From [HERE] The family of an unarmed Black man killed by a Dallas police officer is suing the city in a wrongful death lawsuit that is expected to go to court this September. On Monday, former police officer Matthew Tate, attorneys for the city of Dallas and administrators with the Dallas Police Department sat down with some of the surviving family members of Tobias Mackey at the Federal Courthouse in Dallas for a private mediation hearing.

At the age of 25, Mackey was shot nine times by Tate on Oct. 29, 2010, when the officer said Mackey did not follow commands to show his hands. He was shot six times in his chest, three times in his hands, and the last shot to his head. [MORE] The suit claims that after being shot, Mackey said: “Why did you shoot me? I don’t have anything.” Tate then shot him again, at close range, the suit alleges. 

Tate, a 3-year veteran of the police department, was investigating "drug activity" at the Cedar Garden Apartments at the time of the shooting. Mackey was visiting his mother. He said as Mackey approached him in a breezeway, he ordered the man to show him his hands. When he didn't, Tate opened fire, fatally shooting Mackey. Dallas police say Mackey started to reach in his pockets. He was unarmed, nothing was in his pockets. Eleven-year-old Xavier Collins (in photo below) was standing in a nearby breezeway and was shot in the arm. He made a full recovery.

Stephen Benavides, the Mackey family’s consultant confirmed “there were eye witness reports that the scene of the crime was tampered with, the body was removed, the blood was cleaned up, [and] that the residents of the apartment complex were forced back inside their complex.” Witnesses in the complex saw officers removing bullets and shell casings and moving Tobias Mackey's body before the investigators arrived. [MORE]

An internal investigation was conducted and, though Mackey was not the target of the investigation at the apartment complex and was unarmed at the time of the shooting, Tate was cleared of any wrongdoing and was not indicted by a grand jury. Tate resigned from the police department soon after.