucky to survive.
Aderrien suffered a collapsed lung, fractured ribs and a lacerated liver from the shooting and was placed on a ventilator at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. He spent five days in hospital.
On Tuesday, the Murry family filed a lawsuit against the city of Indianola; the police chief, Brian Sher; and the officer who shot Aderrien, Greg Capers, 61.
Aderrien Murry, 11, called 911 and his grandmother at 4am on May 20, when his mother’s ex-boyfriend came to the house and the family felt threatened
Mississippi police officer Greg Capers (left), accused of a shooting an 11-year-old boy in the chest after he dialed 911 for help, has been suspended without pay. Capers is being sued by the boy’s family, along with the city of Indianola and the police chief, Brian Sher (right)
Capers, named the best officer in Indianola in 2021, has been suspended, pending an investigation.
Carlos Moore, the family’s attorney, said Sher and Capers should be fired.
They also want the body camera video of the shooting to be released to the public.
‘It’s the most egregious case of excessive force I’ve witnessed or heard in my 21 years of law practice,’ said Moore.
‘City of Indianola, we’re coming after you, and you’re going to pay them.’
Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has announced it is examining the shooting – a routine procedure for all officer-involved shootings.
Bailey Martin, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said last week that the department would not comment on the ongoing investigation, and MBI agents will share their findings with the state attorney general’s office.
Aderrien told Good Morning America that he felt ‘a big punch’ when he was shot.
He said he began singing gospel songs to sustain himself as he staggered towards the door.
‘I came out doing this,’ he said, with his arms raised, during an interview with ABC News.
‘It felt like a taser, like a big punch to the chest.
‘I was bleeding, bleeding from my mouth.
‘Then I would just remember singing a song.’
Aderrien Murry, 11, described the moment he was shot in the chest by Mississippi police after calling 911 during an interview with ABC News
Aderrien said the bullet ‘felt like a Taser, like a big punch to the chest’ and said he thought he was going to die
Aderrien Murry was awoken at around 4am on May 20 to the sound of his mother’s ex-boyfriend behaving threateningly outside the house (pictured) so he was asked to call the police
When asked which song he was singing, Aderrien said: ‘No weapon formed against me prosper shall’ – referring to the Bible verse, Isaiah 54:17: ‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.’
His mother, Nakala Murry, has called for Capers to be charged and fired.
She described giving her son the phone and asking him to call his grandmother, after she woke up, heard a knock on the window, and saw her ex-boyfriend standing outside.
‘I noticed he was kind of irate. And from dealing with him in the past, I know the irate version of him, what it could lead to,’ she told Good Morning America.
Aderrien called 911 and his grandmother, who in turn also called 911.
Nakala claimed that when the officer arrived he ‘had his gun drawn at the front door and asked those inside the home to come outside’.
She added: ‘Once he was like, come out with your hands up, at that moment is when my son came out.’
She also spoke of the moment she put her hand over her son’s wound to apply pressure while he ‘sang gospel songs and prayed while bleeding out’.
‘He was like: ‘I don’t want to die’ – that’s what he was saying,’ she said.
‘I said: ‘You’re not going to die, baby, you’re not going to die, just keep talking’.’
She previously said that the officer who fired the gun also tried to help by putting his hand over hers to try to stop Aderrien’s bleeding.
The family has hired an attorney, Carlos Moore (pictured), to assist them in bringing a case against the city
Moore told CNN: ‘We believe that the city and the officer should be liable to Aderrien Murray, for the damages they have caused.’
The attorney’s request for body camera footage of the incident to be released was rejected because of ‘an ongoing investigation’ by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
But Moore said he had been told there is a video of the shooting captured from a nearby gas station.
The MBI issued a statement after the shooting saying it is ‘currently assessing this critical incident and gathering evidence’ and would hand over its findings to the state attorney general’s office after completing the investigation.
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