June 20th 2023.
Months after a grand jury declined to indict eight police officers in Akron, Ohio, for the shooting death of 25-year-old Jayland Walker, his family has filed a federal lawsuit, seeking at least $45 million in damages. This is the equivalent of $1 million for each bullet that hit him.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, alleges that excessive force was used and names eight officers, the City of Akron, Mayor Daniel Horrigan, and Police Chief Stephen Mylett as defendants. They are accused of systemic misconduct and failures in the department.
At a press conference on Friday, Bobby DiCello, the family's attorney, said that the lawsuit will begin to tell the "true story" of what happened to Walker that night. He described how Walker's death has been mischaracterized as his fault.
According to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, the officers had pursued Walker on foot after an attempted traffic stop in June 2022. They then shot him dozens of times, including five times in the back. The officers opened fire after mistakenly thinking Walker had reached into his waistband for a gun. Yost also said that Walker had fired at least one shot at them while driving his car with officers in pursuit, but left the gun in the car when he fled on foot.
Walker's death garnered national attention, adding to the heightened tensions with police over the killing of Black people across the United States. This week, for example, police in Minneapolis came under federal oversight after a Department of Justice review found routine use of excessive force against Black and Native American people.
At the press conference, Walker's mother Pamela Walker broke down in tears as she hugged her attorneys. She declined comment to Reuters when reached later by telephone. The city has not released the names of the officers involved in Walker's shooting, and a media lawsuit seeking the names of the officers is pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.
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