Randall Adjessom’s mother has filed a lawsuit against Mobile

A 16-year-old teenager had his hands up when he was shot by police during a no-knock drug raid in Mobile, Alabama last year, according to a civil rights filing. process filed by his mother in federal court earlier this month.

The lawsuit against the city of Mobile and several unnamed Mobile police officers says Randall Adjessom came out of his room holding a gun when he heard someone break down the front door of the home where he lived with his mother, grandmother, aunt and sisters. When he realized the intruders were police, he threw his hands in the air and took a step back, but a Mobile Police Department (MPD) SWAT officer shot him four times.

“The complaint is replete with revelations from our pre-trial investigation,” said civil rights attorneys representing Adjessom’s mother in a press release accompanying the suit, “perhaps none is more repulsive than the fact that MPD’s body-worn camera (BWC) video clearly shows Randall beginning to retreat after realizing the intruders in his family’s home were members of the by police when he was shot repeatedly. and killed in cold blood.”

And after he was shot, the suit says, police left Adjessom to bleed out on the floor for four minutes before half-heartedly providing medical attention.

If true, the trial narrative — which is said to be supported by video evidence, internal affairs reviews and a recent independent audit of the Mobile Police Department — is another tragic example of what happens when drug war, unregulated SWAT teams and the second one. Modification of the right to mix self-defense.

An MPD SWAT team executed a no-knock search warrant on November 18, 2023 as part of an investigation into Adjessom’s older brother for alleged sales of marijuana. However, the lawsuit says Adjessom’s brother did not live at the residence for which MPD obtained a search warrant — just Adjessom, who was a minor, and several women in his family.

The lawsuit says there were numerous problems with the raid, in addition to the absence of its single articulated target: MPD officers did not intentionally assess the risk to civilians in their pre-warrant threat assessment or note the presence of civilians in the search warrant affidavit; did not obtain authorization for a night raid from a judge, supervisor or prosecutor; and they didn’t manage to make themselves known until after they broke down the front door and entered the house.

All those errors became a force that brought together — like a malevolent current — the MPD SWAT officers and Randall Adjessom, who came out of his bedroom and turned down the hall holding a pistol with a laser sight.

The lawsuit says that when Adjessom realized the intruders were police officers, “Randall immediately began raising his hands (including the firearm in his hand) and walking away from the officers.”

“His withdrawal caused the laser sight on the firearm to switch from pointing in front of him to the officers at the wall,” the trial narrative continues. “Randall never tried to pull a gun on anyone. BWC footage shows the defendants police officer’s point of view. From these images, it is clear that the defendant police officer would have seen Randall raise his hands and take a step back in retreat.”

Despite this, an unknown Mobile police officer shot Adjessom four times. In all, 11 seconds passed between the SWAT officers breaking down the door and the shooting.

According to the lawsuit, after being shot, Adjessom “was writhing on the floor in pain, actively bleeding to death.” However, MPD officers “can be seen on a BWC stepping over his body instead of bending down to pet or care for him.”

“What are we going to do with this?” asks an officer on body camera after Adjessom is shot.

Four minutes would pass before a SWAT officer began applying bandages to Adjessom’s multiple gunshot wounds.

The lawsuit says medical records show Adjessom was not hospitalized and pronounced dead until 50 minutes after he was shot. The nearest hospital is eight minutes from the family home.

The lawsuit is the latest problem for MPD. An independent investigation into the department launched by Mobile officials last year and led by a former federal prosecutor found a the litany of constitutional violationsexcessive force and unnecessary deaths, specifically targeting the black community in Mobile.

The report singled out former Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine for his “autocratic tendencies” and included an unidentified MPD police officer who recalled Prine telling MPD officers, “I’m not concerned with what the media thinks and the public about the police. Fuck the audience. .”

The City of Mobile fired Prine in April after he declined an offer to retire with full pension. Holy Thursday sued numerous Mobile city officials and Kenyen Brown, the author of the report, for “willful, false, malicious, defamatory and slanderous statements.”

But the raid that led to Adjessom’s death is not an isolated incident or the result of an unusually unprofessional police department. In Illinois, the cops have birthday parties of terrorized children, innocent women humiliatedand shot a 12-year-old in the kneecap because of sloppy and unnecessary SWAT raids. In Detroit, the city paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle police lawsuits i can’t stop shooting dogs during drug raids.

SWAT raids can turn into deadly dangers for civilians and police alike when they interfere with America’s robust right to self-defense. In 2022, Florida resident Corey Marioneaux Jr. it was accused of attempted murder of a police officer for firing a gun at SWAT team officers who had just broken down his front door with a battering ram at 5am. Charges against Marioneaux were later dropped, and an internal review found no wrongdoing by police.

That same year, an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department shot and killed Amir Locke, 22, during a no-knock raid. Locke, who was not named in the search warrant, appeared to be sleeping under a blanket on a couch. When police entered the room, he reached for a gun and an officer shot him three times.

The law guarantees citizens the right to defend their homes with guns, but also allows the police to break down doors in the middle of the night and shoot any confused, half-asleep person who exercises that right. This inconsistency is one of the most important reasons why SWAT teams should be reserved for truly dangerous situations, not raids on family homes.

Adjessom’s lawsuit against the city of Mobile and several anonymous Mobile police officers seeks damages for violating the Adjessom family’s Fourth and 14th Amendment rights, as well as claims under Alabama’s wrongful death statute.

The city of Mobile did not immediately respond to a request for comment.