White men ‘undercharged’ for shooting at Black FedEx driver in Ahmaud Arbery-style attack: lawyers

A Black FedEx driver was chased and shot at by two white men in Mississippi who reportedly accused him of looking suspicious.

The suspects, 58-year-old Gregory Case and his son 35-year-old Brandon Case, were arrested earlier this week following the incident on Jan. 24 in Brookhaven. However, they were quickly released on bond, and the victim, 24-year-old D’Monterrio Gibson, says he believes they were "undercharged."

"Nobody was injured but the chase and gunfire have sparked social media complaints of racism," the Associated Press reported Friday. "Lawyers for Gibson say more serious charges, including hate crime charges, are warranted in what they believe was a racially motivated assault."

Gregory Case faces a charge of conspiracy, while Brandon Case is charged with of shooting into a motor vehicle.

“I want both of them charged with attempted murder,” said attorney Carlos Moore.

According to the AP, "Moore and attorney James Bryant compared the incident to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was running empty-handed through a Georgia subdivision in 2020 when three white strangers chased him down and blasted him with a shotgun."

Gibson, the victim, told the Mississippi Free Press he had just delivered a package on Jan. 24 when he saw a white pickup truck blocking the end of a drive.

“In my mind I’m thinking (the driver) is leaving to go to the store or something like that, but then they get extremely close to me and start blowing their horn,” Gibson said. “I proceed to leave the driveway. As I’m leaving the driveway, he starts driving in the grass trying to cut me off. My instincts kick in, I swerve around him, and I start hitting the grass trying to get out of the neighborhood because I don’t know what his intentions are."

“I drive down about two or three houses," Gibson said. "There’s another guy standing in the middle of the street pointing a gun at my windows and signaling to me to stop with his hands, as well as mouthing the word, ‘Stop.’ I shake my head no, I hide behind the steering wheel, and I swerve around him as well. As I swerve around him, he starts firing shots into my vehicle.”

Gibson said the Cases then followed him in their pickup truck all the way to the interstate. When he called police, he was told authorities had received a call about a suspicious person at the same address at the same time.

“I said, ‘Sir, I’m not a suspicious person. I’m a FedEx worker. I was just doing my job and they shot at me,'" Gibson told the Free Press.

When Gibson went to the police station the following day, a white officer reportedly asked him he had been “doing anything to make them think (he) looked suspicious.”

“I felt disrespected at that point, because even if I did, they still can’t take the law into their own hand,” Gibson said.

According to the Free Press, Gibson said the police chief “tried to emphasize how unracist the town (of Brookhaven) was, which seemed odd to me.”

"Brookhaven has a history of lynching," the newspaper reported. "In 1955, civil rights activist Lamar Smith died after someone shot him on the lawn of the Lincoln County Courthouse in Brookhaven. Local police never charged any suspects with the crime."

Police chief Kenny Collins, who is Black, pushed back against allegations of racism in Brookhaven, according to the AP.

“We’re not going to have outsiders coming in trying to stir that up,” Collins said. “Brookhaven is not a racist, prejudiced town. You can’t judge a town by the actions of two individuals.”