FedEx has fired a Black employee for refusing to take another job after he said two White men chased and shot at him while he delivered packages last year.
The men allegedly chased Gibson for about seven minutes while he was delivering packages on his route in Brookhaven, Miss., on Jan. 24, 2022. The pair fired at least five shots into his van, according to court records. Gibson, now 25, said that he had not interacted with the men before the shooting.
Gibson went on paid leave and underwent treatment for PTSD, his attorney Carlos Moore said Tuesday.
On Monday, Moore said, Gibson received an email informing him that his employment with the company was terminated, effective July 26, 2023.
“FedEx has been the poster child of what not to do when your employee was almost killed on the job,” Moore told The Washington Post. “It’s despicable that FedEx has not shown compassion or human decency toward this faithful employee, D’Monterrio Gibson.”
A FedEx spokeswoman confirmed that Gibson was fired.
“Mr. Gibson did not accept an offer of a part-time nondriving position which met his requested accommodations and, unfortunately, despite outreach from company representatives over the course of a year and a half, he did not engage in the process of looking for a new position within the FedEx enterprise,” spokeswoman Meredith Miller said in an email Tuesday.
Moore said Gibson received the part-time job offer on July 13. The offer, Moore said, did not include a deadline and his client was not able to make such a decision while undergoing psychological treatment.
“He didn’t feel like he had the mental capacity to return to work just yet,” Moore told The Post. “He was mainly thinking about his mental and emotional health, and he was not going to do anything to jeopardize that at the time. He didn’t feel that they should unilaterally decide when he would get back to work when he was still undergoing medical treatment. He has not been cleared to go back to work by a physician.”
Brandon and Gregory Case, who are White, chased and shot at him because he is Black and thought he didn’t belong in the neighborhood, Gibson said. The population in Brookhaven is 60 percent Black, according to the latest U.S. census data.
The Cases’ attorney entered not-guilty pleas for them, according to ABC News.
At about 7 p.m. on Jan. 24, 2022, Gibson was wearing his FedEx uniform and delivering packages in a Hertz van when he saw a white pickup truck approaching him and honking its horn. Court records say Gregory Chase was driving the truck. When the vehicle cut Gibson off as he was trying to leave, he tried to swerve around the pickup truck to get out of the neighborhood, he said. But as he drove past a couple of houses, Gibson said, there was another man in the road who pointed a gun at him. That man was Gregory Chase’s son, Brandon, according to court records.
After he got away from the men, Gibson said at a February 2022 news conference, he called the police to report what had happened to him. As he was explaining the incident, a dispatcher interrupted and asked whether he had been on Junior Trail, the street where the driver was delivering packages.
“I said, ‘Yes,’ ” Gibson told reporters at the time. “He was like, ‘Well, I just got a call of a suspicious person at this address.’ ” Gibson said he responded, “Sir, I’m not a suspicious person, I work for FedEx. I was just doing my job.”
The following day, Gibson, who was not injured, filed an incident report with the Brookhaven Police Department, saying he heard “at least five shots” hit the van.
The police report includes an interview with a woman identified as Gibson’s boss, who confirmed that the van had at least two bullet holes and that three packages inside had bullet holes.
Brandon Case, 38, and Gregory Case, 59, were charged with attempted first-degree murder, conspiracy, and shooting into a vehicle before last week’s mistrial ruling. Prosecutors have said they are unsure whether a new trial could happen before the end of the year.
A judge dismissed Gibson’s $5 million federal discrimination lawsuit against FedEx this month, saying it failed to prove that the company discriminated against him because he is Black. The lawsuit also named Brookhaven, the city’s police chief, and the Cases. Moore, Gibson’s attorney, has said that he is going to file a new lawsuit and, because of the firing, “a state court action” against FedEx.