SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The family of Jeremy Southern has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Sacramento after Sacramento Police officers shot and killed him.
The shooting happened on July 21, 2020, at an apartment complex near Sacramento State University.
Police said they were there looking for a man suspected in another shooting the week prior. When officers arrived, they saw Southern and said he matched the description, based on a tattoo on his neck.
Officers said when they identified themselves as police, Southern grabbed a gun from his bag and pointed it at them. When Southern refused to put it down, after being asked more than 20 times according to body camera footage, one of the officers shot him.
About four minutes later, police say he moved "back towards his firearm" before being shot a second time. Southern's family says they're now seeking justice for his death, which they say could have been prevented.
Just days before his 23rd birthday, Jeremy Southern was shot twice and killed by Sacramento Police.
"I miss him every single day and I can't get him out of my head. I see every night, I revisit this night where he got shot and I hear it every day. I hear the echoes of the shot ringing through my apartment," said Jimmy Southern, Jeremy's older brother.
Jimmy said he was briefly on the phone with his brother at the same time officers were shouting at Jerem to drop his weapon and comply, before any shots were fired.
"In the video, you see he's on the phone. He's calling me because he's telling me like 'I'm scared' and 'I don't know what to do.' So if they had de-escalated the situation a little bit longer, I could have got there and stopped it," Jimmy said.
He's now filing a federal civil lawsuit against the City of Sacramento in hopes of holding the unidentified officers involved, accountable.
"There was no reason for the officer to take a kill shot, striking this young man in his back," Adante Pointer, Southern's attorney said.
Pointer says Jeremy was on the ground bleeding out for about four minutes after the first shot was fired and they believe the gun was about 10 feet away from him before the second and fatal shot was fired.
"The officers failed to make any significant and subsequent effort to separate him from this gun, from the danger, to retrieve the gun, and, just as importantly, to provide him with subsequent medical care," Pointer said.
In January, a new deadly use of force law went into effect in California, which requires law enforcement to use deadly force only when "necessary." The law is known as "Stephon Clark's Law," named after the Black man shot and killed by Sacramento Police in his grandmother's backyard two years ago.
"Here, it was clearly, clearly, unnecessary for them to take a kill shot for absolutely no safety reasons," Patrick Buelna, another of Southern's attorneys.
It is a loss Jimmy says could have been prevented.
"Jeremy was the only family that I've ever been close with and now I'm alone and that's because Sac PD decided to play executioner and take him from me," Jimmy said.
Sacramento city officials said they cannot comment due to pending litigation. They have not released the names of the officers involved with this shooting.
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