Gaithersburg Officers Will Not Be Charged In Fatal Shooting

3 years ago 354

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) — Four Maryland constabulary officers volition not beryllium charged for fatally shooting a Black antheral they said fired archetypal during a late-night ft pursuit successful January.

A Maryland expansive assemblage declined to complaint the officers from the Gaithersburg Police Department owed to deficiency of grounds successful a determination announced past week.

The 4 officers were members of a plainclothes thoroughfare crimes portion and told investigators they saw a “muzzle flash” from a weapon aimed astatine them by Kwamena Ocran, 24, according to their recorded statements released by Montgomery County prosecutors. One of the officers said helium heard a circular walk by his head.

All 4 officers fired connected Ocran, who was moving distant from them. He was deed 8 times, including doubly successful his “left lateral back,” according to a 12-page study of the lawsuit from prosecutors. The officers progressive were Sgt. Willie Delgado, Officer Kyle Khuen, Cpl. Larbi Dakkouni, and Officer James Doyle. The shooting happened extracurricular the Chelsea Park apartments successful cardinal Gaithersburg connected Jan. 8 aft they said they received a extremity that Ocran was illegally carrying a weapon helium intended to sell, according to the prosecutors’ report.

The 4 officers stay connected administrative permission portion Gaithersburg constabulary behaviour their ain interior investigation.

The incidental was not recorded connected video because, astatine the time, Gaithersburg’s plainclothes officers were to required to deterioration assemblage cameras. Another officer, who was wearing a camera, arrived astatine the country moments aboriginal and recorded footage of a weapon adjacent to Ocran’s assemblage but investigators could not find carnal grounds that helium had fired it.

Crime country technicians failed to find ammunition casings from Ocran’s weapon successful 3 antithetic metallic detector sweeps of the scene. They were lone capable to find the 23 ammunition casings from the officers’ guns, prosecutors said.

Howard County Deputy State’s Attorney Christopher Sandmann said that portion investigators had prepped Ocran’s hands for gunshot reside analysis, determination was a “mistake oregon miscommunication” and Ocran’s hands were ne'er swabbed for the test, helium told The Washington Post.

According to Sandmann and Howard County State’s Attorney Rich Gibson, investigators did find gunshot residue connected the close sleeve of Ocran, but expansive jurors were told by an adept witnesser that it could person been transferred by the officers gunshots. Gibson and Sandmann said the deficiency of grounds does not mean the officers are lying and that it could person been mislaid successful the mud.

Brian McDaniel, an lawyer for Ocran’s mother, said the household maintains the officers killed Ocran illegally and helium ne'er changeable astatine them.

“He was my youngest child. They took him distant from me,” Ocran’s mother, Melody Cooper told The Washington Post “He was a large brother, a large son, a large uncle. He had his full beingness successful beforehand of him.”

McDaniel said helium expects to person the afloat probe files from prosecutors truthful helium tin behaviour an autarkic probe.

Police began their probe into Ocran successful December erstwhile they received a extremity that Ocran, who was precocious incarcerated for robbery, carried a weapon which is amerciable for idiosyncratic with his transgression record. The extremity indicated Ocran had said helium was “not going backmost to jail” and would “shoot it out,” the prosecutors’ study said.

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