It has been nearly eight months since 11-year-old Aderrien Murry was shot by an Indianola police officer.
Since the morning of May 20, there have been protests waged and federal lawsuits and criminal affidavits filed around the case. The officer who apparently pulled the trigger, Greg Capers, was suspended with pay. And then he was suspended without pay.
The long, hot summer turned to fall, with only a few significant developments in the case.
Aderrien Murry, who survived the shooting, and his mother, Nakala Murry, attended Indianola city board meetings on a regular basis, applying as much political pressure as possible to keep Capers from being reinstated to the force.
All the while, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the investigating agency in the shooting and the City of Indianola held firm on not releasing the body camera footage from that morning.
Nakala Murry called for the release of the footage days after her son was shot, and she maintained that position for eight months.
A judge, however, agreed with the city, issuing an order in mid-December sealing the body cam footage, citing the minor’s interest and the importance of not tainting the local jury pool.
This happened right around the time a Sunflower County grand jury issued a no true bill, declining to indict Capers on criminal charges.
On December 21, Indianola Alderman Marvin Elder had made a motion to release the body cam footage in its entirety, stating that it was his belief the judge’s order did not apply to the city board.
“This board can do what it feels like it wants to do, concerning the release of this video footage,” Elder said at the time.
Another Alderman, Gary Fratesi, disagreed.
“It’s a court order, which we have no control over, but have him ask Carlos (Moore),” Fratesi said, referring to the Murry’s family attorney. “Tell him to go to the family. Carlos has the video. If he wants to release it, let him go against the court. We don’t need to get in the middle of this.”
City Attorney Kimberly Merchant cautioned the board that the judge’s order likely extended to the city. Elder’s motion died for lack of a second.
And just like that, last Friday night, the video of Aderrien Murry taking a bullet to the chest area was released to a news outlet, apparently by MBI.
So much for the court order.
The video shows only about two minutes of the events that unfolded in the 4 a.m. hour at that B.B. King Road residence that morning.
When the video starts, a police dispatcher can be heard telling the officer that she was communicating with a female who said that a male subject was in the home and would not allow her to go to the door.
“We are at the door,” Capers can be heard saying, adding about the locked door, “If she’s giving us permission to kick it in, we’ll kick it in.”
After knocking on the door multiple times, Capers receives another dispatch saying, “She’s giving us permission, you can go ahead.”
Capers, with his gun and flashlight in hand, appears to attempt to kick in the door multiple times before Nakala Murry opens the door. She exits slowly with her hands in the air.
“Let me see your hands,” Capers says.
He then asks the woman, “Where’s he at?”
Nakala Murry appears to motion with her head back toward the inside of the home.
Capers asks her if the male subject has any weapons. She appears to say no.
Nakala Murry is then told by another officer to move further away from the door and into her yard. She disappears from the view of the body cam.
Capers yells inside the home.
“Come out sir!” he says. “Don’t make us come in!”
Capers then moves into the doorway, pointing his flashlight into what appears to be a living area at the front of the home.
“Police! If you have any weapons, you better put ‘em down,” he says.
And that is when Aderrien Murry appears to bolt from around a corner, running directly at Capers.
Capers fires his weapon. The child’s appearance in the video and the trigger pull happens in a blink of an eye.
Aderrien Murry falls to the ground, and it appears Capers knows immediately that he pulled the trigger on a child.
“Oh my God!” he shouts.
Aderrien Murry gets back on his feet and runs out of the home past the officer, who immediately begins radio calls for an ambulance.
“MedStat! MedStat!,” he shouts into the radio. “We need MedStat. We need it now!”
At that point, the video ends.
Mike Carr, Capers’ attorney, told The Enterprise-Tocsin this week that the release of the footage was unexpected, and he nor his client knew that it was going to happen.
Carr maintained that it was his understanding that a release of the video by anyone would be a violation of the judge’s order.
“(We) are very frustrated that we are playing by the rules while others are not,” Carr said in a statement.
Murry family attorney Carlos Moore is pleased the public has access to at least two minutes of the video.
“The release of this video allows the world to independently assess whether the actions of Greg Capers were justified when he shot unarmed 11-year-old Aderrien Murry in the chest,” Moore said in a statement. “This transparency is vital in the shedding light on the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.”
City attorney Merchant says the city will continue to abide by the court’s order and will not release any longer version of the video.
The city is still facing a $5 million federal lawsuit, which was filed by Nakala Murry shortly after the incident last spring.
Moore told The E-T that he believes the public also has the right to hear the 911 dispatch tapes from that morning.
“My client, Nakala, eagerly anticipates the pursuit of justice for her son, Aderrien,” he said. “We look forward to a thorough and impartial examination of the facts, and we are committed to ensuring that the truth is revealed and that justice is served.”
Carr said Capers will not comment at this time on the contents of the body cam video. Once the litigation is behind him, Carr said he may reconsider.
