Black delivery driver says two white men chased and shot at him in Mississippi
The case has drawn comparisons to the encounter between Ahmaud Arbery and three residents who chased him through a Georgia neighborhood.
www.nbcnews.com
And as for the unpaid part.A Black FedEx driver in Mississippi says he was making deliveries late last month when he was chased by a pair of white men, one of whom fired multiple bullets into his vehicle as he tried to escape them.
D'Monterrio Gibson, 24, said he believes the men pursued him because he is Black and because they thought he didn't belong in their neighborhood. Now he's asking the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to take the case from local police and for the men to face federal hate crime charges.
The incident has drawn comparisons to the encounter between Ahmaud Arbery, who was Black, and three white residents who chased him through a south Georgia neighborhood in a pair of pickup trucks for five minutes in February 2020
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Gibson, who lives in Utica, about 50 miles from Brookhaven, where the encounter occurred, said the incident has left him traumatized.
He said he dropped off a package on a street called Junior Trail at about 7 p.m. on Jan. 24 while wearing his FedEx uniform. He said he was not in a FedEx truck but in a Hertz van with the rental company's markings on the sides.
After the drop-off, a man in a white pickup truck began following him closely while honking his horn, Gibson said. He drove past a couple of houses and encountered a man standing in the middle of the road with a gun pointed at him, he said. The man was mouthing the word "stop," Gibson said.
Gibson said he swerved to get around the man, who started shooting toward the rear of the Hertz vehicle. He said he called his manager, who told him to return to the FedEx station. The pickup truck chased him all the way to an interstate, he said.
He eventually was able to get away from the pickup truck and called police to report what happened. He said a dispatcher interrupted him and asked whether he had been on Junior Trail.
"I said, 'Yes,'" Gibson said. "He was like, 'Well, I just got a call of a suspicious person at this address.'"
He told the dispatcher he was not a "suspicious person" and that he was just doing his job and had been shot at, he said. The dispatcher told him that had not been relayed by the person who reported seeing a suspicious person in the neighborhood.
Gibson said the dispatcher told him to go to the police department the next day to file a report.
When Gibson got back to the FedEx station, he said, one of his superiors inspected the van and found multiple bullet holes in the rear of the vehicle and on packages.
Gibson's narrative was corroborated by the police report.
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Gregory Case was arrested on investigation of conspiracy and Brandon Case on suspicion of aggravated assault, and they posted bail the next day on $75,000 and $150,000 bonds, respectively, the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office said.
Brandon Case did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment Thursday. Numbers listed for Gregory Case were no longer in service.
The Brookhaven Police Department and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation did not reply to phone and email requests for comment.
The population of Brookhaven is 60 percent Black or African American and 37 percent white, according to the most recent census data.
Gibson and his attorney said they believe the charges are too lenient.
"We are not satisfied with the charges at all," Moore said. "We believe they should be upgraded to attempted murder."
He said they were disappointed that Brandon and Gregory Case were allowed to wait almost a week before they turned themselves in.
So... yeah, we'll see. I have to sadly say that thankfully no one was killed. But it's even sadder that we have to say this in order to.. what, sate ourselves? reassure ourselves it could be worse?
Editing in as of February 11th, Fed Ex has reinstated his pay.
FedEx Reinstates Pay For Black Driver Who Alleged White Men Chased, Shot At Him
FedEx has reinstated pay for D’Monterrio Gibson, a Black FedEx driver who said two white men chased and shot at him on his route in Lincoln County.
www.mississippifreepress.org
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