After no charges were filed in the shooting death of 16-year-old Mekhi Williams, the community is continuing to seek justice.
The Allen County Grand Jury decided it was a case of self defense when Zachary Copeland shot and killed Mekhi Williams in November of last year. Now, the family has taken the next step to getting justice for Williams.
His father Christopher Williams says, “It’s been too many months that’s gone by and nobody has done anything, looked into it, fought the investigation or any of that. We just want justice.”
Both parents of the deceased teenager got in touch with the local NAACP chapter to get them involved in the matter. On Saturday, family, friends, and community supporters joined the Rev. Ronald Fails, president of the Lima Chapter of the NAACP, outside of the Court of Appeals to protest what they say is an unfair ruling for Copeland.
Fails says, “We leave a 16-year-old child laying in the streets dead, and the person responsible for his death doesn’t even get a ticket, a citation, a correction of any sort. I think it sends the wrong message.”
The facts of the case play a major role in the message they say is being sent. According to official documents from the Lima Police Department, Copeland was the victim of a robbery in which someone apparently stole a gun and some synthetic marijuana from where he was staying.
Just moments before he shot and killed Williams, Copeland is said to have "cocked" a gun at a group of people who he believed to be involved with the robbery. This has been seen by both the family and the NAACP as Copeland taking matters into his own hands, and escalating the situation.
Fails says, “I’ve asked the chief directly, ‘Are you saying in this decision that each individual can act on their own without the involvement of local law enforcement?’ He said, ‘Oh no, we’re not saying that.’ Well, say it to the public.”
Among that claim, there are other details of the case that the group behind the protest say are unjust. They also feel like there is a pattern of racial bias in the justice system, especially in Williams' case.
Joeann Brown, the mother of Williams says, “If it was my son murdering Zachary, my son would be in jail at 16 and there is not even a question about it. That is true, factual, and they know it up there at LPD. They know it. We know it. The black community knows it.”
The NAACP is working with Williams’ family to write complaints that will go to the state attorney general, the US Department of Justice, and the legal department of the NAACP.
“We want not only to prevent these kinds of things from happening in our community, we want to put proper systems in place so when they happen, they’re not ignored as being acceptable and O.K.,” says Fails.
