The family of a 5-year-old girl who was injured when a Douglas County deputy opened fire at a fleeing suspect Sunday has hired attorneys who are calling for the deputy’s firing and prosecution.
Bakari Sellers, a civil rights attorney hired by the girl’s family, gave an update on her condition and raised several questions about the shooting in an exclusive interview Friday with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The victim, Skylar Adams, has been released from the hospital but still has an open wound in her arm where she was struck by the bullet, Sellers said. Her arm is wrapped and supported in a sling, but Sellers said the doctors had not stitched the wound because they want it to “heal from the inside out.”
Credit: Bakari Sellers
Credit: Bakari Sellers
“Bullets are apparently incredibly dirty, which I’m just learning about now,” Sellers told the AJC. He said Skylar’s doctors were following a strategy that would minimize her chances of infection, but that it was a difficult treatment plan for a 5-year-old to follow.
“It’s summer; she wants to swim,” Sellers said.
Sellers also took issue with the idea that Skylar had been struck by a bullet “fragment,” which is how the sheriff’s office described the projectile in its initial news release.
“If it was a fragment, it’s the biggest one I ever saw,” Sellers said. He shared a video with the AJC of a medical professional holding the projectile that was lodged in Skylar’s arm, showing what appeared to be a nearly intact bullet.
Sellers noted other areas of concern for him and the family in the official account of events.
The incident happened around 12:30 a.m. Sunday at a BP gas station on Fulton Industrial Boulevard in Atlanta, according to the GBI, which is conducting an independent investigation.
A suspect in an earlier crime, 25-year-old Rashauny Mike Palmer, had been arrested by Dallas police, the GBI said. But he escaped from a patrol car, ran to his own Dodge Charger and drove away, according to the state agency.
Douglas deputies located the vehicle traveling on I-20 East and attempted to stop the car with a PIT maneuver, the GBI said. Palmer was able to continue after the maneuver but wrecked soon after, hitting a tractor-trailer and stopping near the bottom of the exit ramp for Fulton Industrial Boulevard, per the GBI.
According to the state agency, Palmer then ran to the gas station and tried to carjack a BMW at one of the pumps. The alleged carjacking is where Sellers said he began to question the official narrative.
Skylar was inside the BMW with her aunt and mother, Aaliyah Adams, who got into the driver’s seat when Palmer ran up and told her to give him the car, Sellers said. Palmer then got into the back seat with the 5-year-old and her aunt, according to Sellers. That’s when the pursuing deputy, whose name has not been released, fired multiple shots at the car, Sellers said.
Sellers said he could not understand the reasoning of the deputy, pointing out that the family members were only bystanders and that the BMW was parked in front of a gas pump, a dangerous environment to discharge a firearm under any circumstance.
Sellers also said it was unlikely that the fleeing suspect was armed since he had just escaped police custody and had likely been searched for weapons. However, he did not say if the Dallas police officers who initially arrested Palmer had searched his Charger for weapons. Sellers said he thought Palmer was handcuffed throughout the pursuit, but officials have not said if that’s true.
Ben Crump, another civil rights attorney working with Sellers on this case, admonished the deputy in a statement.
“I don’t know what action movie this deputy thought he was in, but that kind of callous disregard for basic safety gets innocent people killed in the real world,” Crump said. “Recklessness and negligence aren’t strong enough to describe what he did. He is a clear danger and he must be held accountable.”
The Douglas sheriff’s office has not responded to multiple requests for more information about the shooting and the deputy. The AJC has also filed an open records request.
Sellers said he hoped the GBI would recommend filing reckless endangerment charges against the deputy.
“I would love to see an interview of the (deputy), because this just makes no sense,” Sellers said. He said his firm would also be pursuing the deputy’s personnel file to see if there is any disciplinary history.
The attorneys are just beginning work on this case, Sellers said, but he and Crump have already demanded on behalf of the family that the deputy be terminated and criminally charged.
“Skyler cries every time someone has to go to the gas station now,” Sellers said.
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