Family members told The Commercial Appeal that four men were arrested Saturday afternoon after the Memphis Police Department mistook the owner of a shop for a man with an outstanding warrant.
Family members say that Jamil Ibrahim and his brothers were working at their warehouse on Winchester Road and Kirby Parkway when Ibrahim found bullets behind the building. When Ibrahim called MPD, an officer misspelled his name and brought up a different man whose warrant was still open.
Moe Ibrahim, the brother of one of the men arrested, said, “My brother called to say that he found some bullets in the back of the building, right in the alleyway.” “He filed a report, and a woman came out to take his ID.” She came back and said, “Hey, you have a warrant.”
Unfortunately, she had the wrong person in mind. Even though their names are very different, they are both Arab…She tied my brother up with handcuffs, and they put all of their power on him. They hit him and sent him to the Mediterranean.
Jamil Ibrahim was charged with two misdemeanor counts of assault on a first responder. His family says the responding cop made up the charges. His family said he was given stitches on his brow at Regional One Hospital, where he was taken.
Three other guys were also arrested and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Their names are Ibrahim Mahmoud, Moamen Saad Hijaz, and Salim Ibrahim. Members of the same family said that they were taken for filming the arrest.
MPD didn’t answer a request for comment late Saturday night, but an affidavit for Jamil Ibrahim said that a warrant for aggravated assault and domestic assault from 2022 showed up. But that warrant seems to have already been served, and the case has been going through the courts since Jamil Ibrahim was first caught in December 2022.
Ibrahim has been to all of his court dates and paid his bail back in December.
After the responding cop, cop Jefferson, said that the warrant came up, the affidavit’s author, Officer Christopher Wilson, wrote that Jefferson called for more units.
“…at which time [Jamil Ibrahim] became belligerent,” the statement said. “Due to Ibrahim’s uncooperative behavior, Jefferson tried to hold him and put him in handcuffs.” When [Jefferson] tried to handcuff the subject, he pushed her away and tried to get away from her. In the fight that followed, Jefferson’s watch and fingernail were broken.
The affidavit said that Ibrahim still tried to get away when other cops came to help Jefferson hold him. Officer Moore, one of the other officers, said that Ibrahim “lunged” at him, so he “struck Ibrahim in the forehead with his right fist, knocking Ibrahim out.”
The tweet below verifies the news:
Family says MPD wrongly arrested four men, ‘beat up’ one of them https://t.co/zf5uBR4www
— Commercial Appeal (@memphisnews) May 28, 2023
In a video taken by people at the warehouse and shown to reporters from The Commercial Appeal, Ibrahim is seen with his arms behind his back as a female cop wraps her arms around him.
When a second officer walks into the warehouse, it looks like the first two cops grab Ibrahim by the arms and push him into boxes. As the officers try to put Ibrahim in even tighter handcuffs, a male officer appears to punch Ibrahim in the head and then put his hands around Ibrahim’s throat.
In the film, there is also another bystander who tries to get between the police and Ibraham but is pushed away.
The family said that they won’t show the video until they hire a lawyer.
The affidavits for the three bystanders who were charged with disorderly behavior are all pretty much the same. Hijaz’s affidavit was a little different from the other two. It said that officers told him “multiple times to stay in the designated area while officers did an investigation,” but he “began to approach officers aggressively, yelling and screaming.”
Mahmoud and Salim Ibrahim both had affidavits made that said the men were interfering with the probe and “causing a disturbance.”
At a protest outside 201 Poplar, family members, and about 20 other people said that all three men who were charged with disorderly conduct were filming.
Protesters outside the Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar asked for the release of the four men and tried to shut down the intersection at Poplar Ave. and Danny Thomas Blvd. They then shut down the intersection at Poplar Ave. and N. B.B. King Blvd.
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Officers then said they would arrest the protesters because they didn’t have a permit. One officer was also heard saying that the van that protesters had parked in the crossing would be towed.
The criminal justice site says that Salim Ibrahim and Hijaz were both freed on their own by midnight on Sunday.
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