In 2015, Arthur Jones was arrested and charged for the shooting death of a 17-year-old boy. Despite video evidence that Jones, who is Black, was in Gulfport, Mississippi at the time of the shooting, prosecutors moved forward with charges anyway, WLOX reports.
Jones sat in jail for eight months on a murder charge -- even after the person who shot the teen was indicted. Now, he's filed a lawsuit against Hattiesburg Police Department, the City of Hattiesburg, and the detective who pursued the charges despite the video evidence. Five others who were charged alongside Jones had their charges cleared, but Jones had to wait two years for his charges to be vacated.
"I feel like I lost more than two years because, like I said, I have been dealing with this since I was 23," said Jones. "I'm 29 now, so it's a lot longer than two years. I'm still dealing with this, in search of justice. My justice."
"Had they gone to the judge in this case, in AJ's case, and said, 'Okay, judge, we have an eyewitness who says AJ did it… But judge, three minutes before he said AJ did it, he identified another man.' Then the judge would say, 'I'm sorry. I'm not binding this fellow over to the grand jury. Go back and do some more investigation; AJ stays out of jail.' That's what should have happened, but in that affidavit, as the court laid out in its opinion, they omitted the truth," said Jones's attorney Tim Holleman.
In his suit, Jones said he had suffered emotional distress, slander, negligence, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and reckless disregard for his safety and well-being.
"The system is designed to have checks and balances," Holleman said. "Well, when law enforcement doesn't tell the truth, the system fails. The system failed AJ because law enforcement didn't tell the truth."
Go to WLOX to read the full story and details about the case.
