An African-American teenager who was shot and injured while one of his friends was holding a toy gun has filed a $20 million lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles.
Jamar Nicholson, 15, and his friends were standing in an alley near 10th Avenue in South Los Angeles before school Feb. 10 when he sustained a gunshot wound to the upper back.
“Jamar is really lucky to be alive. With respect to the other kids, they are lucky as well that they weren't hit. It doesn't appear that the officer who shot used a lot of discrimination with where he aimed the pistol,” Herbert Hayden, an attorney with Harris & Associates, said in an interview with Yahoo News.
Hayden, who is representing Nicholson, sees a connection between this shooting and the killing of Walter Scott in South Carolina. He laments that no one recorded the incident involving Officer Miguel Gutierrez, who
shot and killed a dog in 2008 while responding to a possible traffic collision.
The LAPD says that about 7:45 a.m. on the day of the shooting, officers with the Criminal Gang and Homicide Division saw one of the teens holding what appeared to be a firearm at another individual in the alleyway.
“Officers ordered him to drop the weapon multiple times. The individual ignored the officer's commands,” a
police news release reads.
The claim for damages filed with the city clerk says two plainclothes detectives appeared without warning and without identifying themselves before opening fire.
According to the claim, the detectives, after shooting at least three rounds of bullets, said, “Get on the ground, motherf---ers.”
Police say the “replica firearm” has been booked as evidence at the Scientific Investigation Division.
“The toy gun that the police officers say they think they saw was never brandished by any of the kids,” Hayden said.
One of Nicholson’s friends, 17-year-old Jason Huerta, has joined him in suing the city.
The LAPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News. A police spokesman
told the L.A. Times on Wednesday that Gutierrez has returned to full duty since the incident, though it remains under investigation.
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