A Harrison County grand jury found no “criminal conduct” by the Gulfport police officer who shot and killed 15-year-old Jaheim McMillan in October. The Harrison County District Attorney’s office on Wednesday sent a press release announcing the grand jury ruling, though the release did not provide any details on what the grand jury had cited for its decision in the case. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation handled the investigation just as it does for all police shootings in Mississippi. Since July 1, The Attorney General’s Office has been charged with reviewing evidence in all police shootings in the state to determine if any criminal wrongdoing occurred.
In McMillan’s case, Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office reviewed the evidence and decided to present it to a Harrison County grand jury to determine if a crime had been committed. The AG’s office has not presented evidence to a grand jury in all of the cases involving police shootings in the state that the office has handled since July. In a statement released Wednesday, Fitch confirmed the information about the grand jury ruling and said “no further criminal action will be taken by this office in this matter.”
Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said authorities got in touch with McMillan’s mother, Katrina Mateen, and other relatives Wednesday morning to set up a time to meet and share with them the grand jury decision and the plans to release the police body camera footage of the shooting to the public.
The Black teenager’s death has prompted various protests in Gulfport. Local residents, Black Lives Matter group members, national civil rights figures and other activists have demanded justice for Jaheim, and have called for body camera footage to be released to the public.
At one recent protest, Gulfport police officers — some in tactical gear and armed with shotguns loaded with bean bag bullets — arrested five of the activists on various charges. One of the five arrested faced a felony charge for allegedly assaulting a police officer.
THE SHOOTING OF JAHEIM MCMILLAN
McMillan died two days after he was shot in the head by a Gulfport officer. He was on life support for two days at a Mobile Hospital before his death.
Gulfport Police Chief Adam Cooper said the shooting occurred after police responded to a 911 in the area of Pass Road and 8th Avenue in reference to minors waving guns at other motorists. Cooper said the minors, one of whom was McMillan, were in a Kia Soul and were brandishing weapons and chasing another vehicle.
Gulfport police officers tracked the minors down in the car in the parking lot of Family Dollar, where Cooper said two of the five occupants jumped out and ran, but were later tracked down and arrested. Both of those minors had guns that police retrieved nearby.
Cooper said McMillan refused the officer’s repeated demands to drop the weapon prior the shooting and fell to the ground in front of the door to the Family Dollar store. He laid on the ground for some time before any paramedics or otherwise attempted to render aid to him.
TEEN’S FAMILY, PROTESTERS DISPUTE POLICE CLAIMS Since the shooting, Mateen and other supporters have contradicted the police department’s account of events. Some protesters said early-on that McMillan was unarmed with his hands up in the air when a police officer shot him, but authorities say he was armed with a gun. Protesters say they obtained a surveillance from a business across the street from the Family Dollar store that clearly shows that McMillan was scared and “running for his life” because the police officer “jumped out (of his car) with a gun already pointed at him.”
That footage, the protesters said, showed the police officer chasing McMillan and firing his weapon.
In recent months, authorities allowed Mateen to view at least some of the video footage of the shooting. She questioned whether what she saw was an edited version of the police camera footage and didn’t feel like it confirmed that her son had turned toward the officer with a gun. In Mississippi and in other states, indictments against l.aw enforcement officers who kill people while in the line of duty is rare. The Sun Herald obtained use of force polices from 14 law enforcement agencies in South Mississippi. Though Gulfport police denied a request for the police, the Sun Herald independently obtained a copy of it.
The Gulfport Police Department’s use of force policy says officers are allowed to use deadly force “to achieve the following lawful objectives: To defend himself, or others against serious threats of serious bodily injury or death. To stop dangerous felony flight, where there is serious imminent risk to the public of death or serious bodily injury.”
The Gulfport Police Department’s use of force policy says officers are allowed to use deadly force “to achieve the following lawful objectives: To defend himself, or others against serious threats of serious bodily injury or death. To stop dangerous felony flight, where there is serious imminent risk to the public of death or serious bodily injury.”
