Ohio NLG and BLM Cleveland Call on Ohio Attorney General and BCI to Properly and Thoroughly Investigate the Shooting Death of Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri

Media Advisory: December 8, 2016

CLEVELAND, OHIO ― Black Lives Matter Cleveland and the Ohio Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild call on the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to conduct a thorough and exhaustive investigation into the shooting death of Saif Nasser Mubarak Alameri.

Mr. Alameri was fatally shot in the head by a Hudson, Ohio police officer just before 3 PM on December 4, 2016.

The shooting occurred after Mr. Alameri allegedly committed driving infractions leading to a single vehicle accident by the Ohio Turnpike near Interstate 480. Mr. Alameri is purported to have run into a nearby wooded area following the accident, where he was shot by the Hudson police officer.

However, law enforcement agencies at the scene, including the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Hudson Police, appear to not have made any public statements that Mr. Alameri was armed or that he otherwise posed an imminent threat at the time he was shot.

“It is unconstitutional and a violation of fundamental rights for police to use deadly force against individuals who do not pose an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death to others,” stated Jacqueline Greene, Co-Coordinator of the Ohio Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and partner at the Cleveland law firm of Friedman & Gilbert. “In this case, law enforcement agents have not alleged that Mr. Alameri posed such a threat. This raises serious questions about how and why Mr. Alameri was shot, and about whether the shooting can be justified under the law. Running from the police does not justify the use of deadly force,” Greene said.

“Any time police allege in the aftermath of a shooting that a struggle was the justification for the use of deadly force, those allegations must be intensely scrutinized and dissected. It has been shown time and again that police officers are not always truthful when they claim an alleged struggle predicated the decision to shoot someone,” Greene stated.

Mr. Alameri, from the United Arab Emirates, was in Cleveland studying law at Case Western Reserve University. “Bias in policing and specifically related to the use of force is a serious problem across the country. Police bias against people of color and minority people, including Muslim people, Middle Eastern people, and even Emirati citizens specifically, has been a problem in the Cleveland area. Biased investigations into police shootings, granting undue deference to the police involved, are also a serious problem,” stated Abdul-Kareem Henton, organizer for Black Lives Matter Cleveland.

Black Lives Matter Cleveland and the Ohio Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild call on Ohio BCI to properly investigate this shooting, free of bias, in order to shed light on the truth.

###

Download the PDF file .

Posted in Announcements and tagged , , , .