Source: General / Radio One
Alabama’s Mobile Police Department is currently the subject of a federal lawsuit accusing its officers of shooting and killing a Black teenager while he had his hands up during an unauthorized “no-knock” raid. It’s a story that shares striking similarities with that of Breonna Taylor, and if what the complaint claims is true, officers should be facing more than a lawsuit — they should be looking at prison time.
According to the Miami Herald, 16-year-old Randall Adjessom was asleep in his room on Nov. 13, 2023, when a police S.W.A.T. team “rammed down” the front door of his family’s home. Randall reportedly did not know it was the police who had invaded his home, so he grabbed a gun and left his room “to protect his mother, grandmother, aunt, and sisters from the unknown intruders breaching his childhood home,” the complaint says.
Police in Alabama shot and killed a 16-year-old boy in his own home during a no-knock raid in the middle of the night.
Body camera footage allegedly shows Randall Adjessom raising his hands and backing away just before an officer opened fire.
He was left bleeding on the floor… pic.twitter.com/uEVWAmd46Z
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) December 26, 2024
From the Herald:
When Adjessom rounded a corner and saw officers in the hallway, he instantly put his hands up and began to back away, toward his bedroom, according to the complaint.
Then one of the officers shot him four times, hitting him in the chest and torso, the complaint says.
Police body camera footage, which hasn’t been made public, shows Adjessom had his hands raised and that he didn’t pose a threat, according to his family’s legal counsel, who has reviewed the footage.
The purpose of the raid was a search for marijuana “purportedly possessed by Randall’s older brother,” who didn’t live there, the complaint says. The officers didn’t have court authorization to search the home before dawn, according to the complaint.
The raid was racially motivated, Grant & Eisenhofer, the law firm representing Adjessom’s family, said in a Dec. 23 news release.
So, just to recap: According to the lawsuit, a S.W.A.T. team raided a home it did not have proper authorization to raid over petty marijuana possession. During the illegal raid, an officer fired four shots at a teenager who had his hands raised and was backing away from them because he came into the room with a gun that was not pointed at the officers, which he only had because he thought they were intruders and he had a family to protect. And to add insult to all of that injury, the marijuana smoker the cops were there to arrest did not live in the home.
Again, this whole story reads like a throwback to Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers who were executing a warrant that was obtained fraudulently. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said he didn’t know it was the police who had invaded their home when he fired a single shot, which the cops responded to by firing a barrage of bullets into their apartment as well as nearby apartments, which resulted in Taylor’s death.
In fact, another similarity to Taylor’s story is how long it took for officers to inform Randall’s mother that her son was dead, according to the suit, which also claims officers neglected to immediately render medical aid to Randall after he was shot.
More from the Herald:
“(Body worn camera) reveals that his body writhed with the pain from his injuries, but Defendant Police Officers did not immediately render medical aid,” the complaint reads.
The body camera footage captured an officer saying “What are we going to do with this,” referring to Adjessom, according to the complaint.
Instead of providing medical help, the officers detained Adjessom’s family members in a room on the home’s first floor and didn’t tell them that the teen had been shot, the complaint says.
His mother didn’t learn he was dead until hours later when she was being questioned at a police station, where officers showed her a photo of him dead or dying, according to the complaint.
After Adjessom was left bleeding in the hallway for over four minutes, the officers began to render aid, the complaint says.
He was taken to a hospital about 40 minutes after he was shot and died there, according to the complaint, which says the hospital was about 8 minutes away from his home.
It’s almost as if it was more important to the cops to get their stories straight than it was to ensure their victim didn’t die.
The complaint, which seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages, accuses the Mobile Police Department of a “systemic pattern of using excessive force against citizens of color; in particular, young Black boys and men.” Officials for both the police department and the city declined to speak on the matter citing pending litigation, the Herald reported.
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