Justice for Randall Adjessom!

By Charlie R. Braxton

JA Guest Writer

On November 13, 2023, at around 5:30 AM, 16-year-old Randall Adjessom was killed at his home by Mobile, Alabama, police in a pre-dawn, no-knock raid.

A person’s home should be his castle, a sanctuary, a place of peace and safety. Home is the place where you go to rest, relax, and rejuvenate from the troubles of the outside world. This, or a variation thereof, happens in millions of households every day. Unfortunately, a household in south Alabama has permanently lost its sense of tranquil normality.

 Adjessom was fast asleep in his childhood home with his grandmother, aunt, mother, and three sisters when suddenly a commotion awakened him. The ominous sound of his front door being “rammed down” was courtesy of the Mobile, Alabama Police’s SWAT. According to the Associated Press, the officers were there serving a pre-dawn raid to capture Adjessom’s older brother, who had a warrant for his arrest. Adjessom was not listed on the warrant, nor was he officially listed as a suspect.

Upon hearing the thunderous commotion in his living room, Adjessom reportedly jumped out of bed, grabbed his gun, and walked down the hall “to protect his mother, grandmother, aunt, and sisters from the unknown intruders breaching his childhood home.”

Reportedly, upon making his way down the hallway, the teenager saw the armed officers. He immediately put his hands in the air and backed away. Before Adjessom or the officers could ascertain exactly what was going on, an officer shot the teenager four times, striking him in the chest and torso.

The Miami Herald reports the police bodycam footage has not been publicly released. But, according to the Adjessom family’s legal counsel, who has reviewed the footage, the teenager, “had his hands raised and didn’t pose a threat.”

According to the lawsuit filed by the Adjessom family’s attorneys, Elizabeth Bailey, Cindy Morgan, and Steven A. Medina of Grant & Eisenhofer Law Firm, Adjessom’s shooting was unwarranted.

“His retreat caused the laser sight on the firearm to move from pointing in front of him at the police officers to the wall,” the lawsuit’s narrative alleges. The lawsuit states: “Randall never attempted to fire the weapon at anyone. BWC footage shows the Police Officer Defendants’ vantage point. From this footage, it is clear that Police Officer Defendants would have seen Randall putting his hands up and taking a step backward in retreat.”

As if shooting a retreating 16-year-old boy four times in his own house wasn’t bad enough, the officers offered Adjessom no immediate first aid, nor was he rushed to the nearest hospital, which was eight minutes away from his house. The lawsuit also alleges that after Adjessom was shot, he “was writhing on the floor in pain, actively bleeding to death.” Meanwhile, reportedly in a total act of callousness MPD officers “can be seen on a BWC stepping over his body instead of bending down to comfort or care for him.” Reportedly, he was simply left alone in the hallway to bleed out for a total of four minutes before being offered a half-hearted attempt at first aid. 

All of this begs the question: What horrible crime was his brother being accused of that required a SWAT team to forcefully enter his home at 5:30 AM on a no-knock warrant? According to reports, Adjessom’s brother was wanted as part of an investigation for suspected marijuana sales. So why would the MPD send a heavily armed SWAT team on a no-knock, pre-dawn raid just to apprehend a person wanted for suspicion of selling weed? It seems like that was a bit like (for lack of a better word) overkill.

The lawsuit alleges the MPD intentionally didn’t evaluate the risk to civilians in its pre-warrant threat assessment, nor did it note the presence of civilians in its search warrant affidavit. The police also failed to get authorization for a nighttime raid from a judge, supervisor, or prosecutor. Nor did the SWAT team announce that it was law enforcement when they breached Adjessom’s house.

According to the Adjessom family’s lawyers, “The Complaint is replete with revelations from our pre-suit investigation, perhaps none more repulsive than the fact that MPD body-worn camera (BWC) video of the shooting clearly shows Randall began to retreat after realizing the intruders into his family home were members of the police force when he was repeatedly shot and killed in cold blood.” The attorneys added, “This filing is a major step for a grieving family intent on holding accountable – at a Federal jury trial – all those responsible for this unquestionably foreseeable and preventable tragedy.”

But this lawsuit is the latest in a list of problems for the MPD. Last year, an investigative report launched by the Mobile city officials and conducted by a former federal prosecutor found a litany of constitutional violations, including excessive force, and unnecessary deaths, particularly targeting Mobile’s Black community.

If Randall Adjessom’s tragic death is to have any meaning, the City of Mobile, Alabama, must render justice to the Adjessom family. Furthermore, there must be a nationwide effort to ensure that the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, designed to mitigate police violence, becomes a federal law.

Publisher’s Note: Charlie R. Braxton is a poet, playwright, and cultural critic who writes about music and politics. He is the author of three volumes of verse, Ascension From The Ashes (Blackwood Press, 1990), Cinders Rekindled (Jawara Press, 2012), and Embers Among The Ashes: Poems In A Haiku Manner (Jawara Press, 2018).