Family of 11-year-old Mississippi boy shot by police officer calls for release of bodycam footage
The family of an 11-year-old Mississippi boy who was shot and wounded by a police officer who was responding to a 911 call to their home last weekend has demanded the release of police bodycam footage.
"The family deserves answers and they deserve it sooner than later because you had an 11-year-old boy within an inch of losing his life," the family's attorney Carlos Moore told CBS News.
Moore said that the family has asked the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) for the bodycam footage of Aderrien Murry being allegedly shot in the chest early Saturday morning by an Indianola police officer. The bureau, Moore said, won't release the footage while the investigation is ongoing.
Body camera footage can provide crucial evidence about what happened in an incident, but laws don't compel release of the footage to the public, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"That's unacceptable," Moore said, and he believes investigators won't release the footage "because it shows things that are damaging to the city of Indianola." Known as the "Crown of the Delta," Indianola is located in the Mississippi Delta and has 10,683 full-time residents.
An Indianola Police Department officer came to the family's home after the child called the police for a domestic incident, his mother Nakala Murry said.
Her daughter's father knocked on the door around 4 a.m. on May 20 and "stated he was irate," said Murry, while her children and nephew were sleeping in bed. She told CBS News she gave her cell phone to her son and asked him to call her mother and the police.
Her son called the police first, and then called his grandmother, and was "trying to help protect his mom," Moore said, adding that Aderrien told 911 dispatch that the man did not have a gun.
Police arrived at the house, and at first they knocked on the door, but then kicked the door open, the family recounted.
An officer yelled, "Anyone that's in the house come out with your hands up!" Murry recalled.
Aderrien heard the order and went out of his room towards the living room, the family said. As he got into the living room he was shot by the same officer who told him to come out, Moore said.
Murry said her son fell to the ground, and then she held him and tried to compress his bullet wound.
"He started singing gospel. He started praying," Murry said.
Aderrien was airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Centre in Jackson where he was diagnosed with having a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and fractured rib, and put on a ventilator, the family said. He was released on Wednesday from the hospital, his family said.
Indianola police confirmed that Officer Greg Capers was involved in the shooting and is employed by the department, but referred any other questions to MBI.
MBI told CBS News it is currently assessing the incident and gathering evidence. Due to this being an open and active investigation, no further comment will be made, the agency said.
Request for comment from Indianola Mayor Ken Featherstone about the incident was not immediately returned.
Indianola is located about 90 miles north of Jackson.
Reporting contributed by Chris Laible and Omar Villafranca
