Photo courtesy of the Brookhaven Police Department.
Two white men chased down a Black Fed Ex driver and shot at him in Brookhaven, Mississippi, on Jan. 24.
According to the Mississippi Free Press, 24-year-old D’Monterrio Gibson was making his scheduled deliveries when he was shot at by the men from a white pickup truck.
Gibson told the outlet he had an inkling the men in the truck were suspicious when they tried to cut him off. After he drove away, he saw a man in the middle of the street who shot at him.
“In my mind I’m thinking (the driver) is leaving to go to the store or something like that, but then they get extremely close to me and start blowing their horn,” said Gibson. “I proceed to leave the driveway. As I’m leaving the driveway, he starts driving in the grass trying to cut me off. My instincts kick in, I swerve around him, and I start hitting the gas trying to get out of the neighborhood because I don’t know what his intentions are.
“I drive down about two or three houses,” he continued. “There’s another guy standing in the middle of the street pointing a gun at my windows and signaling to me to stop with his hands, as well as mouthing the word, ‘Stop.’ I shake my head no, I hide behind the steering wheel, and I swerve around him as well. As I swerve around him, he starts firing shots into my vehicle.”
A panicked Gibson called his boss at Fed Ex and told her the men were shooting at him.
“I’m like they’re shooting at me, and she’s like they’re shooting at you. I’m like yes!” said Gibson. “They can’t take the law into their own hands. We’re really just tired of stuff like this happening, always looking suspicious to a certain type of people,” he added.
D’Monterrio Gibson and his boss, Candice Welch, reported the shooting at the police department the following day. According to the police report, several bullets were found in the van and several packages.
“Ms. Candice Welch, said she was Mr. Gibsons boos [sic], the van had at least [sic] two bullet holes, one in the back door and one in the bumper, and three packages inside had bullet holes in them. She also had a picture of a bullet, that is still laying on van.”
A white police officer at the Brookhaven Police Department added to the trauma by asking Gibson if he was doing anything suspicious. Gibson replied he was doing his job.
“I felt disrespected at that point, because even if I did, they still can’t take the law into their own hand,” he said. “So I told him all I did was my job. If they think that I was suspicious, that was on them. He was like ‘OK, I was just asking.’”
The two men were later identified as Gregory Case and his son, 35-year-old Brandon Case, who turned themselves in. The shooting is reminiscent of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, who was chased to his death by a father, son and a neighbor under similar circumstances in Georgia.
Carlos Moore is Gibson’s attorney and said he wanted both the FBI and Mississippi Bureau of Investigations to investigate the shooting as a hate crime. He also wants the shooting prosecuted as a hate crime.
“They can’t take the law into their own hands. We’re really just tired of stuff like this happening, always looking suspicious to a certain type of people,” Gibson told the Free Press.
“It’s just sad that it happens,” added Moore. “It seems to be a copycat duo copying off the Ahmaud Arbery case… They saw this man was a Black man, and they just hauled off and shot at him multiple times, at least the younger son did. The older guy tried to entrap him. They were working concertedly to try to entrap and kill this man. I mean, they shot at him several times. It’s amazing that he survived.”
Gregory Case was charged with conspiracy. His son was charged with aggravated assault shooting into an occupied vehicle. Moore said the charges should be for attempted murder.
“We believe those are too light charges. We believe this is attempted murder,” said Moore. “They had no justification under the law to do what they did. This man had done nothing wrong, and we believe it was racially motivated.”
D’Monterrio Gibson has taken a leave of absence from Fed Ex while he deals with the trauma and is currently in therapy.