Gulfport, Mississippi (News Release / GPD) — On Thursday, October 06, 2022, at 2:29 p.m., Gulfport Police Department (GPD) received a 911 call for service concerning a reckless driver traveling in the area of 8813 Lorraine Road, Gulfport, Mississippi. The caller advised that occupants inside a silver Kia Soul were brandishing firearms and wearing camouflage masks. At 2:42 p.m., GPD Officers Kenneth Nassar and Benjamin Ford located the aforementioned vehicle on Pass Road in Gulfport, Mississippi. The Kia Soul entered the parking lot of the Family Dollar, located at address 1016 Pass Road, Gulfport, Mississippi. Officer Nassar and Officer Ford followed the Kia Soul into the parking lot. Once the Kia Soul stopped, one of the occupants, who was identified as 15-year-old Jaheim McMillan, exited the right rear passenger seat of the vehicle while holding a pistol in his right hand.
Once exiting the Kia Soul, McMillan ran towards the front of the Kia Soul toward the front of the Family Dollar. About this time, Officer Nassar gave verbal commands for McMillan to “stop…drop it.” McMillan did not comply. During the encounter with McMillan, Officer Nassar discharged his firearm while directing his firearm toward McMillan. As a result of the officer-involved shooting, McMillan received injuries to his body. McMillan was transported to Memorial Hospital (MH) at Gulfport to be treated for his injuries. McMillan was subsequently transported to USA Health University Hospital (HUH), in Mobile, Alabama. The State Medical Examiner ruled McMillan’s cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head and the manner of death as homicide.
Including McMillan, there were five teenage boys in the Kia, with ages ranging from 17 to 14 years old. During the time of McMillan’s encounter with the officer, a 16-year-old had also fled the vehicle holding a pistol and ran toward the front of the Family Dollar, then along the left side of the building toward a wooded area. A second responding police officer pursued the teenager on foot. The 16-year-old later told police he dropped his gun during the pursuit and remembered hearing a taser fired in his direction. The officer eventually caught him and took him into police custody. Because the other officer was in pursuit, the officer who shot McMillan believed he was alone with the other three teenagers who had been in the Kia, so he turned his attention to them. When other officers arrived, the other three teens were taken into custody.
