Family of Andre Green, boy shot by police, pursuing legal action

The family of Andre Green, the 15-year-old boy shot and killed in a confrontation with police after a carjacking last month, has retained a high-profile California law firm that intends to pursue legal action against Indianapolis and its police department.

Green's family has retained the Beverly Hills-based Douglas Hicks Law, whose partners have helped defend clients such as Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson and who won a $2.45 million settlement against a police department whose officers fired shots at three men, killing one of them, when the officers mistakenly believed they were being fired upon.

The firm expects to file a tort claim — a notice of an injury claim — this week with the City of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department in anticipation of lawsuits that will allege an improper use of deadly force and that could include allegations of civil rights violations, said Jamon Hicks, a partner in the firm.

Hicks said the firm has identified six eyewitnesses to the deadly Aug. 9 confrontation who say Andre Green was not a threat to the police officers who said Green, driving a carjacked vehicle, rammed into a patrol car and nearly hit an officer who had to dive out of his way. IMPD said its officers' lives were at risk.

"We have identified witnesses that will say that the police version is not accurate and not true, that he was not coming at them with the car, which raises a whole host of other issues," Hicks said. He declined to identify the witnesses or describe their version of events.

Green died at the Eastside scene after being hit by what the coroner said were multiple gunshot wounds. IMPD said three of its police officers fired at Green. The department has not identified the officers or elaborated on how many shots were fired.

The city's chief litigation counsel, Amanda Dinges, declined to comment about the matter.

Green and two other individuals were in a car stolen about an hour prior to his confrontation with police. Officers said witnesses reported shots being fired from the vehicle before the police found it and trailed it into a neighborhood. When Green drove the car into a dead end, two people in the car fled on foot. Police and an eyewitness said Green then attempted a three-point turn in the car. From there, accounts differ.

Police said Green rammed the car into a police cruiser in a violent collision that made the officers feel their lives were endangered.

Allen Eaton, a bystander who said he witnessed the confrontation from a nearby street corner, told The Indianapolis Star that Green bumped into the police car while backing out of his turn. Eaton said Green wasn't a threat to the officers.

Police have not yet released photos of the damaged cruiser, but a local TV crew shot a picture of the stolen car with its front end lodged into the police vehicle.

Hicks said he is interested to know what training IMPD officers received with regards to shooting at moving vehicles and whether they followed that training. "Just the simple fact that his car made contact with the police car doesn't mean that they are privileged to use deadly force," he said.

IMPD's use-of-force policy allows officers to fire their weapons at a car's driver if it is "reasonably perceived" that the vehicle is being used as a weapon against the officers or others.

Hicks also said he wants to know if the officers involved in the shooting had any prior uses of deadly force or allegations of racial discrimination. Such findings could lead to a claim of a violation of civil rights, he said.

Green was black. IMPD has said that two of the officers who fired at Green were white and one was black.

Hicks and law partner Carl Douglas have been involved in high-profile cases in Los Angeles, and both worked in the firm founded by famed defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran.

Douglas spent 11 years in Cochran's firm and was the evidence coordinator in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, according to the City News Service. He also helped Michael Jackson settle a 1994 civil lawsuit involving a boy who alleged sexual abuse.

In 2010, Douglas represented the families of three men who were shot by Inglewood, Calif., police when officers wrongly believed gunfire was coming at them from the vehicle the men were riding in, according to the Los Angeles Times. One of the men, Michael Byoune, was killed. The families were awarded $2.45 million.

Hicks worked in the Cochran firm from 2010 to 2014 (Cochran died in 2005). He was named president of the California Association of Black Lawyers in 2012, according to the Times. He defended a man who was accused of hacking into the email accounts of celebrities such as Christina Aguilera and Scarlett Johansson, the paper reported.

Hicks, whose firm has allied with Indianapolis attorney Mark Sniderman for this case, said he was drawn into the case through one of his former clients, who is a member of Andre Green's family.

He expects to file a tort claim with the city and the Police Department by Friday. After that, he said: "I believe it is going to be litigated seriously and vigorously."

Star researcher Cathy Knapp contributed to this report.

Call Robert King at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter at @Rbtking.