Black delivery worker says two white men chased and shot at him in Mississippi

FedEx worker D’Monterrio Gibson said he was chased and shot at by two white men while doing his job.

He said he believes the father son duo pursued him because he is Black and because they thought he didn’t belong in their neighborhood.

D’Monterrio Gibson chased and shot at while doing his job

According to Gibson, he was delivering a FedEx package in Brookhaven, a predominately white neighborhood about 55 miles south of Jackson, Mississippi on January 24 when his van was cut off by a pickup truck as he was pulling out of a driveway.

Gibson told reporters that he was driving a Hertz van with the logo on it due to FedEx truck shortages.

He swerved around the vehicle, then encountered a man in the street pointing a gun at him and gesturing for him to pull over.

Gibson ducked behind the steering wheel as the man opened fire, he said. Bullets damaged the van and packages inside but no one was hurt in the shooting.

After the incident he immediately called his supervisor who told him to come back to the office. They went to the police station and attempted to put in a police report. They had to return in the morning but this time Gibson was with a new supervisor.

In an interview with Roland Martin, Gibson and his attorney Carlos Moore said the Brookhaven Police Department were initially dismissive and it took several attempts for police to record Gibson’s story accurately.

He said it appeared that the officers were attempting to downplay the details of his statement. One officer said he was going to play devil’s advocate. The officer asked if Gibson had done something to make the men think that he was suspicious.

“I replied, ‘No sir, I was just doing my job. If they thought I was suspicious, then that’s on them’,” Gibson says, “That was like disrespectful to me, because it’s like victim shaming.”

Gibson, who said he felt certain he could handle things and carry on, went back to work. But, he was put back on the same delivery route. Within days, he found himself in Brookhaven again to deliver a package. Gibson had what he described as a panic attack.

His bosses said they would put him on a different route. Instead, they gave him leave without pay and he has been sitting at home since.

Moore told Roland Martin that Gibson just recently received retroactive pay. In a statement to TIME Magazine, FedEx said they take the matter seriously and would cover the cost of counseling for Gibson, guarantee his job for 90 days, offer three additional weeks of paid time off, and do a reevaluation thereafter.

Similar to Ahmaud Arbery

Gibson has compared his case to that of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was murdered while jogging.

“I feel it’s my responsibility to speak up, because [Arbery] didn’t survive to speak up for himself,” he told CNN.

The case is strikingly similar to Ahmaud Arbery, who was chased in February 2020 while jogging in Satille Shores, GA, also a predominately white neighborhood.

Father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael, said they pursued Arbery due to previous incidents of him being seen in an empty house being renovated.

The McMichael’s and an accomplice, William Roddie Bryan, chased and cornered Arbery. Travis McMichael got into a scuffle with Arbery and fatally shot him.

All three were charged with murder and were found guilty. The McMichael’s were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Bryan was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Racism in Mississippi

Historically, Mississippi ranks among the states with the largest number of lynchings, according to an analysis of racial violence by the Equal Justice Initiative. It is also the state where Emmett Till was kidnapped and lynched. The men who later admitted to his murder were acquitted by an all white jury and the woman who accused Till allegedly recanted her story.

And Brookhaven has its own history of racism and racial violence. In the 1950s, Lamar Smith – a Black civil rights activist, – was gunned down by a white man on the front lawn of the Lincoln County Courthouse in Brookhaven. No arrests were made and no convictions followed. In 2016, the Department of Justice closed the cold case.

Two Charged for shooting at D’Monterrio Gibson

Brandon Case, 35, has been charged with felonious aggravated assault for shooting into a moving vehicle. Gregory Case, 58, is charged with conspiracy for allegedly helping his son.

Gibson believes the charges are too lenient and is asking the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to take the case from local police and for the men to face federal hate crime charges.

Carlos Moore told TIME Magazine that federal prosecutors have taken an interest in the case and was told by Brookhaven Police that the FBI collected materials related to the case.