By AFRO Staff
An 11-year-old Mississippi boy called 9-1-1 for help and, instead, was shot and wounded by the responding officer, according to his family and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is currently looking into the incident.
The family is calling for the officer’s immediate dismissal and indictment.
“We are demanding justice,” said family attorney Carlos Moore said during a protest that his law office showed on livestream video.
“An 11-year-old Black boy in the city of Indianola came within an inch of losing his life,” Moore said at Indianola City Hall, according to The Associated Press. “He had done nothing wrong and everything right.”
Nakala Murry said the “irate” father of her daughter showed up at her home about 4 a.m. on May 20, CNN reported. Concerned about the family’s safety, she asked her son Aderrien to call the police.
An officer, Sgt. Greg Capers of the Indianola Police Department, responded to the domestic disturbance call. He “had his gun drawn at the front door and asked those inside the home to come outside,” Murry said. Her son was coming around the corner of a hallway, into the living room–unarmed–when the officer–who is Black–shot him in the chest, she continued.
“Once he came from around the corner, he got shot,” Murry said. “I cannot grasp why. The same cop that told him to come out of the house. (Aderrien) did, and he got shot. He kept asking, ‘Why did he shoot me? What did I do wrong?’” she said.
The 11-year-old was taken to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. He suffered a collapsed lung, fractured ribs and a lacerated liver, according to the AP, but was discharged after five days.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that it is “currently assessing this critical incident and gathering evidence” and “will share their findings with the Attorney General’s Office” when the investigation is completed, according to The Hill.
Moore said he requested police body camera footage of the incident but was denied due to the ongoing investigation.
Meanwhile, he and the family are calling for Capers’ firing. The Indianola Board of Aldermen voted to suspend the officer with pay amid the state investigation, according to The Washington Post.
“This cannot keep happening. This is not OK,” Murry said at a May 22 press conference. “If a non-police officer was to shoot somebody, you know it’s not okay. When the police do it, they have protocol. He was trained. He knows what to do.”
Indianola is a small town in the Mississippi Delta, located about 100 miles north of Jackson. It is a majority-Black town with 31% of the population below the poverty line.
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