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Mom of man shot by cops in wheelchair arrested

Jenna Pizzi
The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal
Phyllis McDole, mother of Jeremy McDole – shown as she watches Pastor Ty Johnson talk to media Thursday outside her home in the 100 block of N. Rodney St. She has been charged with assaulting a woman she believed told police in a 911 call that her son was armed and had shot himself.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- The mother of a man in a wheelchair who was killed by police officers last week was arrested and charged with assault and threatening the woman she believed placed a 911 call to police telling them he had shot himself.

Phyllis McDole, 48, of Wilmington, surrendered to city police Monday and was released on $10,000 bail.

She was charged with second-degree burglary, terroristic threatening, third-degree assault and third-degree conspiracy.

McDole, accompanied by five unidentified people, three women and two men, allegedly went to the woman’s home on Friday between 7:30 and 8 p.m., punching and threatening the woman as she answered the front door.

Part of 911 tape released in wheelchair shooting

According to court documents, as McDole punched the resident, she said, “B----, you got my son killed. You are the one that called the cops. You got my son shot and you gonna die like my son died.”

Police said the victim who was assaulted was not the woman that made the 911 call on the day McDole’s son was shot. The woman suffered two black eyes, a small scratch and swelling on her hand and a cut on her lip.

The mother of the victim told police that the next day, Saturday morning, people came to the house again and said, “We gonna come back tonight and kill you.” The victim was not at home.

“We afforded her the opportunity to turn herself in,” said Wilmington Police Department spokeswoman Sgt. Andrea Janvier. Assaults on those cooperating with police “will not be tolerated,” Janvier said.

Jeremy “Bam” McDole, 28

Since the day after the shooting, Phyllis McDole has disputed accounts that her son, Jeremy McDole, was armed when he was shot by four police officers on Sept. 23. Phyllis McDole and other family members have pointed to a bystander video of the shooting posted on YouTube, saying a weapon is not visible in the footage.

Police released part of the 911 call late Friday in response to allegations that McDole was not armed.

In the call, a woman, who was not named, can be heard asking for police and an ambulance to respond saying an armed man in a wheelchair had shot himself and still had the gun.

Police responding to the 3 p.m. call found McDole, 28, in the 1800 block of Tulip Street, where they repeatedly told him to put down his weapon and raise his hands, according to Wilmington Police Chief Bobby Cummings.

Mother calls shooting of son by Del. police 'an injustice'

Four officers opened fire after he reached for his waistband, Cummings said, and police later found a .38 caliber gun at Jeremy McDole’s side. McDole, who lived at Hillside Center Nursing Home, was paralyzed from the waist down in a shooting about 10 years earlier.

The people who were with Jeremy McDole at the time of the assault still are sought by police, Janvier said.

Meanwhile, New Castle County Councilman Jea P. Street has called for an independent federal investigation of the shooting by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office and the FBI. The state Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust is investigating the shooting, which is policy any time a police officer fires a weapon that injures or kills someone. The Wilmington Police Department is also investigating the incident.

Contributing: robin brown

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