JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. — The sister of a Black man who was fatally shot by an Indiana state trooper last year has filed a lawsuit alleging the trooper used excessive force in his death, which authorities said occurred during an exchange of gunfire following a traffic stop.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in New Albany, lists among its claims excessive force and the failure of one or more other officers to intervene when Malcolm Williams, 27, was fatally shot in Jeffersonville in April 2020.
The complaint names as defendants Trooper Clay Boley, who shot the Clarksville man, and “as-yet unidentified officers from the Indiana State Police.”
Williams’ sister, Ashtyn Williams, is listed as his estate’s personal administrator. The suit seeks a jury trial and a judgment that includes unspecified damages, the News and Tribune reported.
An Indiana State Police representative told the newspaper the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull announced in July that Boley, then a probationary trooper, was justified in the shooting. Mull said the evidence supported the trooper’s account, although there was no video footage.
Williams was a passenger in a vehicle pulled over in Jeffersonville for having no taillights on. After making that stop, Mull said, Boley called for an ambulance because the car’s pregnant driver was having possible labor pains.
Mull said that as the trooper was speaking to him, Williams pulled a handgun from the car’s glove box and fired three shots at Boley, who in turn fired six shots.
But the lawsuit alleges that Williams posed no threat to officers.
“At the time he was shot, Malcolm was not acting violently, had done nothing to provoke or justify defendant Boley’s brutal and deadly assault and posed no risk of substantial bodily harm to any person,” the lawsuit states.
