The mother of an 11-year-old Indianola boy shot in the chest by a police officer is trying for the second time to hold the officer accountable in a criminal court.
On Friday, Nakala Murry filed a criminal affidavit against Sgt. Greg Capers for misdemeanor simple assault stemming from the May 20, 2023, shooting of her son Aderrien. Misdemeanors don’t require a grand jury indictment and would be heard by a judge in a bench trial, which is without a jury.
“This action underscores Ms. Murry’s unwavering commitment to seeking accountability for the harm inflicted upon her son and her family,” Carlos Moore, Murry’s attorney, said in a Friday statement. “It’s a crucial step in the ongoing effort to hold responsible parties accountable for their actions.”
Last month, a Sunflower County grand jury declined to indict Capers for any felony charges based on evidence presented by the Attorney General’s Office and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which handles all investigations for law enforcement shootings.
In the Friday affidavit, Murry accuses Capers of “recklessly shooting” her son Aderrien in the chest when he responded to the Murry home for a domestic disturbance, according to a copy of the affidavit. Aderrien had used his mother’s phone to call for help.
The shooting left the boy with a collapsed lung, fractured ribs and a lacerated liver, and he has been recovering with the help of family and the community.
Murry previously filed a criminal affidavit against Capers for felony aggravated assault in Sunflower County.
Following the grand jury decision, Capers was reinstated with the Indianola Police Department after being on unpaid administrative leave for several months.
Murry is still pursuing a $5 million federal lawsuit against Capers, the Indianola police chief and city relating to her son’s shooting.
This month, MBI released a nearly two-minute long video clip taken from Capers’s body camera. Prior to the release, Murry and her attorney had been calling for the city of Indianola to release it because they had been barred from sharing the video or talking about it.
Footage shows Capers and a colleague approach the Murry home, bang on the front door and ask for permission from the 911 dispatcher to kick it open. Nakala Murry opens the door and Capers shouts twice: “Let me see your hands,” which she raises.
Capers asks twice where Murry’s former partner is, and she nods her head toward the inside of the home. When asked, Murry steps outside.
From the doorway, Capers asks the man to come out, saying “don’t make us come in.” As he steps into the living room, Aderrien walks into view of the body camera with his hands over his head. Capers immediately opens fire.
He shoots the boy in the chest and says “Oh, my god.” The boy starts to scream and runs out of the front door and yells for his mother. At the same time, Capers calls for an ambulance on his dispatch radio.
“‘Why did he shoot me? What did I do?’” Nakala Murry recalled her son saying after the shooting.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.