DETROIT – Community activist group Detroit 300 and Detroit police are under fire and facing legal action from a mother and daughter who say their actions crossed the line.
Jessica Brown and her mother Stephanie said the group took their fight for justice too far when it came to finding suspects in the murder of 9-month-old Delric Miller.
The baby was shot and killed in February in a drive-by shooting as he slept on the couch of a home on Greenview.
"I don't know anything about this poor baby. I don't know the mother," Jessica Brown said.
The Browns have filed a lawsuit against Detroit 300 and the Detroit Police Department.
"My clients were teased, they were taunted, they were terrorized, their civil liberties were trampled upon," said attorney Tracey Martin-Henry.
The lawsuit claims Jessica Brown was contacted by Detroit 300 on Facebook, asking her to meet them at a local mall to talk about Miller's death. That's when her mother says she stepped in and said no, that the meeting should be at a police station.
The women said once they got to the West Detroit police precinct, they were escorted to the back by a police sergeant.
"And I'm thinking the whole time we're going to an interrogation room, we're being put in a cold garage," Jessica Brown said.
Once inside, Brown claims two members of Detroit 300s threatened her and her mother.
"'We're going to take your kids,' and 'They're going to kick in your mother (expletive) door and the reason for this visit with us is so that the Detroit Police Department won't come to your house,'" she said.
Brown said her life was also put in danger. She said flyers were passed around the community with her face on them. The lawsuit claims people associated the Browns with having something to do with the baby's death.
'If they're going to be in the community helping people, they should go about it the right way," Stephanie Brown said.
The Detroit Police Department said it could not comment on pending litigation.
A call to Detroit 300 was not immediately returned.