On July 26, 2021, Damien Cameron was at his family's Rankin County home when Deputy Hunter Elward arrived, responding to a call of vandalism at a neighbor's house. What happened next remains disputed — except for the fact that the 29-year old was pronounced dead at the University of Mississippi Medical Center shortly after with trauma to his face and arms.
Damien’s family — mother Monica Lee Cameron, younger brother Cornelius and grandmother Betty — gathered activists and community members in West Jackson last week to present a new list of demands regarding his case, with transparency into Damien’s death the priority.
All three were at the Cameron family home when the arrest occurred. They say they saw both arresting officers kneel on Damien’s back and neck for several minutes while attempting to place him into custody.
“The family shared a sentiment with me outside that I think is really important for everyone here to know, which is that they feel that Damien asked you to be here today,” said Chloe Cheyenne, founder of advocacy group COMMUNITYx and co-organizer of the event. “Even though it’s been two years since Damien was brutally murdered by the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, there’s simply no amount of time that can ever pass that would make a mother, or a brother or a grandmother or a cousin stop fighting for justice.”
In the years that have followed, the family says they haven’t received incident reports from either the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office or the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
“I feel like they just swept Damien’s case under the rug. I want justice and I want the officers held accountable because he might not have meant anything to them, but that was my child and I think I deserve justice for him,” she said. "That night, I didn’t think the last words my son was going to say to me were ‘mama I love you, I do,’ other than hearing him say he couldn’t breathe.”
A questionable timeline
In October of 2022, a state grand jury declined to indict the officers due to what they described as a lack of evidence.
Incident reports filed separately by the arresting officers Hunter Elward and Deputy Luke Strickman in addition to the MBI contradict each other, especially with concern to whether Cameron collapsed while fleeing into his mother’s house. Initial reports filed by both Rankin County officers contain no mention to Cameron collapsing whatsoever.
According to Elward’s report, he arrived at the Cameron home to look for Damien after a neighbor said he was using a pipe to break holes into their wall and had fled. Shortly after, Elward said he spotted Cameron running through woods behind the family home and warned him he would use his taser if Cameron tried to enter the home, which he did.
The chase then entered a bedroom, where Cameron tried to remove the taser’s prongs and was tased again by Elward before being wrestled to the floor. Then, according to Elward, Cameron attempted to punch him or his taser, leading Elward to punch him in his left eye three times to “gain compliance,” leading Cameron to roll over on the floor with his hands underneath him.
According to his mother, who was watching the arrest unfold in her own home, Elward then kneeled on Cameron’s back for 15-20 minutes while waiting for Deputy Luke Strickman to arrive, who then “fell” on Cameron’s neck and remained there while placing him in handcuffs.
The officers’ report then says they attempted to place Cameron, now handcuffed, into the squad car, but he continued to writhe and kick the door open behind him, leading Elward to tase him a third time on the back of his thigh to shut the door.
After returning from inside the home and before going to the neighbor’s home to collect evidence, the officers’ report says they found Cameron unresponsive in the back seat and began administering CPR.
There, according to Monica Lee Cameron, one of the deputies asked her if Damien had any known medical issues, which she denied, to which one of the deputies then yelled “Fuck!”
She added that as paramedics took over CPR on her son, Elward was sitting on the back bumper of his car crying and repeating ‘why me?’
Hours later, Damien Cameron was pronounced dead at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
