$35M Suit for Timothy Cook says Memphis Still Enforces Policy of Shooting at Moving Cars Driven by Blacks: Cops Claim He "Drove Aggressively" at Them, Video Shows Him Slowly Drive Away as Shots Fired

From [HERE] and [HERE] The family of a man who was shot to death by Memphis Police officers last June has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department.

The family of Timothy Cook filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Shelby County Circuit Court on June 9, 2026, nearly a year after he was shot to death by Memphis Police officers. The case was moved to federal court on September 23. In video above the attorney says that the city continues to enforce its policy of shooting into moving cars. [more below]

A Memphis Police officer shot Cook on Park Avenue in Orange Mound on June 13, 2025. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation claimed that an officer shot Cook after Cook hit another officer with his Nissan Armada. Cook died three days later. He had not committed any crime and was not under arrest. Police claimed to be responding to a loitering complaint in the city controlled by elite, white liberals.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation initially stated that Cook drove his vehicle aggressively into an officer, but Cook’s attorneys argue surveillance video shows he was driving away at a slow speed when officers fired shots at his vehicle.

The lawsuit claims that surveillance video from a nearby liquor store shows Cook driving at a "very slow speed" when officers fired shots at him. The lawsuit argues that the shooting was an act of "excessive and deadly force" that violated Cook's Fourth Amendment rights.

Cook's family is seeking $15 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages. Memphis federal judge Sheryl Lipman is presiding over the case.

In 2024 the US Justice Department found that the Memphis Police Department routinely and pervasively deprives Black people of their Constitutional rights and follows policies that grossly discriminate against black people in its highly segregated city. One of the specific findings was that “MPD Officers Unreasonably Shoot at People and Cars After Placing Themselves in Dangerous Situations.”

5. MPD Officers Unreasonably Shoot at People and Cars After Placing Themselves in Dangerous Situations. We reviewed all 18 Memphis police shootings from 2018 through 2022. A significant number of them involved officers firing into cars or at moving vehicles, without justification. Shooting at a moving car is deadly force and therefore permissible only when an officer has probable cause to believe a suspect poses an immediate threat of serious physical harm to the officer or another person. It is also highly dangerous because it presents risks of an uncontrolled vehicle. MPD officers have fired at moving cars without justification. An officer may be justified to use deadly force against “a driver who objectively appears ready to drive into an officer or bystander with his car.” But that justification ends “once the car moves away, leaving the officer and bystanders in a position of safety.” 13 MPD officers have disregarded tactical basics and placed themselves in dangerous and avoidable situations when approaching cars. “Where a police officer unreasonably places himself in harm’s way, his use of deadly force may be deemed excessive.” 14

In one shooting, an officer fired at a car at least eight times at a fast-food drive-thru in the middle of the day, jeopardizing other officers and bystanders. The officers had been alerted to a stolen car, and two police cars approached from different directions, trying to box the car in. One officer got out of his car and ran towards the suspect’s car but tripped and fell to the ground as the suspect’s car moved slowly in his direction. As he regained his footing and jumped out of the car’s path, another officer fired twice at the car. The officer fired another six shots after his partner had retreated to safety, including the final two as the suspect’s car slowly came to rest against a brick wall. When he continued to fire after the car no longer presented a threat, the officer used unreasonable force and unnecessarily placed bystanders and officers in harm’s way. MPD’s investigation improperly found that this use of deadly force was justified. [MORE]