Parents of a man that was shot nine times by a Virginia officer, are now filing a lawsuit against him 20 months later. The man was 35-years-old David Latham who was shot by a Norfolk Officer, Michael Carlton Edington Jr., on June 6, 2015. The Lathams family claims that Edington used excessive force and illegally shot David. The Lawsuit seeks 9$ million.

Their son had been suffering from several mental health problems since he was a teenagers. An on June 6, David grabbed a knife when fighting with his brother. His mother Audrey, called the police hoping to get emergency help for her son. Audrey had made this call several times before. She wanted to get psychiatric help for David. The family wanted the police to take David to the hospital once they arrived. 

Norfolk officers, had been to the Latham’s house dozens of times before, and knew what the circumstances were. Most officers were very familiar with the family and know how to handle David very well. However, things didn’t go as planned. 

However, this was Edington’s first time attending to the call to the Latham’s house. And when David answered the door with a knife in his hand, Edington within minutes took out his gun and shot him nine times and twice in the back, according to a copy of Latham’s autopsy report provided by his family. 

Even though David had a knife, he was calm and didn’t show any threat to the officers according to Latham’s lawyer. However, the police report says that David answered the door and was very aggressive toward Edington. When Edington got to the house, he was faced with a life-or-death situation: A man who weighed more than 270 pounds with a serious mental illness was threatening him with a 12-inch knife.

“I feel that David’s situations wasn’t handle in the right way and no one had to be shot.” says senior at Wayne Hills, Alex Hoff.

“Whenever dealing with someone who has a mental problem you have to handle them more careful, because you never know what will happen.” says senior Anton Rizzo.