Mississippi gon’ Mississippi.
A grand jury has decided not to indict a police officer who shot and wounded an 11-year-old boy who called for help.
According to ABC News, the grand jury decided that Indianola Police Sgt. Greg Capers did not engage in criminal conduct when he shot Aderrien Murry in the chest on May 20 while responding to a domestic dispute.
“While the grand jury has spoken, we firmly believe that there are unanswered questions and that the shooting of Aderrien Murry was not justified,” the family’s attorney Carlos Moore told reporters. “We are committed to seeking justice for Aderrien and his family.”
According to reports, the boy called for help as instructed by his mother when the father of one of her other children showed up at the family home. Two officers responded and kicked on the front door before Nakla Murry opened it and told them that the man had left and that her three children were in the home.
Nakla said that Officer Capers ordered anyone in the home to come out with their hands up and her 11-year-old son Aderrien walked out with nothing in his hands and Capers shot him in the chest.
The boy suffered a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and fractured ribs.
“Sgt. Capers is relieved at the result, and he is glad that the citizens of Sunflower County reached the fair and correct result,” his lawyer Michael Carr said. “He is looking forward to continuing to serve the citizens of Sunflower County and the city of Indianola.”
The small town of Indianola has less than 10,000 residents and the Murry family has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Capers was not properly trained and that he used excessive force.
Aderrien’s shooting may be another case of the “adultification” of Black kids. According to the National Institute of Health, “Adultification is the term used to define how Black children are viewed as older than they are.”
The American Psychological Association says that research has found that Black boys are viewed as older and less “innocent” that white boys, writing that Black boys as young as 10 are often viewed as or mistaken as older.
“Children in most societies are considered to be in a distinct group with characteristics such as innocence and the need for protection. Our research found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially innocent,” said author Phillip Atiba Goff, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles. The study was published online in APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The study was conducted by questioning 176 police officers, mostly white males, average age 37, in large urban areas, to determine their levels of two distinct types of bias — prejudice and unconscious dehumanization of black people by comparing them to apes.
“We found evidence that overestimating age and culpability based on racial differences was linked to dehumanizing stereotypes, but future research should try to clarify the relationship between dehumanization and racial disparities in police use of force,” Goff said.
The shooting brings to mind memories of the lynching of Emmett Till which occurred in Mississippi in 1955 and the shooting of Tamir Rice in 2014.
Sadly, it makes you wonder when will our kids just get to be kids.