The estate of a 15-year-old who was shot and killed by police in 2015 is suing the city of Indianapolis, in hopes of revealing the identities of the officers who killed the boy.
Andre Alexander Green died after he was shot by two Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers in August 2015. The officers have yet to be identified and no video footage of Green’s encounter with police has emerged.
In the wake of the shooting death of the teen, black leaders and city officials pushed for police officers to be equipped with body cameras. Similar calls were made after the police shooting death of unarmed Aaron Bailey in late July this year.
The latest lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court Southern District of Indiana this week, “seeks some measures of redress for the wrongful, unjustified actions of these officers and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department,” court documents filed by the plaintiff state.
“Those actions have left a family and community decimated, and without other recourse.”
The case stems from events that occurred Aug. 9, 2015, when 15-year-old Green was shot and killed by three Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officers who blocked his path on a dead-end street in an east-side neighborhood. Police allege that Green was in a stolen vehicle.
Police said the officers opened fire on Green after he rammed a patrol car with the vehicle, missing a female officer who had stepped out of her car to give foot chase to two other suspects who fled the car.
Police also said that Green was using the car as a weapon and that he had a gun in his hand as he exited the car with his fatal wounds.
Police have made no assertion that Green pointed or fired his gun at officers.
The complaint contradicts the police department’s summation of events.
“Both prior to and during the time in which Andre was shot and killed, Andre made no aggressive movement, no furtive gestures and no physical movements which would suggest to a reasonable officer that the decedent has the will, intent, or the ability to inflict substantial bodily harm against any individual or officer,” the complaint states.
A man who later said he witnessed the incident told IndyStar that Green wasn’t threatening the police with the car so much as he was trying to turn the car around, bumping into the cruiser.
The family, represented by Trent McCain from the McCain Law Offices in Merrillville, seeks compensatory damages, attorneys fees and punitive damages.
The recent police shooting of unarmed Aaron Bailey has renewed calls for police officers to be equipped with body cameras.
Bailey was shot at the end of a police chase during the early morning hours of June 29. His case has garnered national attention.
In July, Mayor Joe Hogsett said he did not yet know if the city would include funding for body cameras in the 2018 budget.
“It would be great to have body cams and to have any kind of technological availability that answers a lot of these questions for us,” Hogsett told IndyStar.
But he said it’s not a budget priority, adding that the priority is hiring more officers.
Source: http://www.indystar.com