Five members of James Marshall's family and their attorney arrived at the Leflore County Courthouse Friday morning to walk to City Hall holding posters such as, "Stop police brutality!" and "Wiggins must go!"
The attorney, Carlos E. Moore, sent a letter Monday to Mayor Sheriel Perkins and the city council announcing his clients' intention to hold a "march/rally" protesting police brutality and calling for the "suspension/termination" of Officer Casey Wiggins unless they met to resolve their differences amicably beforehand.
Family members said others who wanted to march with them had to work and were unable to come.
Wiggins and Marshall, 18, a senior, were involved in an altercation Dec. 6 at Greenwood High School. Marshall's family is suing the mayor, the city, police chief Henry Harris, superintendent Leslie Daniels, the school district and Wiggins for $2 million.
Marshall's brother-in-law, Melvin Leflore, held a poster up to passing police cars and said, "Read 'em and weep. Read 'em and weep!"
Daniels and a few others watched out of school administrative office windows as the group passed by on Church Street.
While the family waited for camera crews once they reached the city hall steps, a van with "Support Casey Wiggins" written on the side idled at the curb. The driver, Greenwood resident Frank Smith, said he just happened to be there.
"I believe that officer Wiggins is as much of a victim in this as … James Marshall," he said.
There were two things wrong, Smith said: Wiggins, a white man, should not have been placed in an all-black school setting, and he should have had proper training.
Smith said the incident was just as much the fault of police chief Henry Harris as anyone.
Moore said Wiggins was an armed and dangerous man still allowed to be on the streets of Greenwood because he was white.
Moore called the situation "a racism going on in Greenwood." Punitive damages were to teach the city a lesson, he said.
"We're just trying to get justice out of all of this," said Marshall's sister, Sharon Marshall.
