Mother of slain man sues over police shooting in Ventnor
CAMDEN – A New York City woman has filed a civil rights lawsuit over the fatal shooting of her son during an encounter with police in Ventnor in August 2020.
Amaala Medina-Johnson is seeking damages for the death of Ammir Johnson, who was shot when police responded to reports of a man acting erratically on a Ventnor street.
Among other claims, the suit says police violated Ammir Johnson’s rights by failing to have available non-lethal means to subdue a person with mental illness.
It says officers were aware from onlookers’ 911 calls that Johnson had slashed his wrists while walking along heavily traveled West End Avenue. The suit asserts Johnson, bleeding from his wounds, posed no threat to anyone when police arrived around 4:15 p.m.
But the lawsuit alleges police “negligently triggered” Johnson by surrounding the 30-year-old with guns drawn and by making “remarks and jokes.”
It says one officer attempted to subdue Johnson with a stun gun but it was "inoperable or otherwise unusable."
“Only one taser was brought to the location," says the suit, which asserts police "did not make an attempt to secure another taser."
Police body-cam videos showed Johnson repeatedly calling on Ventnor and Atlantic City officers to kill him. He was shot while rushing toward police with a broken bottle after a nearly 11-minute faceoff.
The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages from Ventnor, its police department and several unnamed police officers.
All deny any violation of Johnson’s civil rights, according to a court filing by Thomas Reynolds, an Atlantic City attorney for the defendants.
The wrongful-death suit was moved to Camden federal court on Dec. 29 after being filed in state court in August.
Among other allegations, it contends police violated Johnson’s constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
It argues Ventnor's police department had an obligation to train officers in the use of non-lethal weapons and to ensure “that equipment such as tasers were charged and in working order when needed.”
It also contends the defendants "owed" Johnson to implement policies and to train officers for interactions with mentally ill individuals
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter for the Courier-Post, the Burlington County Times and The Dally Journal.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Lawsuit: Police shooting of Ammir Johnson violated civil rights
