Mississippi family seeks charges after officer shoots 11-year-old boy

(Reuters) – A Mississippi family on Thursday demanded a police officer be dismissed and charged with aggravated assault for shooting an 11-year-old boy when police responded to the child’s own domestic disturbance call at his home.

Aderrien Murry, who called police at the request of his mother, was unarmed and following instructions from Indianola officer Greg Capers when Capers shot him in the chest early Saturday morning, family attorney Carlos Moore said.

The boy had called police to the home after his mother, Nakala Murry, was threatened by a man at 4 a.m. local time, but Capers “escalated the situation,” Moore said.

The man was his father, ABC News reported, citing Murry.

Moore called for bodycam video to be released and objected to Capers being placed on paid leave pending the investigation. A small group of protesters held a sit-in protest with the family at city hall on Thursday morning.

“We are demanding justice. An 11-year-old Black boy in the city of Indianola came within an inch of losing his life,” Moore said. “He had done nothing wrong and everything right.”

Murry was taken to the University of Mississippi Medical Center for treatment and released on Wednesday, CNN reported.

The police department was not available for comment.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating, CNN reported.

The incident is the latest in a string of police shootings of unarmed African Americans. In April, officers responded to a domestic violence call at the wrong house and killed a 52-year-old man in New Mexico. In 2020, Breonna Taylor was killed in 2020 during a botched police raid in Louisville, Kentucky.

The majority Black city of Indianola, population 15,000, is about 100 miles (160 km) north of Jackson, the state’s capital city.

(Reporting by Tyler Cliffrod in New York City; Editing by Michael Perry)