Jeremy "Bam Bam" McDole was a 28-year-old

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

paraplegic Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek () "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural ...

who was shot and killed by police in

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington ( Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

on September 23, 2015, at 3:00 pm. McDole was in a wheelchair at the time of the shooting. Police responded to a call about a man with a gun. The 911 caller later recanted her statements and has, to date, faced no penalties for the false statements made, which resulted in McDoles death. Camera footage from a bystander showed officers ordering McDole to drop his weapon and raise his hands, with McDole being shot after reaching for his waist area, but with a gun never being seen and evidence photos of the reported weapon only appearing 6 years after his murder. The

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

state department cleared the officers of wrongdoing, but concluded that one of the involved officers had shown "extraordinarily poor" police work. A 2020 review by the Delaware Attorney General's Office came to the same conclusion. Both decided against filing any charges. The McDole family sued the city of Wilmington, and in January 2017, a settlement of $1.5 million was reached by the city.

Shooting

On September 23, 2015, at around 3:00p.m., local police in Wilmington, Delaware responded to a 911 call about a man who had suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The female caller told the dispatcher that a man had shot himself, still had the weapon, and had fallen onto the ground but was moving back into his wheelchair. The officers who responded were Joseph Dellose, Thomas Lynch, James MacColl, and Danny Silva. Police arrived and found Jeremy McDole sitting in a wheelchair. The incident escalated when police instructed McDole to raise his hands, followed by McDole being shot and killed by police. According to police, a .38-caliber pistol was found on McDole after the shooting. Relatives of McDole have stated that he was unarmed. Video footage taken on a cellphone showed McDole shuffling in his chair and moving his hands while officers ordered him several times to put them up.

Investigation

The shooting was investigated by both Delaware's Department of Justice's Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust and the Wilmington Police Department. The

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

has stated that a special prosecutor is needed to ensure an impartial investigation. A report of the incident was compiled by the

Attorney General of Delaware The attorney general of Delaware is a constitutional officer of the U.S. state of Delaware, and is the chief law officer and the head of the State Department of Justice. On January 1, 2019, Kathy Jennings was sworn in as the 46th attorney general o ...

Matt Denn Matthew P. Denn (born February 9, 1966) is an American lawyer and politician from New Castle County, Delaware. He served as the 45th attorney general of Delaware from 2015 until 2019. Denn previously served as the 25th lieutenant governor of Dela ...

, in which it was announced that the office had decided against criminal charges against the four Wilmington police officers involved, although investigators concluded one officer, Joseph Dellose, showed "extraordinarily poor" police work.

Legal action

The Delaware Department of Justice had begun to compile a case against Dellose for a felony assault charge, but experts determined that he had acted within Delaware law and that prosecution would likely be unsuccessful. The report cleared the other three officers outright, noting they fired their weapons due to a subjective belief that greater harm would come to innocent parties if they did not. Shortly after the announcement that none of the four officers would be charged, the lawyer for the McDole family announced that the lack of charges would not stop the federal civil suit around the death. In January 2017, a federal judge approved the city's $1.5 million settlement with McDole's family.Jeremy McDole, Sept. 23, 2015
Rapid city journal, May 4, 2017

Arrest of Phyllis McDole

Subsequent to the shooting, Phyllis McDole, the mother of Jeremy, allegedly assaulted a woman she believed made the

911 911 or 9/11 may refer to: Dates * AD 911 * 911 BC * September 11 ** 9/11, the September 11 attacks of 2001 ** 11 de Septiembre, Chilean coup d'état in 1973 that outed the democratically elected Salvador Allende * November 9 Numbers * 911 ...

call that lead to the death of her son. Phyllis McDole was arrested on charges of

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

terroristic threat A terroristic threat is a threat to commit a crime of violence or a threat to cause bodily injury to another person and terrorization as the result of the proscribed conduct. Several U.S. states have enacted state law, statutes which impose criminal ...

s, and

assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...

and subsequently released on bail. The state later agreed to drop the charges and she did not receive jail time after a plea deal was arranged for the charge of

burglary Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...

Response

After the release of the Attorney General report regarding the incident, the head of the Wilmington Police Officers' Union, Harold Bozeman, alleged that the report was only made for political gain. He stated, "The attorney general appears to be a man whose political ambition has trumped impartiality." Local activists questioned police tactics that allowed for a shooting to occur while no threat to an officer was ever made. The African-American community in Wilmington called for a peaceful response. Of the four officers involved, three are white and one is Hispanic. The death of Jeremy McDole garnered the attention of

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police bruta ...

activists on Twitter, and a local Black Lives Matter group joined McDole's family in leading subsequent marches and protests.

Marches and protests

In October 2015, a march was organized by the family of Jeremy McDole and other local residents. Additional demonstrations took place during the months of December 2015Cormier, Ryan
"McDole Family Calls for Resignation of Denn, Williams." ''DelawareOnline''. Accessed January 11, 2015
/ref> and January 2016.Reyes, Jessica Masulli
"Protesters block Wilmington streets over police shooting." ''DelawareOnline''. January 4, 2016. Accessed January 11, 2015.
/ref> Family of McDole stated they had not received official updates on the investigation, and called for the disruption of commercial activity and the resignation of city officials. During the protests against the murder of George Floyd in Wilmington, Delaware, McDole's mother spoke to the crowd who marched in memory of

George Floyd George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twe ...

and Jeremy McDole.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McDole, Jeremy 2015 deaths

Death of Jeremy McDole Jeremy "Bam Bam" McDole was a 28-year-old African American paraplegic who was shot and killed by police in Wilmington, Delaware on September 23, 2015, at 3:00 pm. McDole was in a wheelchair at the time of the shooting. Police responded to a call ...

2015 controversies in the United States African-American-related controversies Law enforcement controversies in the United States Deaths by firearm in Delaware African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States Filmed killings by law enforcement Black Lives Matter September 2015 events in the United States Law enforcement in Delaware