Family to sue after IMPD officers shot man in his grandmother’s driveway
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A family on Monday demanded three Indianapolis police officers be held accountable after the shooting of a 24-year-old man asleep in a car in his grandmother’s driveway before dawn on Dec. 31.
Anthony Maclin says he fell asleep in the car outside her grandmother’s Indianapolis home after getting in late to see his family on New Year’s Eve. He slept in the car because he says he didn’t want to wake up his grandmother in the middle of the night.
Maclin recalled the scene Monday. “I had no idea what was happening, just getting shot at and hearing a bunch of gunshots and not knowing, you know, what’s going on.”
Maclin says he woke to three officers from Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department tapping at the car window after his grandmother called the police because she didn’t recognize the car. He says they immediately started firing at him.
“Right shoulder, lower ribs, and this arm here,” Maclin said about where the bullets hit him. “And I still have bullets that are still inside of me. It’s still hard to breathe.”
Maclin was shot three times. His attorney, Stephen Wagner, says his vehicle was shot as many as “three dozen times.”
“The only thing worse than the officers’ training was their aim, thank God,” Wagner said Monday while with the family at his Carmel law office. “Would this incident have happened to a young white man in Noblesville or Carmel or Zionsville? It’s a tough question to answer.”
Maclin is recovering in a wheelchair.
Wagner says Maclin spent 17 days in the hospital and underwent six surgeries.
The family has filed tort claims against Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett, IMPD Chief Randal Taylor, and the three officers involved “asserting civil rights claims for excessive force.” Tort claims are filed before Indiana governments and sitting officials can be sued.
IMPD said Maclin had a gun in his lap when they tapped on his window. They say he started to make movements before the officers opened fire, but it’s unclear if police believe he was aiming the gun at them.
However, Maclin says, that claim was false. His family reviewed the body camera footage, and, they say, it shows Anthony never had a “gun in his hand, and you certainly do not see him pointing a gun at officers.”
“I don’t feel safe. I don’t. I wouldn’t ever call them again,” Vicki Driver, Maclin’s grandmother, said.
The Maclin family is demanding the unedited police body camera footage be released and for the three officers to be fired from the force.
IMPD says it expects to release the bodycam footage later this week.