Hand in hand, the family of 31-year-old Melvin Jay prayed.

They prayed for calm. They prayed for strength. They prayed for justice.

Then together, they quietly walked before a bank of television news cameras on Wednesday and announced their intent to sue the Prince George’s County Police Department.

“Our grief is raw,” Jay’s family said in a statement. “Our anger is justified and our resolve is unwavering.”

A month ago, on Feb. 1, Jay was fatally shot once in the head inside his own apartment by a Prince George’s County police officer who had been called there to investigate a reported burglary in process. The officer, identified as Braxton Shelton, fired his gun within seven seconds of arriving at Jay’s doorstep, according to body-camera footage of the shooting released Monday by the Maryland Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division.

The division, which was created by state lawmakers in 2021 to investigate police shootings after nationwide racial justice protests, will review the body-camera footage, the police department’s internal policies and Maryland’s criminal code to determine whether Shelton should be criminally charged.

Entirely separate from that process is the right of Jay’s family — more than a dozen of whom gathered Monday for a news conference — to file a lawsuit alleging the man’s civil rights were violated when the officer entered his home and started shooting. During the news conference, civil rights attorney Andrew Clarke said that there was no doubt in his mind that Shelton broke the law Feb. 1. and that the officer — and the department that employs him — should be held accountable for Jay’s death.

“The boys in blue can no longer hide behind their credibility just for being the boys in blue,” Clarke said.

Shaun Owens, a Fraternal Order of Police attorney representing Shelton, declined to comment, as did County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) and the Prince George’s County Police Department. Clarke’s law firm has been retained by Jay’s oldest sister, Sharon Lily Joyner, who is the executor of the man’s estate.

Though Joyner and Jay were siblings, she said, she raised her brother from a young age. Their relationship felt like mother and son. She quietly wept Monday as two other members of her family spoke about Jay’s life.

Jay’s cousin, Malcolm Jay, described him as a “family-oriented young man,” an excellent father and a “better friend.” He had a 12-year-old child and a baby on the way.

“It’s just such a sad, sad situation that this happened to someone of this stature, with the temperament of Melvin,” said Malcolm Jay, who wore a suit jacket over a black T-shirt with bold white letters that read “I KNOW MY RIGHTS.”

Another cousin, Leonard Lee Jr., read a statement on behalf of the family in which he said they were “shattered” by the “devastating loss” of Jay, who was “taken from us in an untimely and violent manner in the very place he should have felt safe — his home.”

“The pain we feel is immeasurable, and the questions swirling in our minds are endless,” Lee said.

The family, he said, is calling for a “thorough and independent” investigation into the shooting.

“We demand justice for Melvin,” Lee said. “We demand accountability for those responsible. No family should have to endure such heartbreak, such injustice.”

At the news conference, Clarke and his law partner, Jade Mathis, dissected the actions of Jay and the officer who killed him. The body-camera footage, the attorneys said, clearly shows Jay complying with Shelton’s commands — despite the officer kicking in Jay’s apartment door without warning and demanding he show his hands without ever identifying himself as a police officer.

Shelton was dispatched to the Windham Creek Apartments on Suitland Road at about 5:25 p.m. on Feb. 1, and he arrived minutes later, immediately stepping out of his police cruiser and jogging up to the complex. A man who lived in the apartment had called 911 to say that he was not at home, but that a neighbor had called to say someone was actively breaking into his apartment.

“I need the police there right now,” the 911 caller told dispatch, “they breaking in my house.”

The dispatcher relayed to Shelton what she had heard: “A caller saying he’s being told by the neighbor that someone’s breaking into his apartment.”

Seconds later, the officer’s body-camera footage shows him arriving and climbing a flight of stairs to the apartment door, which was slightly ajar. The officer did not wait for backup and did not announce he was there — or with the police department — before he pushed open the door, gun drawn, and entered the apartment, according to the body-camera footage.

The video shows Jay standing in the middle of his family room, facing away from where the officer had just barged in. The lights were off, and the blinds drawn, the video showed.

Shelton yelled, “Show me your hands!”

What the video does not clearly show, according to his attorneys, is that at the time the officer entered the apartment, Jay was talking on the phone, holding his device in his left hand. But the video does show the man raising his right hand while rounding a corner to walk toward the kitchen.

During the news conference, Clarke said he believes Jay was startled and trying to get away. “If anyone pulls out a gun on me,” the attorney said, “I’m retreating.”

Shelton followed Jay around the corner with his gun raised in one hand and a flashlight in another, pointing them both at the man now in the kitchen. Shelton continued to yell “bring your a-- over here!” and “show me your hands.”

What happened next can only be clearly seen by watching the video in slow motion, Clarke said. All at once, Clarke said, Jay seems to turn around to face the officer while appearing to raise his hands. Shelton shoots him in the head.

The man immediately fell to the ground, blood pooling on the carpet.

“Now we’re complying and getting shot?” Clarke said during the news conference. “Because there is a fear of African Americans. There is a fear of citizens of Prince George’s County.”

In a statement after the release of the body-camera footage on Monday, Angelo Consoli, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89, said that union officials “await the findings of the Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division,” but that they are “confident” investigators will find “exactly what the video and the known information shows in that while no one wants to see the tragic loss of life, the officer was justified in his actions.”

Clarke dismissed several details that Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz highlighted in a statement earlier this week, including that two guns were recovered in the apartment — one in Jay’s coat pocket and another in the kitchen. Clarke said those details are irrelevant, and that “by the grace of God,” Jay didn’t choose to use those guns in self-defense. Instead, Clarke said, Jay showed the “restraint” that the officer failed to demonstrate.

Clarke also said newly released details about the 911 call — that the alleged burglary the 911 caller was reporting was in fact a family member who had threatened to come to the apartment — are also irrelevant. Whether Shelton’s actions were justified, he said, must be judged by the information he had at the time of the shooting.

“From everything we’ve seen, there is no doubt in my mind that he did not react as a reasonable officer at that time,” Clarke said.

Council member Krystal Oriadha, whose district includes the apartment where Jay was killed, said a call to 911 for help should not have become a “death sentence.”

“He did not have to die and that is what we have to hold true,” Oriadha said. “No matter the circumstances.”

Community organizer Nene Taylor said it was the largest family presence she has ever seen at a news conference regarding a police shooting. Taylor is executive director of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, a local, Black-led mutual aid and community defense organization that provides support to families impacted by police violence.

“Police do not keep community members safe,” Taylor said. “Police violence is gun violence.”

Other members of Jay’s family have retained a different law firm, Baltimore-based Murphy Falcon & Murphy, to represent them — including the younger brother of Melvin Jay, who was also in the apartment at the time of the shooting and was ordered onto to the ground beside Jay as he lay dying.

The family members at Monday’s news conference said their support extends to him, too.

“This family is a strong family that prays together, that stays together,” Malcolm Jay said. “The Jay family is going to continue to pray, and until there is no more breath in our lungs, we’re going to fight for justice for Melvin Jay Jr.”