Video shows a 68-year-old grandmother and her son being violently taken down by Missouri police for doing little more than trying to return a TV to a local Sam’s Club, according to a lawsuit Associated Press obtained.
The lawsuit said while the mother-son pair were trying to get a refund, four officers “violently and physically seized Marvia Gray and Derek Gray, throwing them to the floor, beating them, handcuffing them, then arresting them.”
Chilling screams can be heard in footage a witness recorded, and a bystander can be heard saying: “His head is busted.”
Derek Gray, a 43-year-old Virginia security worker, was in Missouri to care for his mother, who suffers from ailments including osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and glaucoma, AP reported. He purchased a 65-inch Sony Bravia flat-screen for her at a Sam's Club in the St. Louis suburb of Des Peres. But upon realizing it wouldn't fit in his SUV with other items he had purchased, he asked the store to hold it until he returned to collect it, attorney Andrew Stroth told the AP. Only when he got back to the store, someone accused him of trying to steal the television, attorneys told the AP.
Even though an employee vouched for Derek Gray, that message apparently didn't make it to a Des Peres police officer in the store at the time because the officer followed Derek to his SUV and accused him of stealing the TV, the news agency reported. It wasn’t until the employee confirmed the purchase with the officer that Derek was allowed to return home to tell his mother about his encounter, the AP reported. That's when the Grays decided they would rather not support the Sam's Club and decided to return the TV, but when they returned to the store the situation turned violent, attorneys said in the lawsuit.
Stroth and attorney William Dailey are representing the Grays in the lawsuit. Dailey told reporters during a news conference that Marvia Gray was doing what she was supposed to do when officers “two to three times her size” ran toward her, and she was told to get on the floor. “Why was she told to lay on the ground when all she had done was attempt to return a product that was legally and lawfully paid for?" Dailey asked.
Police Capt. Sean Quinn declined to comment about the incident. Marvia Gray said during the news conference that she thought her son wasn’t going to survive the beating.
“I’m looking at these police just beating him, and kicking him, and all of this,” Marvia Gray said. “I said, ‘They’re going to kill him,’ I could see my son dying before my eyes.”
She also told reporters an officer grabbed her purse and slammed her to the floor like she was “nothing […] I have no faith in the police anymore,” she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “They tried to take my only child.”
Renowned civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump shared KSDK video of the incident on Twitter on Tuesday. “This is sickening,” he said. “These innocent people were TRAUMATIZED — and for what reason?! I'm glad they are taking legal action. No one deserves to be cruelly mistreated like this, especially for returning a purchased TV. Enough is enough!!”