Jayland Walker’s family is suing Ohio police for $45 MILLION after his death from a shooting
The family of Ohio man Jayland Walker is suing the eight police officers who shot him last summer for at least $45 million, just months after a grand jury declined to indict them.
Lawyers for the family allege officers used excessive force when they fired 94 bullets at 25-year-old Walker, who is black, during a car chase and participated in a “culture of violence and racism” within the Akron Police Department.
Under the lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, they are seeking damages from the officers, the city of Akron and city officials, according to a press release. The family announced the suit, sometimes with tears in the eyes of Walker’s mother Pam.
“The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, seeks damages of at least $45 million, $1 million for every bullet that struck Jayland Walker,” the statement said.
During a routine traffic stop on June 27, 2022, police officers fatally shot Walker after he fired a single bullet from his vehicle, then ran away from the officers, according to a state investigation. Walker left the gun in his moving car.
Bobby DiCello, one of the attorneys representing Jayland Walker’s family, holds up documents related to their $45 million lawsuit filed against the City of Akron, the Akron Police Department and the eight officers who shot and killed Jayland last summer at a news conference at Akron’s First Congregational Church Friday
Pam Walker, Jayland’s mother, is comforted by Paige White, one of the lawyers representing the family
Dash-cam video from a police car captured footage of Walker firing the gun from inside his car, said Anthony Pierson, an assistant attorney general.
“Jayland Walker’s death has been wrongly dismissed as his fault,” Bobby DiCello, a lawyer for the Walker family, said at a news conference Friday. He called that mischaracterization “abhorrent.”
Walker had no criminal history and had never fired a gun until he went to a shooting range with a friend in early June, Pierson said.
Pierson would not speculate on Walker’s state of mind that night, saying there was no direct evidence that he was suicidal.
Walker had mourned the recent death of his fiancé, but his family expressed no further concern, a family representative said earlier.
“That night he met the police, he didn’t act himself,” Pierson said. “He was a good man in every way, a good man.”
Less than 24 hours before the chase, police in neighboring New Franklin Township had attempted to stop a car matching Walker’s, also for unspecified minor property violations.
A supervisor there gave up the chase when the car crossed the township’s border with Akron.
Walker’s death drew widespread attention from activists, including the family of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The NAACP and an attorney for Walker’s family called on the Justice Department to open a federal civil rights investigation.
Mourners at Walker’s July 13 funeral wore “Black Lives Matter” and “Zero Threat, Zero Violence, Justice for Jayland” T-shirts as they protested his death at the hands of police
His death garnered national attention and rocked yet another city amid heightened tensions with police over the murder of a black man that began with a traffic stop.
Walker’s death drew widespread attention from activists, including the family of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The NAACP and an attorney for Walker’s family called on the Justice Department to open a federal civil rights investigation.
President Joe Biden responded to the shooting during a trip to Ohio last summer by saying the DOJ was monitoring the matter.
Officers fired the nearly 100 rounds at Walker in less than seven seconds when he refused to raise his hands and appeared to reach into his waistband, believing he was armed and posed a “mortal threat,” the state investigation said.
The officers involved in the incident were suspended for three months and were given desk duty in October.
According to the lawsuit, police officers violated Walker’s right to freedom from excessive force under the Fourth Amendment when they shot him in a hail of gunfire, even though Walker was unarmed.
The lawsuit further alleges that the City of Akron, Mayor Daniel Horrigan and Police Chief Stephen Mylett, for years, and without repercussions, knowingly allowed Akron police officers to engage in “violent conduct” that “disproportionately involves African Americans” .
The lawsuit goes on to list several alleged cases of Akron police officers using excessive force.
Jayland Walker, 25, was shot dead by police in Ohio, with a medical examiner finding he had been shot or scraped 46 times when police fired a hail of bullets at him on June 27.
Police had chased Walker and said the 25-year-old black man shot at them 40 seconds into the chase
It also includes a 1998 newsletter circulated at the precinct, which repeatedly refers to Akron residents as animals, and states that a previous internal investigation found that police officers currently employed by the precinct’s newsletter’ read, received, distributed or found humorous’.
“The story of how Jayland Walker died begins that year, when this newsletter was distributed,” said DiCello, who called the content “hateful, violent porn.”
The blurry CCTV footage of the body did not clearly show what authorities said was a threatening gesture Walker made before he was shot. Police chased him for about 10 seconds before officers fired from multiple directions, a series of shots lasting 6 or 7 seconds.
The eight officers, whose names have not been made public, were initially put on leave, but returned to administrative duties 3 1/2 months after the shooting.
The city of Akron and the mayor’s office declined to comment on pending lawsuits.
The Akron Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.