Greg Capers, the Indianola, Miss., police officer who shot 11-year-old Aderrien Murry in the chest last month, has been suspended without pay after the Indianola Board of Aldermen voted 4-1 to do so Monday night, The Enterprise-Tocsin reported.
After the officer shot Murry on May 20 while responding to the boy’s 911 call reporting a domestic disturbance, the board initially voted on May 22 to place Capers on paid administrative leave while the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations reviewed the case.
Murry survived the shooting and spent five days in the hospital. His family filed a $5 million lawsuit against Capers, the City of Indianola and Indianola Police Chief Ronald Sampson late last month. Last week, the boy’s mother Nakala Murry filed a criminal affidavit against Capers in an effort to push the county prosecutor to act.
“This mother takes justice for her son very seriously and she’s not going to leave it to anyone else. … She has a right to file a criminal affidavit for what she witnessed. Her son was shot,” Moore told the Mississippi Free Press last week.
At a press conference announcing the $5 million lawsuit last month, the family’s attorney Carlos Moore said Aderrien Murry called 911 after his mother’s ex-boyfriend showed up at the house in the early hours of May 20 and Nakala Murry asked her son to call for help.
“(Aderrien) had called the police to come to his mother’s rescue,” Moore said. “Her ex-boyfriend was in the house, he had heard his mother crying. She had slipped the cell phone to him and asked him to call the police and his grandmother. He did just that. A brave and courageous young man tried to come to the rescue of his mother. Little did he know that, just a few moments later, he would be fighting for his life.”
Moore said that, when Nakala Murry opened the door, she told the responding police officers that her ex-boyfriend “was running out of the back of the house and did not have a gun.”
“Then (the officer) sticks his head in the door and says, ‘If there is anyone else in the house, come on out with your hands up.’ Being obedient, Aderrien Murry heard the command and came out with his hands up,” Moore said. “And seconds later after leaving his room and turning a corner into the living room, he was shot in the chest by Greg Capers. It’s the most egregious case of excessive force I’ve witnessed or heard in my 21 years in law practice. This young child who was simply trying to help his mother almost lost his life.”
The Indianola Police Department has repeatedly declined requests for comment.
