Miriam Carey’s family filed a $75 million dollar lawsuit in connection to her killing

By Scotty Reid – While many were focused on the upcoming murder trial of Michael Dunn which ultimately ended in a hung jury on the charge that he murdered Jordan Davis, a family member of another murder victim filed a $75 million dollar lawsuit against the Secret Service and U.S. Capitol police for the wrongful death of Miriam Carey. Carey, who was 34 at the time she was gunned down had just over a year prior to her killing, given birth to her daughter and according to family members was being weaned off medication she was taking under the direction of a doctor for depression related issues when she became the subject of a police chase that started at the White House in Washington, DC on October 3, 2013.

The New York City based law firm representing family members of the slain mother issued a press release on January 30, announcing that it was suing the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Capitol Police for the wrongful death of Miriam Carey.

The press release issued by Eric Sanders of The Sanders Firm, P.C. reads in part,

“Today, after months of “utter” silence by government officials as well as an exhaustive review of all publicly available data, the Carey Family has concluded the shooting of Miriam Iris Carey was “NOT JUSTIFIED” and has filed a federal administrative notice of claim to sue the United States of America; the United States Secret Service – Uniform Division and United States Capitol Police. Valarie Carey, who is representing the interests of the Carey Family, filed a wrongful death claim against the two government agencies seeking $75 million dollars on behalf of The Estate of Miriam Iris Carey, Mother Idella Carey and minor child EF to compensate them for their great loss of a daughter, mother, friend and confidant.”

It has been over four months since the killing of Miriam Carey by possibly multiple gunmen as several officers and Secret Service agents fired into her vehicle.  As of today, there has been no official report issued by neither the U.S. Secret Service nor the U.S. Capitol Police on the events that transpired that day. Is it because of time needed to complete ballistic testing of multiple weapons to determine which officers or agents fired the fatal shots that killed Miriam Carey? Is it because multiple agencies including the U.S. Justice Department are having trouble comparing notes and sharing information about the tragic murder? Civil rights attorneys and police watchdog groups across the country have all said that numerous police procedures were violated in the use of deadly force.

There is no standard timetable on how long these investigations can take. In the case of police murder victim Jonathan Ferrell who was unarmed when he was gunned down by a single police officer in Charlotte NC last year, that investigation took less than 48 hours to conclude with a official report that the officer Randal Kerrick violated department procedure and should be criminally charged for the murder. Randal Kerrick awaits his murder trial after recently being indicted by a grand jury.

The investigation into the police shooting of two unarmed women in Los Angles who were erroneously identified as Christopher Dorner took almost one year to complete and while officers were found to have violated policy and procedure when they unleashed a hail of bullets into the vehicle the women were traveling in, not a single officer was fired let alone charged with a criminal offense.

However, both of those examples involved a single agency and not the high profile agencies like the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Capitol police.

In terms of how long it will take the U.S. Justice Department to conclude its investigation into the killing of Miriam Carey, it has been over two years since the investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and FBI was first announced in the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. According to a reported statement made by Martin’s killer George Zimmerman in an interview that is to air Sunday evening on Univision, he is still under investigation by the federal agencies. Zimmerman refused to answer a question about whether or not he should have waited for police to arrive instead of stalking the unarmed teen; instead, he said the ongoing investigation prohibited him from answering.

The family of Miriam Carey may or may not have a long wait still ahead of them to get the reports they seek which still may not provide the answers they are looking for on why an unarmed woman had to be brutally gunned down in front of her child on that October day. Let us hope the wait will not be too much longer. Perhaps if the multiple investigations have still not concluded by the time the wrongful death suit goes to trial, if it goes to trial, perhaps it will force more transparency into what is going on and why the offending agencies killed Miriam Carey. The family deserves answers and so does the rest of the nation.