Unarmed Black New Jersey Man Paralyzed By Police Bullets…

Flushed with sup­port from the supreme court on down, American police have decid­ed they will kill any­one who dares to show con­tempt of cop. Multiple shots as long as their vic­tims are black.
They con­tin­ue to do it because they know they will get away with it, until of course, the peo­ple decide enough is enough.

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Unarmed Black New Jersey Man Steps Outside to Retrieve Bottle of Tea from Vehicle, Winds Up Paralyzed After Being Ambushed By Plainclothes cops.

An unarmed Black man sit­ting in his car out­side of his home was shot by a police offi­cer, leav­ing the major­i­ty of his body par­a­lyzed. Jajuan Henderson, 29, is now suing the city and mem­bers of the police force for dam­ages incurred by the incident.
A copy of the law­suit, names the city of Trenton; the direc­tor of Trenton police, Steve E. Wilson; and the four offi­cers from the scene of the inci­dent, list­ed only by their ini­tials (M.G., C.H., J.C., and J.L.), as defen­dants and alleges the arrest­ing offi­cers used exces­sive force, neg­li­gence, and racial pro­fil­ing dur­ing the encounter.
The Burlington City native was par­al­lel parked out­side of his home on Feb. 12, accord­ing to the fil­ing, when four police offi­cers are said to have boxed his car in, ambushed him with a fusil­lade of bul­lets, and left him with injuries that caused him to be par­a­lyzed from the chest down.

Richard Smith, pres­i­dent of the state chap­ter of the NAACP, intro­duced the com­plaint dur­ing a press con­fer­ence, say­ing, “This inci­dent and inci­dents like it are all too famil­iar. These offi­cers — sworn to pro­tect and serve all —rushed to exe­cu­tion. These offi­cers deval­ued the life of anoth­er Black man.”

Despite it being a lit­tle past mid­night, Henderson said he went out­side to retrieve a bot­tle of iced tea from the vehi­cle that he acci­den­tal­ly left ear­li­er. He decid­ed to get into the car and sit.

As he “sat law­ful­ly parked in a car with the engine turned off when an uniden­ti­fied dark car approached and parked next to him, box­ing him in,” the fil­ing claims. “A group of men, ful­ly masked and in dark plain clothes, then jumped out of this mys­te­ri­ous vehi­cle and began yelling at Jajuan. As many oth­ers would do in this esca­lat­ing sit­u­a­tion, Jajuan used his cell phone to call for support.”

Civil rights attor­ney Greg Zeff con­tends the men were actu­al­ly mem­bers of Trenton police’s Street Crimes Unit and did not iden­ti­fy them­selves as they approached his client’s vehi­cle, even though they were all in plain civil­ian clothes. Henderson was con­fused and tried to call for aid.

Shortly after arriv­ing, one of the offi­cers smashed the win­dow of the car.

This group of men, appear­ing as any oth­er group of dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals from a hor­ror movie, turned out to be from the Trenton Police Department,” the lawyer wrote in the doc­u­ment. “A Black man sit­ting in a car at mid­night while on a cell phone was all the uniden­ti­fied police need­ed to smash the driver’s side window.”

Henderson was “unarmed, non­threat­en­ing, and mind­ing his own busi­ness,” when the police “used lethal force” and shot him “in the neck.”

Police reports state the offi­cers stopped the man as “a part of a motor vehi­cle stop,” even though he was parked and “the engine of the car … was turned off.”

The cops acknowl­edged Henderson was talk­ing to some­one on the phone when they approached him. The report also admit­ted one of the badges broke the Black man’s win­dow. After the glass shat­tered, police not­ed Henderson turned on his car and “attempt­ed to flee.”The lawyer stat­ed in the claim Henderson could not get away because by this time mul­ti­ple police cars and a util­i­ty pole were block­ing him. It was then that “at least one” of the offi­cers, accord­ing to the police report, shot the man four times — includ­ing a bul­let shot(s) “that struck his spinal cord ren­der­ing him par­a­lyzed him from the chest down.”

Henderson still main­tains he had no idea at the onset of the con­fronta­tion that the men were police.

NJ​.com reports that Henderson was charged with four aggra­vat­ed assault charges, includ­ing try­ing to run the cops over with his vehi­cle. The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office has con­firmed these charges have since been dropped. Bodycam from the police offi­cers that night could not eas­i­ly sub­stan­ti­ate those claims. He still faces resist­ing arrest and obstruc­tion charges. 

After ini­tial­ly being treat­ed at a Trenton hos­pi­tal, he was trans­ferred to a hos­pi­tal in Philadelphia.

Henderson’s moth­er, Gia Henderson shared at the press con­fer­ence that she had already lost one son, and after hear­ing about Jajuan being shot, her “heart almost broke.

We want jus­tice for Jajuan,” she said. “We want change, trans­paren­cy, and accountability.”

The law­suit alleges the offi­cers used an unrea­son­able degree of force regard­ing Henderson, made no efforts to de-esca­late the events of the night, nor did they make any effort to “pre­serve and pro­tect human life and the safe­ty of all persons.”

It fur­ther states the offi­cers failed to fol­low the New Jersey Attorney General Guidelines on the use of force and dead­ly force dur­ing that ear­ly February morning.

In addi­tion to announc­ing the law­suit, the NAACP and Henderson’s lawyers are call­ing on Mercer County to release the officer’s body­cam footage. According to the 2018 New Jersey Attorney General direc­tive, the footage should have been released to the pub­lic approx­i­mate­ly 20 days after the incident. 

No one from Henderson’s camp has seen the videos.

According to a detec­tive from the coun­ty who saw the body­cam videos, they show a very dif­fer­ent account than com­mu­ni­cat­ed in the law­suit and aligns with the police report of the incident.

Their report states Henderson was being unco­op­er­a­tive when they ini­ti­at­ed their motor vehi­cle stop. The offi­cers allege he would not pro­vide iden­ti­fi­ca­tion such as a driver’s license, reg­is­tra­tion, or insur­ance doc­u­ments. The affi­davit notes his win­dows were also par­tial­ly rolled down and he was on the phone when they approached.

In the report, Henderson was said to be fid­get­ing with some­thing inside a pas­sen­ger com­part­ment and under seats. It also claims he ignored the com­mands of the police, prompt­ing one offi­cer to smash the win­dow and the father to turn on the car to “dri­ve away.” This account men­tions Henderson crash­ing into a car behind him.

Officials stat­ed after the shoot­ing, all four were placed on rou­tine admin­is­tra­tive duty. 

The inves­ti­ga­tion of the offi­cers’ use of dead­ly force has been trans­ferred out of Mercer County because of con­flict between the police depart­ment and the prosecutor’s office. The neigh­bor­ing Union County will review the case. 

Henderson is suing for com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages, puni­tive dam­ages, attorney’s fees, costs, fees, and any oth­er appro­pri­ate relief.