In 2022, three people were shot, and one killed, by Mississippi police officers. Despite the civilian lives endangered, the state attorney general said that pesky use of force policy justified the actions of the officers.
The Attorney General’s Office released a statement Tuesday announcing the completion of the review of three incidents where a civilian was shot by the police. In October 2022, a George County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and injured a man after responding to a domestic disturbance. In December 2022, a Richland police officer fatally shot Corlunda McGinister in a Walmart while allegedly holding an employee hostage with a firearm.
In another incident, Latasha Smith was hit in the arm by a stray bullet after a Capitol Police officer fired at a suspect, sending bullets through her apartment. She filed a suit against the Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner and Capitol Police Chief alleging her constitutional rights were violated but her case was dismissed.
Based on the investigations of the state bureau, the Attorney General’s Office concluded that the use of force was justified in each of the three cases... even when the person wasn’t the suspect.
This is the latest shady take from the Attorney General’s Office. Bettersten Wade filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Jacksonville Police on behalf of her brother, George Robinson, who died after being body-slammed on the ground by a cop, per AL.com.
According to Benjamin Crump, Wade’s civil rights attorney, Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked the appeals court to overturn the manslaughter conviction of the officer involved. The report says she argued the prosecutors failed to prove culpable negligence or indifference to the safety of human life.
Read more from AL.com:
Three Jackson officers were accused of pulling Robinson from a car, body-slamming him on pavement and striking him in the head and chest as police were searching for a murder suspect. Robinson had been hospitalized for a stroke days before the police encounter and was on medication. He had a seizure hours after he was beaten, and he died two days later from bleeding on his brain.
Crump said Bettersten Wade attended the criminal trial of Anthony Fox, one of the Jackson officers charged in Robinson’s death. In August 2022, a Hinds County jury convicted Fox of culpable negligence manslaughter. Second-degree murder charges against two officers were dropped.
Mrs. Wade’s name resurfaced in the news again when she found her son was fatally struck by a police car and buried without her knowledge after she’d been looking for him for months. Who knows what the AG’s response is going to be to this mess?