Confrontation with 2 white men left Black FedEx driver traumatized, mom says outside their trial

BROOKHAVEN, Miss. (AP) — A Black FedEx driver who says he was shot at and chased by white men after making a delivery in Mississippi has been unable to work since the attack and remains in therapy, his mother said outside their attempted murder trial.

Sharon McClendon said the courtroom discussion has been difficult to watch, especially when a defense attorney called her son, D'Monterrio Gibson, a trespasser.

“He’s still very traumatized by this incident,” McClendon told The Associated Press outside the courthouse Wednesday.

Brandon Case and his father, Gregory Case, are charged with attempted first-degree murder, conspiracy and shooting into the vehicle driven by Gibson in January 2022. Gibson, now 25, was not injured. But the chase and gunfire led to complaints on social media of racism in Brookhaven, about an hour’s drive south of the state capital, Jackson.

It wasn't immediately clear how a surprise development Wednesday will affect the case. The judge ended the day's session early after Vincent Fernando, a Brookhaven Police Department detective, acknowledged under oath while the jury was out of the courtroom that he had not previously given prosecutors or defense attorneys a videotaped statement police had taken from Gibson.

Gibson’s attorney in a civil lawsuit, Carlos Moore, praised the prosecution’s work but said outside court that Fernando’s testimony showed police were not thorough in the investigation.

“If this does not end up with convictions of both Cases, I do think it’s going to be because of the shoddy work of the Brookhaven Police Department,” Moore said.

Moore compared the episode to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was running through a Georgia subdivision in 2020 when three white men — a father, son and neighbor — chased...