Indianola police officer Greg Capers sat in the back row of a packed city board meeting on Monday night.
Just a few feet over were Nakala Murry and her son Aderrien, the child who was allegedly shot in the chest by Capers after a domestic violence 911 call in the early morning hours of May 20.
Capers was suspended by the board two days after the shooting incident with pay. That changed in June when the board, then still awaiting the final report from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, voted to suspend him without pay.
“They took me off the payroll without the investigation being completed,” Capers told The Enterprise-Tocsin during an interview on Monday night.
Since May 20, Nakala Murry has filed multiple civil lawsuits, including against Capers, IPD Chief Ronald Sampson, the City of Indianola and others.
In early June, she took another step in filing a criminal affidavit against Capers. The probable cause hearing in that case has been continued multiple times.
“We are hamstrung by the system,” said Michael Carr, the attorney representing Capers. “We are ready for our day. We are ready for our opportunity to go to court and resolve all of this.”
Carr is far from the only one frustrated with the court system’s delays, the latest continuance happening last Monday.
“I’m ready,” Nakala Murry told The E-T after Monday night’s meeting. “I thought we were going to be in last week. I wasn’t informed it wasn’t going to happen. I called that Friday here to verify that it was going to be going on, and they said it was. Come Monday, it wasn’t.”
It appears that the next opportunity for that hearing will be late February.
“From a defense standpoint, it’s just incredibly frustrating, because I’m trying to get my officer his day in court,” Carr said. “I’m trying to get my probable cause hearing, and I can only move as fast as the Attorney General and the court will let me… That’s 280 days since the day of the shooting before he can even have his first day in court and answer any questions whatsoever, and that’s just so incredibly long.”
As for Monday night’s meeting, Capers was hoping that the board would vote to reinstate his pay and put him back to work.
“I love law enforcement,” Capers said. “I love the citizens of Indianola. I’m so ready to go back, I don’t know what to do.”
Capers noted that several uniformed and off-duty officers were present to support his bid to return to the force.
“They’re ready,” Capers said. “They’re all supporting me, and some of them are off-duty now, and they came in to support me.”
Nakala Murry was hoping for the opposite from the board.
“I would like for them to go ahead and terminate him,” she said. “Release the body cam footage. Why can’t even I see it? It’s not about the public…I’m the mom. Everyone has seen that footage, even people who are not authorized or even in a position to see the footage, so why can’t I see it?”
Capers suggested that he too is in favor of making the body cam footage public. He says the video evidence will exonerate him and will show that the shooting was an accident.
“I’m very frustrated. I’m ready to get back to work. I’m ready for the body cam to come out to prove that everything I have said to my attorney is fact,” Capers said. “You will find out, once the body cam hits, what the truth is.”
His attorney concurred.
“I’ve got to get this man back to work for the City of Indianola,” Carr said. “I have no concerns whatsoever that there’s any problem with this video. It’s absolutely what a law enforcement officer is trained to do.”
That said, attorneys representing the city recently filed multiple petitions to have the body cam footage filed under seal, according to recent court filings obtained by The E-T.
Attorney Daniel J. Griffith of Cleveland-based law firm Jacks, Griffith, Luciano filed those petitions, according to the filings.
“The body camera footage referenced as Exhibit ‘E’ to the foregoing Motions contains incredibly sensitive footage of the subject incident involving Plaintiff Nakala Murry and her minor child, A.M,” the filing states in part. “Defendants request this Court allow the video to be filed under seal to protect the privacy interests of the minor child, A.M. If not permitted to be filed under seal, the body camera footage would publicly identify minor A.M., and there remains a compelling interest to protect a minor child’s identity in court filings.”
At the end of Monday night’s meeting, Capers and Murry walked away without much to show.
Ward 1 Alderman Gary Fratesi made the motion after executive session to reinstate Capers. That was seconded by Ward 2 Alderman Darrell Simpson.
Ward 3 Alderman Ruben Woods, Ward 4 Alderman Marvin Elder and Ward 5 Alderman Sam Brock all voted nay, and Capers’s job and pay status remain unchanged.
“Meanwhile, the City of Indianola is short a very capable officer,” attorney Carr said. “They’re having to pay other officers overtime to cover his spot, which again goes into budgetary issues. And again, we have an officer who is sidelined for looks like 280 days.”
As for Nakala Murry, Monday’s vote means that she will continue to attend board meetings, hoping her and her son’s presence will make a difference.
“I’m just to the point to where I’m just tired, and I feel like this is a fight I shouldn’t be fighting,” she said.
