Search fatalities

On 09/18/2021, 31-year-old Joshua Cooper was fatally shot during a gunfight involving an off-duty United States Park Police officer outside Island CZ Lounge at 1440 Utica Avenue in Brooklyn. The New York Attorney General's Office of Special Investigation later formally identified Cooper as the person who died and classified the incident as a shooting involving the Federal Parks Police. The AG record lists his race/ethnicity as unknown, although other compilations identify Cooper as Black.
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The shooting occurred at approximately 3 a.m. outside the nightclub. Contemporary reports said an off-duty Park Police officer was with another person when two men approached them and an armed confrontation followed. Gunfire left the federal officer seriously wounded and several other people shot, including Cooper.
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The later federal investigation substantially clarified what precipitated the shooting. Federal prosecutors identified John Shortt and Isiah Greenaway as the two men accused of attempting to rob the off-duty Park Police officer and another person at gunpoint. The officer drew his own firearm, identified himself as a police officer and fired during the resulting exchange of gunfire.
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Shortt was struck during the exchange. The Park Police officer was shot multiple times and survived. Cooper was also struck and critically wounded. He subsequently died, making him the sole fatality from the gunfight.
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The later federal prosecution established considerably more about the circumstances than was available in the first news reports. Shortt ultimately pleaded guilty to assaulting a federal officer and possessing and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Greenaway was also prosecuted in connection with the attempted armed robbery.
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A crucial limitation remains in determining precisely how Cooper was killed. Although the off-duty Park Police officer unquestionably fired his weapon during the gunfight, the publicly available records located for this update do not establish that the bullet that killed Cooper was fired by the officer rather than another participant.
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That uncertainty appears to explain an important detail in the New York Attorney General's official record. The Office of Special Investigation lists Joshua Cooper, age 31, Kings County, Federal Parks Police, death by shooting on 09/18/2021, but records the case as closed with the notation “No defined officer.”
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The Attorney General's record also states that there was no agency video of Cooper's shooting. Consequently, there is no police body-camera or other agency recording identified by the state that independently establishes who fired the fatal round.
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The off-duty Park Police officer's identity was not disclosed in the reliable public records located for this update. Because the officer participated in the gunfight but available evidence does not establish that he fired the fatal shot, the Officer(s) field remains Not Disclosed rather than assigning an unverified officer.
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No affirmative later evidence establishes that Cooper's family publicly challenged the reconstructed circumstances of the shooting, and no wrongful-death or civil-rights lawsuit brought by Cooper's family arising from his death was located.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The off-duty United States Park Police officer who exchanged gunfire during the attempted robbery has not been publicly identified. The New York Attorney General's later official record notably closed Cooper's case with “No defined officer,” rather than attributing his death to a particular law-enforcement officer.
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The United States Park Police nevertheless entered this incident amid major controversy concerning its use of deadly force and transparency. The most prominent case was the 2017 killing of Bijan Ghaisar in Northern Virginia by Park Police officers Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard following a vehicle pursuit. Ghaisar was shot while inside his vehicle, and the killing produced years of criminal and civil litigation and intense scrutiny of the agency's pursuit, deadly-force and accountability practices.
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That departmental history does not establish misconduct by the unidentified off-duty officer involved in Cooper's death. More importantly for this particular case, the public evidence does not establish that the officer fired the bullet that killed Cooper. The database entry should preserve that distinction rather than converting participation in the gunfight into an unsupported finding that the officer personally shot Cooper.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/nyregion/brooklyn-robbery-off-duty-officer-shooting.html
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/off-duty-park-police-officer-shot-multiple-times-in-brooklyn-robbery/3267838/
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-off-duty-cop-shooting-robbery-utica-avenue-20210918-3oyrwe7z4rafdg7nbwskwrff2u-story.html
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/defendant-pleads-guilty-attempted-armed-robbery-federal-officer-brooklyn
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/reports/osi-2022-annual-report.pdf

On 09/18/2021, a local police officer shot and killed 34-year-old Christopher E. Rush at the Mahoning Township Sportsmen’s Association at 3839 West Main Street in Lawrence County after police responded to reports that several people had been stabbed. Pennsylvania State Police subsequently investigated the police shooting.
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The incident began at approximately 8:45 p.m. during the Sportsmen’s Association’s annual field day, a public event that reportedly included a children’s carnival, live music and fireworks. Police were called after multiple people were stabbed at the gathering. Several local police departments responded.
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Police alleged that Rush stabbed three civilians: a 15-year-old boy, 61-year-old Raymond Boyd of Struthers, Ohio, and 37-year-old Ethan Camp of Youngstown, Ohio. Contemporary reports did not provide the circumstances leading to the violence or explain what precipitated the stabbing.
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When responding officers encountered Rush, police said he was still armed with what Pennsylvania State Police described only as a “cutting instrument.” Police alleged that Rush then assaulted and injured a responding 24-year-old police officer with that weapon.
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Another responding officer then fired at Rush, striking and killing him at the scene. The officer who was allegedly attacked survived, although contemporary reporting did not disclose the extent of that officer’s injuries. The conditions of the three civilian stabbing victims also were not initially released.
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An important limitation remains in the public record. Pennsylvania State Police and contemporary news organizations did not identify either the 24-year-old officer allegedly injured by Rush or the officer who fired the fatal shot. Reporting also did not clearly identify which of the several responding local departments employed the shooting officer.
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The Pennsylvania State Police New Castle Criminal Investigation Unit investigated both the stabbing and the subsequent police shooting. The available later public record remains unusually sparse and does not provide a detailed prosecutor’s use-of-force report, body-camera release or reconstruction identifying the shooting officer.
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The absence of body-camera evidence is particularly significant in this older case. Available departmental records indicate that Mahoning Township Police had approved the purchase of body-worn cameras in July 2020, but the department did not actually go live with its body-camera system until May 2022, months after Rush was killed. Therefore, if the shooting officer was a Mahoning Township officer, that department’s later body-camera system was not yet operational at the time of this encounter.
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No affirmative later evidence located for this update establishes that Rush’s family or eyewitnesses publicly contested the central police account that he attacked a responding officer with a cutting instrument immediately before another officer shot him. No encounter-related wrongful-death or federal civil-rights lawsuit arising from Rush’s killing was identified.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The officer who shot and killed Christopher Rush has not been publicly identified in the records located for this update. Contemporary reporting explicitly stated that authorities did not identify the officers involved or even disclose their departments.
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Because multiple local departments responded, it would be unreliable to attribute the fatal shooting specifically to Mahoning Township Police without additional records. The Officer(s) field therefore remains Not Disclosed, and an individual background investigation for prior or subsequent shootings, complaints, discipline or litigation cannot yet be tied reliably to the shooter.
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The agency-level search produced an important distinction: there are multiple Mahoning Townships in Pennsylvania, and records for the Mahoning Township Police Department in Montour County should not be confused with the Lawrence County agency involved in this case. The available Lawrence County reporting does not establish a substantive pattern of prior fatal shootings, federal oversight or major use-of-force litigation sufficiently connected to Rush’s killing to warrant adding unrelated departmental misconduct material.
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https://www.ncnewsonline.com/news/local_news/suspect-killed-officer-wounded-after-mahoning-stabbings/article_1069dcea-1958-11ec-8ccb-ab47b19e790f.html
https://www.sharonherald.com/suspect-killed-officer-wounded-in-lawrence-county/article_8ba30c70-198e-11ec-9e7a-bf48483a6f3b.html
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2021/09/19/man-shot-police-killed-new-castle-stabbing-lawrence-county/stories/202109190190
https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/man-shot-killed-by-police-after-stabbing-several-people-including-officer-lawrence-county/6OFHRYQTAJHTLD3FMR5WQHBMSQ/
https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/state-police-man-shot-killed-by-police-after-stabbing-three-people-injuring-police-officer/
https://beavercountyradio.com/news/details-released-for-lawrence-county-stabbing-and-officer-involved-shooting/

On 09/18/2021, Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office personnel shot and killed an unidentified man during an armed confrontation on Montgomery Road in Gallatin County. The shooting occurred at approximately 4:31 a.m. Kentucky State Police’s Critical Incident Response Team was called to conduct the investigation.
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The initial Kentucky State Police release provided almost no description of what brought deputies to Montgomery Road or what occurred before the shooting. KSP reported only that a Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office police shooting had occurred and that the man was transported by Gallatin County EMS to Carroll County Memorial Hospital in Carrollton, where the Carroll County coroner pronounced him dead.
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The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office provided the critical additional detail. According to the department, the man fired a gun in the direction of several officers at the scene. Police alleged that officers then returned fire and struck him.
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The available accounts do not explain why law enforcement was originally on Montgomery Road, whether deputies had been dispatched to a particular complaint, whether they were attempting an arrest or investigative detention, or what occurred between their arrival and the alleged gunfire. The initiating reason for the police encounter therefore remains undisclosed by police.
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This is an important gap because the public account effectively begins at the moment police alleged the man fired toward officers. KSP stated at the time that it was withholding specific details while investigators interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence.
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The man's identity was also withheld in the contemporary reporting. The Lexington Herald-Leader specifically reported that authorities had not released his name. No age was disclosed, so the Age field should remain blank rather than contain nonnumeric text.
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Kentucky State Police assumed responsibility for investigating the shooting through its Critical Incident Response Team. The original KSP announcement characterized the investigation as ongoing and did not identify which Gallatin County personnel fired, how many officers discharged weapons, how many rounds were fired, or whether body-camera or other recordings existed.
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The circumstances therefore remain substantially less transparent than many other police killings from this period: the deceased man was not publicly identified in the contemporaneous accounts, the shooting deputies were not named, and the reason police initially encountered him was not disclosed. What is established publicly is that Gallatin County officers were on Montgomery Road, police alleged the man fired toward several officers, officers returned fire, and he died after being transported to the hospital.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The involved officers have not been publicly identified.

https://www.kentuckystatepolice.ky.gov/news/p5-9-18-2021
https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article254346558.html
https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/man-dead-in-gallatin-county-police-shooting
https://www.wtvq.com/ksp-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-in-gallatin-county/

On 09/18/2021, a Smyrna Police Department officer shot and killed 27-year-old Unsfored Lewis Thurmond III during a mental health crisis at the Edison at the Battery apartment complex at 3014 North Lincoln Trace Avenue in Smyrna. Police had been called specifically because Thurmond was threatening suicide while armed with a gun. He was transported to a hospital after the shooting and died from his injuries.
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Police responded at approximately 3:22 p.m. after receiving the 911 call concerning a suicidal man. Several other people were reportedly inside the apartment. Officers encountered Thurmond holding a firearm and began attempting to negotiate with him rather than immediately approaching him physically.
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According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, officers negotiated with Thurmond for several minutes. Police alleged that during those negotiations Thurmond pointed the firearm he had been holding toward the officers. One Smyrna officer then fired, striking him. Officers immediately began administering first aid before Thurmond was transported to the hospital.
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The fatal shooting was therefore the direct outcome of a police response to a mental health crisis and threatened suicide rather than an investigation of a crime. Smyrna Police spokesman Lt. Louis Defense described the officers as having been called to help Thurmond and said police had been attempting to de-escalate the encounter before the shooting.
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The shooting occurred during an extraordinary two-day period in Cobb County. Thurmond was the second person in two days fatally shot by police in the county during a call involving a suicidal person. The previous day, Cobb County police responding to another suicidal-person call shot and killed a man after an hours-long SWAT standoff in Powder Springs.
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Thurmond's family publicly questioned and challenged important aspects of the police response. His father, Lewis Thurmond Jr., told WSB-TV that his son had struggled with mental illness and questioned why police did not use a Taser or another less-lethal method instead of shooting him. His father said the family wanted answers about why the encounter ended with his son's death.
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That family response is important to the record. Although the GBI account states that Thurmond pointed his firearm toward officers, his family challenged the necessity of the resulting deadly force and specifically questioned whether police had alternatives available while responding to a person they knew was experiencing a mental health crisis.
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The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted the independent shooting investigation at Smyrna Police Department's request. The GBI stated that its completed case file would be submitted to the Cobb County District Attorney's Office for review.
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Despite the passage of nearly five years, the public sources located for this update still do not identify the Smyrna officer who fired the fatal shots. That prevents a reliable individual review for the shooting officer's prior or subsequent shootings, complaints, discipline, lawsuits or other misconduct.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The involved officer has not been publicly identified.
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There is, however, directly relevant history involving the Smyrna Police Department and another fatal police shooting. In 2015, Smyrna Officer Kenneth Owens shot and killed 23-year-old Nicholas Thomas while police were attempting to serve an arrest warrant for technical probation violations at the Goodyear store where Thomas worked. Thomas was inside a Maserati when Owens fired into the vehicle. Thomas's family subsequently brought a federal civil-rights lawsuit alleging excessive force and negligent hiring and retention by the City of Smyrna. The litigation ultimately reached the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
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That prior case is pertinent because it involved the same small police department and generated substantial litigation over the department's use of deadly force. The Eleventh Circuit ultimately affirmed summary judgment for Owens and the City in 2020, approximately 17 months before a Smyrna officer killed Thurmond.
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The immediate Cobb County context is even more striking: police in the county killed two people on mental health crisis calls on consecutive days. Thurmond's killing on September 18 followed the previous day's fatal Cobb County SWAT encounter involving another suicidal person, prompting contemporary local coverage specifically examining the two deaths together.

https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-09-19/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-smyrna
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/cobb-county/suicidal-man-shot-after-pointing-gun-officers-trying-help-him-police-say/EZ4NTVIDZRDT7O36ZXGJ2EM3K4/
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/smyrna-police-respond-to-shooting-invovling-an-officer
https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-investigation-underway-after-police-shooting-near-braves-stadium/HMBPMTW24VBQTD4EWT7CDOYVIU/
https://cobbcountycourier.com/2021/09/second-fatal-shooting-by-police-in-cobb-county-on-suicidal-person-call-in-two-days
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/family-man-killed-after-pointing-gun-smyrna-police-officers-speaks-out/IXIFMMKDY5FSBCWDKW6EYVB2EA/
https://www.wsbradio.com/news/local/cobb-county/suicidal-man-shot-after-pointing-gun-officers-trying-help-him-police-say/EZ4NTVIDZRDT7O36ZXGJ2EM3K4/
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/19-11207/19-11207-2020-04-02.html

https://www.wsbradio.com/news/local/cobb-county/suicidal-man-shot-after-pointing-gun-officers-trying-help-him-police-say/EZ4NTVIDZRDT7O36ZXGJ2EM3K4/

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/smyrna-police-respond-to-shooting-invovling-an-officer

On 09/18/2021, Charleston County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Nicholas Vecchione shot and killed 47-year-old Jason Husted during a response to multiple 911 calls reporting a man firing a handgun in the 2500 block of Mona Avenue in West Ashley. Later-released dash-camera and body-camera recordings, physical evidence, civilian witnesses and a Ninth Circuit Solicitor review provide a substantially fuller account than the initial reporting.
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The encounter began at approximately 7:21 a.m. when multiple residents called 911 reporting gunfire in the neighborhood. Investigators determined that shots had struck occupied homes and vehicles before police arrived. Authorities also reported that a female family member was inside the residence and that Husted had threatened and assaulted her.
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Charleston County deputies and Charleston Police Department officers responded. According to the later prosecutor's reconstruction and recordings released by the Sheriff’s Office, Husted was outside and continued firing after law enforcement arrived. Police alleged that he fired in the direction of responding officers, and one of his rounds struck a deputy's patrol vehicle.
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Vecchione took cover approximately 400 feet from Husted with his department-issued rifle. According to Solicitor Scarlett Wilson's review, Husted fired toward Vecchione's position and Vecchione returned fire, initially missing him. Husted fired again, and Vecchione fired additional rounds. One of Vecchione's shots struck Husted in the upper torso and knocked him to the ground.
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Vecchione fired three rifle rounds in total and was the only law-enforcement officer who fired during the fatal encounter. Investigators recovered three .223-caliber cartridge cases associated with Vecchione's rifle and multiple 9mm cartridge cases associated with Husted's handgun from the front driveway and backyard.
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Body-camera footage showed another deputy approaching Husted after he fell and removing a Beretta 9mm handgun that remained in his hand. Police also recovered two pistol magazines from his pants pocket. Deputies attempted medical aid until EMS arrived, but Husted subsequently died from the gunshot wound.
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The evidentiary record is particularly important in this case because the later video release allows substantial portions of the police narrative to be independently examined. Dash-camera and body-camera recordings captured responding deputies being fired upon and taking cover, while multiple independent 911 callers had already reported Husted firing in the neighborhood before law enforcement arrived. Physical evidence documented gunfire in the front and rear of the property and the round that struck the patrol vehicle.
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Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson reviewed the shooting and announced on 10/12/2021 that Vecchione would not face criminal charges. Wilson concluded that Husted had fired multiple rounds at occupied residences and responding law enforcement and determined that Vecchione's use of deadly force was reasonable and lawful.
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The Charleston County Sheriff’s Office released video from the encounter on 10/18/2021 after the prosecutor completed her review. Sheriff Kristin Graziano announced that Vecchione would return to duty after completing the department's normal post-shooting medical evaluation.
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The later public record located for this update does not show Husted's family or an eyewitness materially contesting the central account of the fatal exchange, and no encounter-related wrongful-death or federal civil-rights lawsuit by Husted's family was located.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Nicholas Vecchione was the Charleston County deputy who shot and killed Husted. He was the only officer who discharged a firearm, firing three rifle rounds from approximately 400 feet away. In 2022, the South Carolina General Assembly formally recognized Vecchione after he received a Medal of Valor for his actions during Husted's shooting.
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The Charleston County Sheriff's Office had experienced an extraordinarily serious death-in-custody controversy only eight months before Husted's shooting. On 01/05/2021, 31-year-old Jamal Sutherland died at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center after deputies attempted to forcibly remove him from his cell for a bond hearing. Sutherland had been receiving psychiatric treatment before his arrest and was experiencing a mental health crisis. Video subsequently showed deputies repeatedly using Tasers, pepper spray and physical restraint against him.
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The Sutherland case produced major consequences before Husted was killed. Charleston County agreed in May 2021 to pay Sutherland's family $10 million, and Sheriff Graziano publicly described his death as a “disastrous set of circumstances” and acknowledged the need to reassess agency practices and resources. The two detention deputies involved were subsequently fired.
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The problems at the Sheriff's Office's detention operation did not end there. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a federal civil-rights investigation into conditions at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center, citing deaths, violence, medical care, treatment of incarcerated people with psychiatric disabilities, solitary confinement and staff use of force. Federal officials specifically referenced Sutherland's death as part of the history prompting scrutiny.
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Those detention-center problems do not establish misconduct by Vecchione in Husted's shooting. The Husted case itself contains unusually extensive corroborating evidence, including civilian 911 calls, physical evidence and police video. The Sheriff's Office history is nevertheless relevant institutional context because the same agency was confronting a major use-of-force and accountability crisis during 2021 and later became the subject of a federal civil-rights investigation into its detention operations.

https://www.live5news.com/2021/10/18/charleston-co-sheriffs-office-releases-dash-cam-video-fatal-deputy-involved-shooting/
https://www.live5news.com/2021/09/20/coroner-identifies-victim-saturday-deputy-involved-shooting/
https://abcnews4.com/news/local/ccso-releases-name-of-deputy-involved-weekend-shooting-charleston-county-sheriffs-office-west-ashley
https://abcnews4.com/news/local/charleston-co-sheriff-releases-video-of-deputy-involved-west-ashley-shooting-wciv-vecchione
https://abcnews4.com/news/local/coroner-identities-man-killed-during-deadly-shoot-out-with-police-wciv-west-ashley
https://www.live5news.com/2021/10/12/solicitor-deputy-wont-face-charges-deadly-shooting/
https://sheriff.charlestoncounty.gov/news/2021/statement-on-sept-18-deputy-involved-shooting.pdf?v2=
https://www.scstatehouse.gov/query.php?category=LEGISLATION&conid=6824834&keyval=1240964&numrows=50&result_pos=1350&search=DOC&searchtext=police%25&session=0
https://www.live5news.com/2021/05/26/charleston-county-sheriff-issue-statements-following-million-settlement-with-sutherland-family/
https://www.charlestoncounty.gov/departments/sheriff/news/2021/sheriff-statement-on-jamal-sutherland-settlement-updated-5-26-21.pdf?v429=

On 09/17/2021, a Cobb County Police Department officer shot and killed 41-year-old Matthew Joseph Wilbanks at 4592 North Landing Drive in Marietta after police were called to his home during a mental health crisis. The encounter began shortly after midnight with a 911 call reporting a domestic dispute involving a man who was suicidal.
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This was therefore not a police response to a reported crime committed by Wilbanks in public, an attempted arrest, or a traffic stop. Officers were summoned specifically because of a domestic situation involving a person reportedly threatening self-harm.
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When officers arrived, they encountered Wilbanks armed with what Cobb police later described as a large hunting-type knife. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation alleged that Wilbanks advanced toward the officers while holding the knife. Cobb police similarly said that Wilbanks presented a threat to the officers.
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One Cobb County police officer fired, striking Wilbanks. He died at the scene. The publicly released GBI account provides no further description of the distance between Wilbanks and the officers, the number of shots fired, commands given to Wilbanks, whether officers attempted de-escalation, whether less-lethal weapons were available or used, or the length of time between police arrival and the shooting.
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The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted the independent investigation at Cobb County Police Department's request, with the completed case to be forwarded to the Cobb County District Attorney's Office for review. The shooting was the 70th police shooting the GBI had been requested to investigate in Georgia during 2021.
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The timing of Wilbanks' death is particularly significant. Cobb County police had shot and killed 39-year-old Robert Parks only four days earlier, on 09/13/2021, during a SWAT barricade at the Concord Crossing Apartments in Smyrna. The GBI investigated that killing as well.
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Cobb County Police had also killed 28-year-old Devonte Dawayne Brown less than a month earlier, on 08/18/2021. Brown was shot during a police pursuit after officers attempted to box in his vehicle. Brown's family publicly questioned that shooting and disputed the necessity of the deadly force. Thus, Wilbanks was at least the third person killed by Cobb County Police in approximately one month.
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Even more strikingly, Wilbanks' death became the first of two fatal police encounters involving mental health crisis calls in Cobb County on consecutive days. On 09/18/2021, Smyrna police shot and killed 27-year-old Unsfored Lewis Thurmond III after officers responded to another call concerning a suicidal man. Contemporary local reporting specifically identified the extraordinary circumstance of two people being killed by police on suicidal-person calls in the county within two days.
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The available reporting on Wilbanks' death remains almost entirely dependent on the police and GBI account. The public narrative does not provide an independent eyewitness description of the final confrontation or sufficient detail to determine how police handled the mental health crisis before deadly force was used.
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No affirmative evidence located in the later public record establishes that Wilbanks' family or an eyewitness publicly contested the official account of the shooting, and no wrongful-death or civil-rights lawsuit arising from Wilbanks' killing was identified.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The involved officer has not been publicly identified.
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The agency history immediately surrounding Wilbanks' death is unusually relevant. Cobb County Police had already been involved in multiple fatal shootings during the preceding months. On 06/13/2021, Cobb officers and SWAT members shot and killed 20-year-old Luis Rey Ruiz following a domestic-dispute response in Acworth. On 08/18/2021, an officer killed Devonte Dawayne Brown during a vehicle encounter. On 09/13/2021, Cobb SWAT killed Robert Parks during a barricade in Smyrna. Four days later, an officer killed Wilbanks during this mental health crisis.
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That means Cobb County Police killed four people in approximately three months, including three people in the 31-day period ending with Wilbanks' death. The sequence is directly relevant departmental context rather than unrelated agency history, particularly because Wilbanks' shooting occurred only four days after another Cobb police killing.
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The context became still more notable the following day when Smyrna Police killed Thurmond during another mental health crisis elsewhere in Cobb County. Contemporary reporting recognized the two consecutive-day deaths as a pattern significant enough to examine together.

https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-09-17/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/cobb-county-police-gbi-investigate-officer-involved-shooting
https://eastcobbnews.com/cobb-police-shoot-kill-man-in-ne-cobb-domestic-dispute/
https://patch.com/georgia/marietta/man-knife-threatening-harm-himself-killed-police-gbi
https://cobbcountycourier.com/2021/09/cobb-police-officer-fatally-shoots-man-allegedly-advancing-with-knife-gbi-investigating/
https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-09-14/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-08-19/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://gbi.georgia.gov/node/24186
https://cobbcountycourier.com/2021/09/second-fatal-shooting-by-police-in-cobb-county-on-suicidal-person-call-in-two-days/

On 09/17/2021, Escondido Police Department Officer Chandler Hoppal shot and killed 38-year-old Jonathan Carroll after a police pursuit ended with Carroll crashing his Mercedes SUV near Bear Valley Parkway and Encino Drive. Police were not attempting a routine traffic stop: officers were seeking Carroll in connection with a car-to-car shooting that had occurred approximately 90 minutes earlier.
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The original incident began near North Ash Street and East Pennsylvania Avenue, where a 20-year-old driver reported being shot in the back while driving. The wounded man survived and provided police with a description and license plate number for a white Mercedes-Benz GL450. Police said there was no known relationship between Carroll and the wounded driver.
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Police traced the Mercedes to Carroll and established surveillance near his home. Hoppal was part of an arrest team assembled nearby that included SWAT officers, a canine handler and an officer equipped with less-lethal force. Hoppal subsequently saw Carroll driving near Citrus and Washington avenues and attempted to stop him because police believed he was responsible for the earlier shooting.
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Carroll continued driving away while Hoppal pursued. Police said speeds exceeded 100 mph during the approximately ten-minute pursuit. The pursuit ended when Carroll lost control of the Mercedes, struck a curb and crashed near Bear Valley Parkway and Encino Drive.
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Police alleged that Carroll emerged from the crashed SUV holding a 9mm handgun. Hoppal told investigators that he saw the gun and believed Carroll was turning toward him with it. Hoppal fired 12 rounds from his department-issued handgun, striking Carroll three times in the head, abdomen and arm.
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Police said Carroll also fired two rounds during the confrontation. Investigators determined that one bullet struck his own SUV while the destination of the second was not established. Police described Carroll's handgun as an unserialized privately manufactured firearm commonly called a ghost gun. Two additional unserialized firearms, ammunition and a loaded rifle magazine were reportedly recovered from his SUV.
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Carroll was transported to Palomar Medical Center, where he died. The shooting and preceding pursuit were captured in substantial part by Hoppal's body-worn camera and other video. Escondido police subsequently released an edited approximately 11-minute critical-incident video incorporating body-camera and cellphone recordings.
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The San Diego County District Attorney's Office conducted a formal review of the shooting. Its 03/29/2022 report identified Hoppal by name and reconstructed the encounter using police reports, witness statements, physical evidence and recordings. The DA concluded that Hoppal reasonably believed Carroll presented an imminent deadly threat and declined criminal prosecution.
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The available public record does not establish that Carroll's family or an independent eyewitness materially contested the central police account of the final confrontation. No wrongful-death lawsuit by Carroll's family arising from his killing was identified in the later records reviewed for this update.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Chandler Hoppal was the Escondido officer who pursued Carroll and fired all 12 police rounds during the fatal confrontation. He had joined the department relatively recently and was approximately two years into his police career when he killed Carroll.
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Hoppal subsequently became a named defendant in federal civil-rights litigation unrelated to Carroll's death. In 2024, Dwight Ernest Samuels filed a federal civil-rights action naming Hoppal, Officer Mario Feria, another officer and the City of Escondido as defendants.
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Hoppal was again named as a defendant in a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by Eleazar Solano in December 2025 against the City of Escondido and five individual officers. The action was brought under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and remained in active federal litigation in 2026. These are civil allegations rather than findings that Hoppal committed misconduct, but they are substantive later officer-history records and are relevant to the background review.
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The Escondido Police Department had already experienced another fatal police shooting only five months before Carroll's death. On 04/21/2021, Escondido Officer Chad Moore shot and killed 59-year-old Steven John Olson after police responded to reports that Olson was striking vehicles with a crowbar. Body-camera footage showed Moore repeatedly backing away and warning Olson before firing seven rounds when Olson was approximately seven feet away.
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That earlier killing generated public protest and demands for rapid release of police video. Escondido police ultimately released body-camera and surveillance footage approximately eight days after Olson was killed.
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The department experienced another fatal police shooting only three months after Carroll's death. On 12/26/2021, Escondido officers shot and killed 39-year-old Roberto Cazares after another police pursuit. Thus, Carroll was one of at least three people killed by Escondido police during 2021, with the Olson killing approximately five months before his death and the Cazares killing approximately three months afterward.

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/armed-suspect-who-was-fatally-shot-by-escondido-officer-identified
https://www.kpbs.org/news/local/2021/09/24/armed-suspect-who-was-fatally-shot-by-escondido-police-officer-identified
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/suspect-killed-by-escondido-officer-fired-back-with-ghost-gun-had-more-untraceable-guns-in-suv/2727007/
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/escondido-pd-releases-footage-from-deadly-shootout-that-killed-pursuit-suspect/2739739/
https://www.times-advocate.com/articles/epd-updates-information-on-fatal-gunfight/
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/police-release-bodycam-video-of-fatal-shooting-in-escondido
https://www.sdcda.org/content/MediaRelease/202212/21-112PS%20%28Jonathan%20Carroll%29.pdf
https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2022/12/16/da-clears-officers-in-10-police-shootings-half-dating-back-more-than-2-years/
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/04/27/transient-who-was-fatally-shot-by-police-in
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/04/29/protesters-demand-bodycam-footage-escondido-office
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/casdce/3%3A2024cv01392/790568
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/casdce/3%3A2025cv03433/836939

On 09/17/2021, 35-year-old New Haven Police Officer Joshua Castellano was killed in Las Vegas when fellow New Haven Police Officer Robert Ferraro crashed a rented 2020 Rolls-Royce Cullinan while driving under the influence. The officers were off duty and vacationing in Las Vegas. Ferraro was later criminally convicted for causing Castellano's death.
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The crash occurred shortly before 4 a.m. at West Spring Mountain Road and South Decatur Boulevard. Ferraro was driving the Rolls-Royce with Castellano and four other passengers. Castellano was seated in the front passenger seat.
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Las Vegas Metropolitan Police investigators determined that Ferraro drove through the intersection at high speed, lost control and struck a Ford Mustang before the Rolls-Royce continued off the roadway, striking palm trees, a light pole, curb and fire hydrant and overturning.
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No one inside the Rolls-Royce was wearing a seat belt. Castellano was ejected as the SUV overturned. He was transported to University Medical Center, where he died from his injuries. Other people in the Rolls-Royce suffered injuries.
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Police observed signs that Ferraro was impaired. He refused to perform field sobriety tests. Investigators subsequently obtained a search warrant and had Ferraro's blood drawn at the Clark County Detention Center.
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Ferraro was arrested and initially charged with DUI resulting in death and reckless driving. New Haven Police placed him on administrative leave while the Nevada criminal case proceeded.
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The criminal case ultimately established that Castellano's death was caused by Ferraro's impaired driving. On 06/20/2023, Ferraro pleaded guilty in Clark County District Court to DUI resulting in death.
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The consequences within the New Haven Police Department were considerably delayed. Ferraro remained employed while the Nevada criminal prosecution was pending. New Haven eventually initiated termination proceedings, but Ferraro resigned in 2023 before the department could fire him. Police Chief Karl Jacobson subsequently said the department was also pursuing Ferraro's decertification as a police officer.
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On 01/09/2024, Clark County District Court Judge Susan Johnson sentenced Ferraro to two to five years in Nevada state prison for DUI resulting in death.
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This case is unusual within the database because Castellano was himself a police officer and his death did not occur during an enforcement encounter. However, it was an unnatural death directly caused by the criminal conduct of another police officer. Ferraro was an active New Haven officer at the time of the crash and was subsequently convicted of causing Castellano's death.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Robert Ferraro was the New Haven Police officer driving the Rolls-Royce that killed Castellano. This is not a case in which later reporting merely alleged misconduct by an unidentified officer: Ferraro ultimately pleaded guilty to DUI resulting in death and received a two-to-five-year prison sentence.
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New Haven Police placed Ferraro on administrative leave after his arrest. The department later began proceedings to terminate him, but Ferraro resigned before his firing could be completed. Chief Karl Jacobson said in November 2023 that the department was moving to have Ferraro decertified.
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The broader New Haven Police Department subsequently faced an unrelated but major civil-rights scandal involving Richard “Randy” Cox. In June 2022, Cox was left paralyzed from the chest down after being thrown headfirst into the partition of a police transport van that lacked seat belts. Cox repeatedly told officers he could not move, but officers were accused of failing to provide appropriate assistance and mishandling him after arrival at the police station.
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Five New Haven officers were criminally charged in connection with their treatment of Cox. Four were fired following the department's internal investigation, while another retired during the investigation. New Haven ultimately agreed to a $45 million civil settlement with Cox in 2023, one of the largest police-misconduct settlements in the country at the time.
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The Cox incident occurred after Castellano's death and was wholly unrelated to the Las Vegas crash, but it became a significant later accountability crisis within the same department and resulted in disciplinary action, criminal cases, policy reforms and an extraordinarily large civil settlement.

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/new-haven-police-officer-arrested-in-las-vegas-after-crash-that-killed-another-officer/2593322/
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-new-haven-officer-crash-death-20210920-wslld3jifvfi5lbptalut2hmiq-story.html
https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/New-Haven-police-officer-Joshua-Castellano-killed-16472437.php
https://www.wfsb.com/2021/09/20/community-mourns-new-haven-police-officer-killed-las-vegas-crash/
https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/new-haven-officer-killed-las-vegas-crash-police-charges/520-0041876b-d8d0-4e8d-8603-fc7fd53a6a6e
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/connecticut-officer-pleads-guilty-to-dui-charge-in-fatal-2021-crash-2797851/
https://www.fox5vegas.com/2024/01/10/connecticut-police-officer-serve-at-least-2-years-deadly-las-vegas-dui-crash/
https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/new-haven-cop-las-vegas-fatal-crash-quit-18492006.php
https://www.newhavenct.gov/Home/Components/News/News/120/334

On 09/16/2021, a man died during a gunfire exchange as members of the Memphis-area Multi-Agency Gang Unit attempted to serve an arrest warrant at a residence in northeast Memphis. The warrant had been issued in Sumner County, Tennessee. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation confirms the incident in its official 2021 deadly-force case index and identifies the involved entity as the Multi-Agency Gang Unit.
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Members of the unit included a Memphis Police Department officer and a Shelby County Sheriff’s Office deputy. According to the preliminary police account, officers entered the residence while attempting to execute the arrest warrant and were fired upon from inside.
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Police alleged that at least one officer returned fire. The Memphis officer and Shelby County deputy sustained minor injuries while getting out of the residence. The available reporting did not clearly establish whether either officer's injuries resulted from gunfire.
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After the officers withdrew, the man remained inside the residence. He was subsequently found dead from a gunshot wound.
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Critically, authorities initially acknowledged that they did not know whether the man was killed by police gunfire or died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Memphis police publicly said that distinction remained undetermined following the encounter.
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That uncertainty materially affects the classification of the death. The incident unquestionably occurred during an armed police warrant operation in which police fired into the residence, but the early public record did not establish whose bullet caused the fatal wound.
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was called in as the outside investigative agency. TBI's official historical record confirms that it investigated the 09/16/2021 Shelby County incident involving the Multi-Agency Gang Unit. TBI describes its role in such cases as independent fact-finding: documenting the scene, collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses and submitting its investigative file to the District Attorney General, who determines whether officers' actions were legally justified.
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This investigation therefore should have included ballistics capable of resolving the most important factual question in the case: whether the fatal projectile came from a police weapon or from a firearm attributed to the deceased man.
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The later publicly accessible material reviewed for this update does not provide a clear final resolution of that question. It also does not provide a publicly identified officer who fired, the number of police rounds discharged, a final prosecutorial determination, body-camera findings or a publicly established identity for the deceased man.
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The man's identity is especially worth flagging because this is a five-year-old case. Contemporary reporting described him only as a man found dead inside the residence, and the TBI's current historical index still lists the incident without identifying the deceased person. The database should therefore retain Name Withheld unless a reliable identification is located rather than attempting to infer his identity from the Sumner County warrant.
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The reason police were attempting to arrest him is also incompletely documented in the available public reporting. The warrant originated in Sumner County, but the specific charge underlying that warrant was not clearly disclosed in the sources located for this update.
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No later public reporting located for this update establishes that the man's family or an eyewitness publicly contested the police account, and no wrongful-death or civil-rights lawsuit arising specifically from this death was identified.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Memphis Police officer and Shelby County Sheriff's deputy involved in the gunfire have not been publicly identified. Because their identities remain undisclosed, an individual prior-shooting, misconduct, discipline or lawsuit history cannot reliably be attached to either officer.
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The organizational context is more significant. The officers were working as members of the Multi-Agency Gang Unit rather than responding as ordinary patrol officers. The unit was conducting a targeted arrest operation based on an out-of-county warrant when the fatal encounter occurred.
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TBI's involvement is important because Memphis and Shelby County had an established agreement with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation governing outside investigation of police use-of-force cases. TBI's current explanation states that it acts as an independent fact-finder and forwards its completed findings to the appropriate District Attorney General rather than deciding itself whether police conduct was justified.
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The Memphis Police Department subsequently became the subject of extraordinary federal scrutiny following the 2023 killing of Tyre Nichols. That later case exposed serious problems involving specialized police units, supervision, use of force, traffic enforcement and officer accountability. It occurred well after this 2021 death and does not establish misconduct by the unidentified officers in this case, but it is substantive later institutional history relevant to Memphis police practices.
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The unresolved forensic issue in this particular case remains considerably more important than that broader departmental history: police fired during the encounter, the man was later discovered dead from a gunshot wound, and the initial official account expressly could not determine whether police killed him or whether the wound was self-inflicted. The TBI investigation should have generated forensic evidence capable of addressing that question, yet a clear final public resolution was not located in the records reviewed for this update.
.

https://wreg.com/news/questions-remain-as-tbi-investigates-deadly-officer-involved-shooting-in-northeast-memphis/
https://www.wbbjtv.com/2021/09/17/1-dead-in-home-after-gunfire-exchange-with-memphis-police/
https://www.tn.gov/tbi/crime-issues/crime-issues/officer-involved-shootings.html
https://dailymemphian.com/issue/2021/9/17

On 09/16/2021, Walker County Sheriff’s Office deputies shot and killed 38-year-old Dan Ross Boyd II at a residence in the 5300 block of FM 1374 outside Huntsville after responding at approximately 10:48 a.m. to a 911 call reporting a disturbance involving a person with a weapon.
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Boyd was born July 5, 1983, in Orlando, Florida. He was married and the father of three children and worked for Vista Ridge Concrete. His family obituary described him as a devoted father and son who enjoyed cooking and fishing.
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According to the Walker County Sheriff’s Office, a family member called 911 and reported a disturbance involving Boyd and a firearm. Police alleged that Boyd had discharged a firearm several times while other people were inside the residence.
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Deputies responded to the property, evacuated people from neighboring residences and attempted to establish contact with Boyd. Police alleged that Boyd subsequently appeared at a window and fired toward deputies positioned outside the residence.
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Multiple Walker County deputies then opened fire on Boyd. Deputies subsequently entered the residence to provide medical aid and found Boyd dead from gunshot wounds.
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The publicly released account did not identify the deputies who fired, specify how many deputies discharged their weapons, disclose how many police rounds were fired or state how many times Boyd was struck.
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The Walker County Sheriff’s Office did not conduct the principal investigation of its own deputies' fatal gunfire. The investigation was turned over to the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas Rangers. DPS personnel, Texas Rangers, Highway Patrol troopers and the Walker County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office were among the agencies responding to the scene.
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The available public record remains unusually limited concerning the final disposition of the investigation. The initial account establishes that multiple deputies fired at Boyd, making identification of each shooting deputy and an officer-by-officer accounting of the gunfire particularly important.
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Boyd's identity can now be definitively corrected in the database. His obituary records his full name as Dan Ross Boyd II, gives his birth date as 07/05/1983 and states that he died in Huntsville on 09/16/2021.
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There is also significant background immediately preceding Boyd's death that was absent from the earlier report. In June 2021, approximately 2½ months before the fatal shooting, Boyd was arrested in Florida following an incident at a DeLand residence. According to the arrest report described by local media, Boyd told authorities he had consumed tequila, LSD and marijuana and did not know where he was. Police alleged that he entered an unfamiliar man's home and became involved in a violent confrontation with the homeowner. He was medically evaluated and subsequently arrested on burglary-with-assault and resisting charges.
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That incident is potentially relevant because of its proximity to Boyd's death and because both encounters involved allegations of severely disturbed and violent behavior. It should not, however, be used to establish that the Sheriff's Office's account of the completely separate September encounter was accurate. The circumstances of the fatal shooting must stand on the evidence from the 09/16/2021 incident itself.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Walker County deputies who fired at Boyd have not been publicly identified.

https://www.kbtx.com/2021/09/17/suspect-killed-walker-county-deputy-involved-shooting/
https://www.wallerthorntonfh.com/obituary/dan-r-boyd
https://www.leesburg-news.com/2021/06/30/leesburg-man-arrested-after-declaring-hes-homeowners-worst-nightmare/

On 09/16/2021, a Hawkins Police Department officer shot and killed 21-year-old Shiane Marie Selph near FM 14 and Hawkins High School after police received a disturbance call reporting a woman in the roadway. The shooting occurred at approximately 4:45 p.m.
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According to Hawkins Police Chief Manfred Gilow, police received the call at approximately 5 p.m. reporting a disturbance in the roadway. A witness caught in stopped traffic reported seeing Selph in the roadway with a machete and alleged that she was striking or attacking passing vehicles with it. Police said more than eight witnesses were present during the encounter.
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Police alleged that when the patrol officer arrived, Selph turned toward him and advanced while swinging or slashing the machete. Chief Gilow said the officer initially attempted to de-escalate the confrontation rather than immediately firing his gun.
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The officer then deployed a Taser against Selph. Police said the Taser was ineffective. According to Gilow, Selph continued toward the officer and the machete made contact with him, although the officer was not physically injured. The officer then opened fire, killing Selph at the scene.
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The available account therefore establishes an important sequence before the fatal gunfire: the officer confronted Selph alone, attempted verbal de-escalation, deployed a Taser, and fired his gun only after police alleged the Taser failed and Selph continued toward him with the machete. At least eight witnesses reportedly observed portions of the incident.
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The Texas Rangers assumed responsibility for investigating the fatal shooting at the request of the Hawkins Police Department. Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Sgt. Jean Dark confirmed that Rangers were requested to conduct the investigation.
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Police initially declined to release either Selph's identity or the identity of the officer who killed her. Chief Gilow said the shooting officer was placed on paid administrative leave while the Texas Rangers investigated.
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The encounter was recorded. Contemporary reporting specifically states that investigators were withholding dash-camera and body-camera video while the Rangers' investigation was underway. The existence of those recordings is significant because the video should provide direct evidence of Selph's actions, the officer's attempted de-escalation, the Taser deployment, the distance between Selph and the officer and the circumstances immediately preceding the gunfire.
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Despite the existence of eyewitnesses and police video, the readily accessible later public record provides remarkably little information about the ultimate disposition of the shooting. The Texas Rangers investigation was acknowledged publicly, but the materials located for this update do not establish a later public release of the investigative findings or video.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Hawkins police officer who shot and killed Selph has not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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The agency itself subsequently experienced substantial instability. Hawkins is a very small East Texas city, and later reporting documented repeated personnel and governmental turmoil involving its police department. Chief Manfred Gilow, who publicly described the circumstances of Selph's shooting, resigned in June 2022. By 2025, Hawkins had experienced further police departures and dismissals, public discussion about potentially disbanding the department, and a period in which the department reportedly operated with only one officer.
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Those later departmental problems do not establish wrongdoing in Selph's 2021 killing. The more directly relevant accountability issue is that the fatal shooting itself was turned over to the Texas Rangers, involved numerous reported civilian witnesses and was captured on police video, while the shooting officer's identity and a readily accessible final public accounting of the investigation remain difficult to establish years later.

https://www.kltv.com/2021/09/17/machete-wielding-woman-shot-by-hawkins-police-after-advancing-officer/
https://www.kltv.com/2021/09/17/texas-rangers-called-investigate-hawkins-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.easttexaslocal.net/timeline-what-is-going-on-in-the-city-of-hawkins/

On 09/16/2021, Yazoo City police shot and killed 54-year-old Timothy Grayson during a hostage incident near Broadway and Mound streets that also resulted in the death of 27-year-old Katrina Simpson. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation because Yazoo City officers were involved in Grayson's death.
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The incident developed from a bank robbery the previous day. Police alleged that on 09/15/2021 Grayson entered a Regions Bank on Main Street and gave a teller a note demanding $10,000. Interim Yazoo City Police Chief Joseph Head said Grayson also told the teller, "I'm not suicidal, I'm homicidal." Police obtained bank surveillance images, and the FBI assisted Yazoo City investigators with the robbery investigation.
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On 09/16/2021, Grayson reportedly asked Simpson, who knew him, for a ride to a store. Simpson agreed and Grayson got into the back seat of her vehicle. Simpson's mother, Leegertha Simpson, said Grayson subsequently held her daughter hostage at gunpoint and would not allow her to stop the vehicle when he saw police.
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Police received a report that a woman had been taken hostage in a vehicle. The encounter ultimately reached the area of a car wash and gas station near Broadway and Mound streets. Simpson was in the driver's seat and Grayson was in the rear passenger seat.
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The precise sequence of the fatal gunfire was initially left strikingly unclear. Yazoo County Coroner Ricky Shivers said he believed Simpson was killed while attempting to run away from Grayson during the hostage situation. Simpson's mother likewise said she believed Grayson killed her daughter before police shot Grayson. Contemporary authorities nevertheless released few details establishing the precise order of shots or the forensic evidence establishing who fired the bullet that killed Simpson.
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Yazoo City Police acknowledged that its officers were involved in Grayson's death but declined to release details of the shooting because MBI had assumed the investigation. Chief Head said MBI possessed video covering the incident, including footage associated with the original call, hostage situation and shooting.
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Grayson's case therefore has an unusually important evidentiary distinction: although two people died during the encounter, the available accounts indicate that police killed Grayson while Simpson was apparently killed during the hostage incident before or during the police confrontation. Simpson should not be classified as a person shot by police unless forensic evidence establishes that police gunfire caused her death.
.
MBI served as the outside investigative agency rather than leaving Yazoo City Police to investigate its own officers. The existence of video evidence means the investigation should have been capable of establishing the chronology of the shooting, the actions of Grayson and Simpson immediately before the gunfire, which officers fired, and the source of the fatal wounds.
.
Despite that evidence, the readily accessible public record remains sparse concerning the ultimate resolution. The later material located for this update does not provide a detailed public MBI report, identify the Yazoo City officer or officers who fired at Grayson, disclose the number of police rounds fired, or provide a detailed public reconstruction of the final confrontation.
.
Katrina Simpson was 27 years old. Her death should be specifically recorded in Grayson's narrative because the police confrontation in which Grayson was killed arose directly from her reported kidnapping and hostage situation and resulted in two deaths.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Yazoo City police officer or officers who shot and killed Timothy Grayson have not been publicly identified.
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Because their identities remain undisclosed, individual prior-shooting, complaint, discipline and civil-litigation histories cannot reliably be attributed to the officers who fired at Grayson.
.
There is, however, significant documented institutional history involving the Yazoo City Police Department from the period surrounding this case. A federal civil-rights case arising from the 2018 death of Marshawn Williams alleged false arrest, excessive force and denial of medical care by Yazoo City officers and jail personnel. Williams died after suffering a lacerated liver and extensive internal bleeding while detained. Fellow detainees reportedly spent two to three hours banging on cell doors and telling a jailer that Williams was experiencing a medical emergency.
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The litigation alleged that officers knew Williams had been struck with a metal pipe and was particularly vulnerable to internal bleeding, while jail personnel failed to obtain timely medical treatment. A federal district court found factual disputes significant enough for portions of the case, including denial-of-care claims, to proceed rather than disposing of all claims at summary judgment. The Fifth Circuit addressed the defendants' subsequent qualified-immunity appeal in 2022.
.
That earlier death does not establish wrongdoing in Grayson's shooting, but it represents substantive civil-rights litigation involving the same small municipal police department and allegations concerning use of force, training and treatment of a person in its custody.
.
The accountability issue most directly pertinent to Grayson's case remains the lack of a readily accessible final public accounting despite an outside MBI investigation and the existence of video evidence. Identification of the officers who fired and release of MBI's final investigative findings would allow meaningful review of both the shooting and the individual officers' histories.

https://www.wjtv.com/news/local/few-details-released-in-deadly-officer-involved-shooting-in-yazoo-city/
https://www.wapt.com/article/officer-involved-in-shooting-in-yazoo-city/37625507
https://www.yazooherald.net/crime-local-news-top-stories/bank-robbery-hostage-situation-shoot-out-leaves-two-people-dead
https://www.wlbt.com/2021/09/20/man-killed-during-officer-involved-shooting-yazoo-city-robbed-bank-day-before-incident-police-say/
https://www.wlbt.com/2021/09/16/mother-woman-killed-during-police-involved-shooting-thursday-speaks-out/
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-61061-CV0.pdf

On 09/16/2021, Yazoo City police shot and killed 54-year-old Timothy Grayson during a hostage incident near Broadway and Mound streets that also resulted in the death of 27-year-old Katrina Simpson. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation because Yazoo City officers were involved in Grayson's death.
.
The incident developed from a bank robbery the previous day. Police alleged that on 09/15/2021 Grayson entered a Regions Bank on Main Street and gave a teller a note demanding $10,000. Interim Yazoo City Police Chief Joseph Head said Grayson also told the teller, "I'm not suicidal, I'm homicidal." Police obtained bank surveillance images, and the FBI assisted Yazoo City investigators with the robbery investigation.
.
On 09/16/2021, Grayson reportedly asked Simpson, who knew him, for a ride to a store. Simpson agreed and Grayson got into the back seat of her vehicle. Simpson's mother, Leegertha Simpson, said Grayson subsequently held her daughter hostage at gunpoint and would not allow her to stop the vehicle when he saw police.
.
Police received a report that a woman had been taken hostage in a vehicle. The encounter ultimately reached the area of a car wash and gas station near Broadway and Mound streets. Simpson was in the driver's seat and Grayson was in the rear passenger seat.
.
The precise sequence of the fatal gunfire was initially left strikingly unclear. Yazoo County Coroner Ricky Shivers said he believed Simpson was killed while attempting to run away from Grayson during the hostage situation. Simpson's mother likewise said she believed Grayson killed her daughter before police shot Grayson. Contemporary authorities nevertheless released few details establishing the precise order of shots or the forensic evidence establishing who fired the bullet that killed Simpson.
.
Yazoo City Police acknowledged that its officers were involved in Grayson's death but declined to release details of the shooting because MBI had assumed the investigation. Chief Head said MBI possessed video covering the incident, including footage associated with the original call, hostage situation and shooting.
.
Grayson's case therefore has an unusually important evidentiary distinction: although two people died during the encounter, the available accounts indicate that police killed Grayson while Simpson was apparently killed during the hostage incident before or during the police confrontation. Simpson should not be classified as a person shot by police unless forensic evidence establishes that police gunfire caused her death.
.
MBI served as the outside investigative agency rather than leaving Yazoo City Police to investigate its own officers. The existence of video evidence means the investigation should have been capable of establishing the chronology of the shooting, the actions of Grayson and Simpson immediately before the gunfire, which officers fired, and the source of the fatal wounds.
.
Despite that evidence, the readily accessible public record remains sparse concerning the ultimate resolution. The later material located for this update does not provide a detailed public MBI report, identify the Yazoo City officer or officers who fired at Grayson, disclose the number of police rounds fired, or provide a detailed public reconstruction of the final confrontation.
.
Katrina Simpson was 27 years old. Her death should be specifically recorded in Grayson's narrative because the police confrontation in which Grayson was killed arose directly from her reported kidnapping and hostage situation and resulted in two deaths.
.
OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Yazoo City police officer or officers who shot and killed Timothy Grayson have not been publicly identified.
.
Because their identities remain undisclosed, individual prior-shooting, complaint, discipline and civil-litigation histories cannot reliably be attributed to the officers who fired at Grayson.
.
There is, however, significant documented institutional history involving the Yazoo City Police Department from the period surrounding this case. A federal civil-rights case arising from the 2018 death of Marshawn Williams alleged false arrest, excessive force and denial of medical care by Yazoo City officers and jail personnel. Williams died after suffering a lacerated liver and extensive internal bleeding while detained. Fellow detainees reportedly spent two to three hours banging on cell doors and telling a jailer that Williams was experiencing a medical emergency.
.
The litigation alleged that officers knew Williams had been struck with a metal pipe and was particularly vulnerable to internal bleeding, while jail personnel failed to obtain timely medical treatment. A federal district court found factual disputes significant enough for portions of the case, including denial-of-care claims, to proceed rather than disposing of all claims at summary judgment. The Fifth Circuit addressed the defendants' subsequent qualified-immunity appeal in 2022.
.
That earlier death does not establish wrongdoing in Grayson's shooting, but it represents substantive civil-rights litigation involving the same small municipal police department and allegations concerning use of force, training and treatment of a person in its custody.
.
The accountability issue most directly pertinent to Grayson's case remains the lack of a readily accessible final public accounting despite an outside MBI investigation and the existence of video evidence. Identification of the officers who fired and release of MBI's final investigative findings would allow meaningful review of both the shooting and the individual officers' histories.

https://www.wjtv.com/news/local/few-details-released-in-deadly-officer-involved-shooting-in-yazoo-city/
https://www.wapt.com/article/officer-involved-in-shooting-in-yazoo-city/37625507
https://www.yazooherald.net/crime-local-news-top-stories/bank-robbery-hostage-situation-shoot-out-leaves-two-people-dead
https://www.wlbt.com/2021/09/20/man-killed-during-officer-involved-shooting-yazoo-city-robbed-bank-day-before-incident-police-say/
https://www.wlbt.com/2021/09/16/mother-woman-killed-during-police-involved-shooting-thursday-speaks-out/
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-61061-CV0.pdf

On 09/16/2021, Wichita Falls police shot and killed 17-year-old Gabriel Micheal Varela following a lengthy barricade at a residence in the 3100 block of Lawrence Road. Varela was a senior at Wichita Falls High School. His obituary confirms his full name, age and date of death.
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Police responded after receiving information concerning an armed person at the residence. Officers surrounded the property and attempted to communicate with Varela during an extended standoff. Police alleged that Varela was armed with a handgun.
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According to the police account, officers attempted for several hours to persuade Varela to surrender. The Wichita Falls Police Department SWAT team was deployed during the barricade.
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Police alleged that Varela eventually emerged from the residence armed with a handgun. According to authorities, officers repeatedly ordered him to drop the weapon.
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Police alleged that Varela instead raised or pointed the handgun toward officers. Wichita Falls police then opened fire, striking him. Varela was transported for medical treatment but died from his injuries.
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Varela was only 17 years old. He was born on 08/31/2004 and had turned 17 approximately two weeks before police killed him. He attended Wichita Falls High School and was remembered by his family as someone who enjoyed baseball, football, animals, baking, video games and spending time with his siblings and friends.
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The shooting was documented in an Attorney General report filed by Wichita Falls police. The available reporting indicated that multiple officers fired during the encounter, but the publicly accessible sources reviewed for this update do not provide a reliable complete identification of every officer who discharged a weapon. The Officer(s) field should therefore remain Not Disclosed rather than assigning the shooting to an officer whose role cannot be firmly established.
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The available contemporary reporting does not establish that Varela fired at police before officers opened fire. The police justification instead centered on the allegation that he pointed a handgun toward officers following the prolonged barricade. That distinction should be preserved rather than describing the encounter as an exchange of gunfire unless later forensic or investigative records establish otherwise.
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The circumstances also place Varela's death within a mental health crisis context. Police were dealing with a teenager during a prolonged armed barricade, with officers reportedly spending hours attempting to obtain his surrender before the fatal confrontation. The precise nature of Varela's crisis and what information responding officers possessed about his mental state should be established from the underlying incident, dispatch and negotiation records rather than inferred from the eventual police shooting.
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The publicly accessible record is considerably thinner concerning what happened after the shooting. The Attorney General filing documents the police use of deadly force, but a detailed publicly available outside investigative report, grand-jury record or prosecutorial analysis reconstructing the shooting was not identified during this update.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Wichita Falls officers who shot Gabriel Varela have not been reliably identified in the public records reviewed for this update.
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The inability to identify the shooting officers prevents the individual background investigation normally performed for this database, including searches for previous shootings, complaints, discipline, civil-rights litigation and other significant use-of-force incidents.
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The Wichita Falls Police Department has, however, subsequently experienced a significant documented accountability case. In 2025, the department investigated officers Daniel Wilson and Gulley following the arrest and treatment of a woman identified by the city as Ms. Lang. Police Chief Manuel Borrego later publicly described what occurred as a failure by the department and said both officers violated existing departmental policies. Wilson was terminated and Gulley resigned following suspension. The Texas Rangers opened an independent criminal investigation.
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The department itself subsequently announced expanded training involving responses to people experiencing mental health crises, de-escalation, arrest and control techniques, constitutional law and arrest criteria. Those reforms occurred years after Varela's killing and do not establish misconduct in his case, but they constitute substantive later departmental history concerning precisely the kinds of crisis-response and de-escalation practices relevant to armed confrontations.
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In May 2026, the City of Wichita Falls announced that former officer Daniel Wilson had been indicted in connection with the later case. City officials simultaneously said broader departmental reform efforts were underway.
.

https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/2021/09/17/wichita-falls-police-shooting-gabriel-varela/8366920002/
https://www.texomashomepage.com/news/local-news/man-shot-killed-by-police-in-wichita-falls/
https://www.kswo.com/2021/09/17/teen-killed-officer-involved-shooting-wichita-falls/
https://www.texomashomepage.com/news/local-news/subject-killed-during-police-standoff-identified/

https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2021/10/04/wichita-falls-tx-police-shooting-attorney-general-report/5987436001/

On September 16, 2021, officers from the Cleveland Police Department responded to a call in the Glenville neighborhood at approximately 2:30 p.m. Upon arrival at East 124th Street and Brackland Avenue, they discovered a woman, identified as Cuyahoga County Corrections Officer Valerie Gudger, deceased from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.
An armed man locked himself inside a residence at 686 Gray Avenue. The Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office, including their SWAT team, was called to assist. After an eight-hour standoff, law enforcement officers forcibly entered the home around 10:30 p.m. and found the man deceased from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The Cleveland Division of Police is leading the investigation into this incident.

https://fox8.com/news/cuyahoga-county-corrections-officer-killed-in-suspected-murder-suicide/
https://fox8.com/news/woman-shot-and-killed-on-clevelands-east-side-swat-on-scene/

On 09/16/2021, 41-year-old Brandon Lee Smith died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after an approximately eight-hour Cleveland police SWAT barricade that followed the killing of his girlfriend, 37-year-old Cuyahoga County Corrections Officer Valerie Marie Gudger. Police investigated the deaths as a murder-suicide.
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The incident began that afternoon with Smith and Gudger together in a vehicle. Cleveland police alleged that the couple were arguing when Smith shot Gudger multiple times. Police said Smith subsequently left Gudger in a field near East 124th Street and Brackland Avenue and shot her again before leaving the area.
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Police responded shortly after 2 p.m. and found Gudger suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Gudger worked as a corrections officer for Cuyahoga County.
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Investigators identified Smith as Gudger's boyfriend and connected him to a residence in the 600 block of Eddy Road. Significantly, Smith also reportedly had a law-enforcement background: multiple sources identified him as a former Cuyahoga County corrections officer.
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Cleveland police and SWAT surrounded the Eddy Road residence after Smith barricaded himself inside. Police described Smith as armed. The resulting barricade lasted approximately eight hours.
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At approximately 10:30 p.m., SWAT officers entered the residence and found Smith dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Police recovered three firearms from the residence. No police gunfire was reported as causing Smith's death.
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Smith's death therefore qualifies for this database as a suicide under police duress. His death occurred at the conclusion of an extended armed SWAT barricade while police surrounded the residence and sought to take him into custody.
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Gudger's killing and Smith's subsequent suicide should be distinguished clearly. Gudger was the homicide victim whose death precipitated the police operation; Smith was the person police sought during the resulting barricade and died by suicide before SWAT could arrest him. There were therefore two deaths associated with the sequence of events.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
No Cleveland police officer killed Smith. Because Smith died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, there is no shooting officer requiring an individual officer-background investigation for this case.
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The involvement of the Cuyahoga County corrections system is nevertheless unusually relevant because both Gudger and Smith had connections to it. Gudger was an active county corrections officer, while Smith was reported by multiple sources to be a former corrections officer.
.
The Cuyahoga County jail system was already undergoing significant accountability problems during this period. In April 2021, only five months before these deaths, former corrections officer Martin Devring was sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to tampering with records and dereliction of duty stemming from an incarcerated person's 2018 death. Investigators determined that Devring failed to conduct required rounds, ignored the dying man and falsified jail logs.
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Another Cuyahoga County corrections officer, Andre Julius Bacsa, was arrested in June 2021 and indicted the following month over sexual assaults involving incarcerated people inside the county jail. Bacsa resigned in September 2021—the same month Gudger was killed—and later pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery, sexual imposition and sexual restraint.
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Those cases are unrelated to Smith's actions or Gudger's killing and provide no evidence that either was involved in jail misconduct. They are relevant only as documented institutional context showing that the Cuyahoga County corrections system was undergoing serious personnel and accountability problems during the same period.

https://fox8.com/news/cuyahoga-county-corrections-officer-killed-in-suspected-murder-suicide/
https://fox8.com/news/woman-shot-and-killed-on-clevelands-east-side-swat-on-scene/
https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/09/17/cuyahoga-county-corrections-officer-murdered-suspect-then-takes-own-life-police-say/
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/officials-identify-corrections-officer-killed-in-suspected-murder-suicide-in-cleveland
https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/09/16/armed-suspect-barricaded-home-near-where-woman-was-shot-death-cleveland-police-say/
https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Media/News-Releases/April-2021/Former-Cuyahoga-County-Corrections-Officer-Sentenc
https://www.cleveland19.com/2022/03/17/cuyahoga-county-corrections-officer-guilty-sexual-assaults-county-jail/

On 09/17/2021, 39-year-old Eric James Keesen died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the conclusion of an approximately 11-hour police standoff at a motel in Balsam Lake. The encounter began the previous evening when the Polk County Sheriff’s Office assisted the Rice Lake Police Department in locating Keesen, who was wanted on active felony warrants.
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Keesen was born on 08/23/1982 in Rice Lake and lived there at the time of his death. He worked in roofing and had a daughter. His obituary confirms that he died on 09/17/2021.
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The reason police were attempting to arrest Keesen is documented. Authorities said he was wanted on a felony stalking warrant from Barron County and a child enticement warrant from Washburn County. Earlier records show that Rice Lake police had sought Keesen in 2020 on allegations including stalking, violation of a domestic abuse order, violation of a harassment restraining order and bail jumping.
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The Washburn County case arose from a December 2020 undercover investigation in which investigators alleged that Keesen communicated online with a person he believed was a 14-year-old girl and traveled toward Shell Lake to meet her. The person was actually an undercover law-enforcement profile. Keesen was subsequently charged with using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime.
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At approximately 7:23 p.m. on 09/16/2021, investigators located Keesen at a motel in Balsam Lake. According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Keesen armed himself with a handgun and barricaded himself inside one of the motel rooms.
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A large multi-agency police operation followed. Agencies assisting included the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Barron County Sheriff’s Office, Rice Lake Police Department, St. Croix Falls Police Department, Luck Police Department, Balsam Lake/Centuria Police Department, Frederic Police Department, Amery Police Department, Milltown Police Department and Osceola Police Department.
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Police remained outside the motel while attempting to communicate with Keesen. The standoff continued throughout the night for more than 11 hours. Authorities reported that Keesen eventually stopped communicating with police.
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Officers then entered the motel and searched for Keesen. They located him hiding in an attic space. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said officers attempted to take him into custody peacefully, but Keesen died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Officers attempted lifesaving measures, but he died at the scene.
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No police gunfire was reported as causing Keesen's death. His death therefore qualifies for this database as suicide under police duress because the fatal self-inflicted gunshot occurred while police were actively attempting to arrest him following an overnight armed barricade and immediately after officers entered the motel and located him.
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Importantly, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office did not retain responsibility for investigating the death after participating in the standoff. The investigation was turned over to the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office, providing an outside county investigation of the fatal encounter.
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The precise final seconds of the encounter are not described in detail in the available public accounts. The records establish that police entered the motel after Keesen stopped communicating, located him in the attic and attempted to take him into custody, followed by the fatal self-inflicted gunshot. The public reporting does not provide a detailed reconstruction of officers' positions, commands or actions immediately before Keesen fired the fatal shot.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
No police officer shot Eric Keesen. Because his death resulted from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, there is no shooting officer requiring an individual officer-background investigation.
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The law-enforcement operation was unusually large for a single-person barricade, involving the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and numerous surrounding municipal and county agencies. The primary reason for that response was that Keesen was reportedly armed with a handgun, was wanted on felony warrants and remained barricaded for more than 11 hours.
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The subsequent investigation by the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office is significant because Polk County personnel participated directly in the operation. Assigning the investigation to another county avoided having the primary sheriff’s office involved in the standoff conduct the final investigation of the resulting death itself.

https://www.seehafernews.com/2021/09/21/rice-lake-man-identified-as-the-one-who-barricaded-himself-in-motel-for-11-hours/
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/local-news/11-hour-standoff-in-western-wisconsin-ends-with-man-dying-of-self-inflicted-gunshot-wound/
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/local-news/man-who-barricaded-self-died-of-self-inflicted-gunshot-wound-in-wisconsin-identified/
https://drydenwire.com/news/armed-suspect-takes-own-life-following-an-11-hour-standoff-with-authorities/
https://drydenwire.com/news/update-suspect-who-took-his-own-life-in-standoff-identified/
https://drydenwire.com/news/rice-lake-police-department-seeking-publics-help-locating-this-subject/
https://drydenwire.com/news/man-charged-following-washburn-county-undercover-online-sex-sting-operation/
https://drydenwire.com/obituaries/eric-keesen/

On 09/15/2021, 24-year-old Dedrick James died from a gunshot wound during a struggle with members of the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force who entered a residence at 6 Vinewood Place in Rochester to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. The task force included personnel from the U.S. Marshals Service, New York State Police, Rochester Police Department and Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
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The reason for the attempted arrest is well documented. New York State Police had investigated injuries suffered by James' two-year-old son in Wayne County beginning in December 2020. An investigator subsequently obtained an arrest warrant charging James with second-degree assault. After unsuccessful efforts to locate James, the warrant was referred to the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force.
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On the morning of 09/15/2021, task-force officers went to the Vinewood Place residence after determining that James was there. Three officers approached the front door, which was answered by James' grandmother. James came out of a bedroom and approached the officers but ran into a bathroom after officers told him he was under arrest.
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Officers followed James into the bathroom. According to the subsequent New York Attorney General investigation, one officer attempted to restrain James from behind in a bear hug, and both men fell into the bathtub. Police alleged that James had a loaded Smith & Wesson .380-caliber handgun in his hand and pointed it toward the officer's head. A struggle for control of the gun followed.
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During that physical struggle, the handgun discharged once. The bullet struck James in the chest. Task-force personnel attempted lifesaving measures, but James died at the residence. None of the officers fired their service weapons.
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The initial reporting therefore left an important question requiring forensic resolution: although the fatal bullet came from the handgun attributed to James, the gun discharged while James and an officer were physically struggling over it. The New York Attorney General's Office of Special Investigation opened an independent investigation the day after James' death.
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That investigation was ultimately completed and publicly released on 08/26/2022. OSI interviewed participating officers and James' grandmother and reviewed physical evidence and ballistics testing. Investigators determined that the fatal projectile and cartridge casing were consistent with James' Smith & Wesson .380 pistol and that the evidence established the gun discharged during the struggle.
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OSI ultimately classified James' fatal wound as self-inflicted and concluded that the evidence did not support criminal charges against any of the officers. The Attorney General therefore closed the criminal investigation without prosecution.
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The designation "self-inflicted" requires some context in this case. James did not die from a conventional suicide. He was shot by the handgun attributed to him while physically struggling with law enforcement officers attempting to arrest and disarm him. The death therefore occurred directly during police physical restraint and an attempted arrest, even though investigators concluded that no officer fired the fatal shot.
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The Attorney General's investigation provides considerably more definitive evidence than the preliminary police statements available immediately after James' death. It established the origin of the fatal projectile through ballistics, interviewed a civilian witness who was present at the residence and reconstructed the physical struggle preceding the gunshot.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The individual task-force officers involved in the physical struggle with James were not publicly identified by name in the sources reviewed for this update.
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The multi-agency nature of the operation is important. The U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force operating in Rochester included federal marshals as well as personnel assigned from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, Rochester Police Department, New York State Police and other agencies. Monroe County described its participating deputies as federally deputized for task-force operations.
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The Rochester Police Department was already undergoing extraordinary scrutiny over deaths involving police restraint when James died. Daniel Prude had died in March 2020 after Rochester officers restrained him during a mental health crisis, placed a spit hood over his head and held him against the pavement. The Monroe County Medical Examiner ruled Prude's death a homicide caused by complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint. Release of the body-camera recordings in September 2020 triggered widespread protests and a major departmental leadership crisis.
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That history does not establish misconduct by the unidentified task-force officers involved with James. Unlike the Prude case, James' death received a subsequent state-level investigation specifically examining whether criminal conduct by law enforcement caused his death, and OSI concluded that the forensic and witness evidence supported the account that James' own firearm discharged during the struggle.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2021/09/15/rochester-man-dies-after-struggling-with-marshals/8330285002/
https://www.wxxinews.org/crime/2021-09-15/man-dies-after-officers-struggle-during-arrest-attempt-in-rochester
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/rochester-man-dies-during-arrest-attempt-by-us-marshals/3254686/
https://www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2021-09-15/federal-officials-say-man-dies-after-his-gun-went-off-during-a-struggle-in-rochester
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-generals-office-special-investigation-opens-investigation-civilian-0
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2022/attorney-general-james-office-special-investigation-releases-report-death-dedrick
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/rochester/public-safety/2021/09/15/suspect-shot-with-own-gun-during-struggle-with-police-in-rochester
https://monroecountysheriff-ny.gov/news/news/2021/usms-mcso-joint-release-murder-arrests

On 09/15/2021, an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer and a Maricopa County Adult Probation officer shot and killed 30-year-old Kenzie Keyes outside a hotel in the 2300 block of East Thomas Road in Phoenix. The officers were part of a team searching for 28-year-old Jacob Hernandez, who was wanted on felony charges. Phoenix Police Department investigators handled the criminal investigation because Phoenix officers did not participate in the shooting.
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At approximately 1:30 p.m., officers located Hernandez outside the hotel with Keyes. According to Phoenix police, Hernandez and Keyes ran when they encountered the officers. The specific felony charges for which officers were attempting to arrest Hernandez were not disclosed in the contemporary public reporting.
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Police alleged that while running from officers, Hernandez produced a handgun and fatally shot himself in the head. Keyes then reportedly picked up Hernandez's handgun.
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Police alleged that Keyes pointed the handgun toward the DPS officer and Adult Probation officer. Civilian cellphone video captured at least part of the confrontation and recorded officers repeatedly ordering Keyes to drop the gun and push it away from herself. ABC15 reported that the exchange continued for approximately 30 seconds before police opened fire.
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A witness who observed portions of the confrontation likewise reported hearing officers repeatedly telling Keyes to put down the gun before hearing the fatal gunfire. The available civilian recording therefore provides evidence independent of the officers' statements that police repeatedly ordered Keyes to relinquish the weapon immediately before she was shot.
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The Arizona DPS officer and Maricopa County Adult Probation officer both discharged their duty weapons, striking Keyes. Phoenix Fire Department personnel pronounced both Keyes and Hernandez dead at the scene.
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There were therefore two deaths during the police operation. Hernandez died from what police determined was a self-inflicted gunshot wound while officers were attempting to apprehend him, while Keyes was subsequently shot and killed by the two officers. Hernandez's death was not caused by police gunfire.
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Phoenix Police conducted the criminal investigation because the officers who fired belonged to two outside agencies. Phoenix's original media advisory expressly stated that its officers were not involved in the shooting and that Phoenix investigators would handle the criminal investigation.
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The investigation did eventually receive prosecutorial review. Maricopa County Attorney's Office records show that the Keyes investigation was submitted for review on 01/21/2022. On 11/22/2022, prosecutors cleared the shooting without criminal charges. The county's current historical officer-involved-shooting database continues to list the case as "Cleared."
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The later disposition substantially improves the original 2021 database record because this case did not simply disappear after the preliminary police investigation. An outside municipal police agency investigated the two shooting officers, the completed investigation was submitted to county prosecutors approximately four months later, and prosecutors issued their decision approximately ten months after receiving it.
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The central police account is also supported more strongly than in many fatal shooting cases because civilian cellphone video captured officers' repeated commands immediately before the gunfire. However, the publicly accessible materials reviewed for this update still do not provide a detailed officer-by-officer reconstruction establishing precisely how many rounds each officer fired, how many times Keyes was struck, or which officer fired particular rounds.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Arizona Department of Public Safety officer and Maricopa County Adult Probation officer who shot Kenzie Keyes have not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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Because both officers fired, identification of each officer would be necessary before individual prior-shooting, misconduct, disciplinary and civil-litigation histories could reliably be attached to this case.
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The investigative structure nevertheless provided separation between the shooting officers and the principal criminal investigation. Neither Arizona DPS nor Maricopa County Adult Probation served as the primary investigating agency; Phoenix Police investigated the shooting and submitted the completed case to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for independent prosecutorial review.
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The prosecutor's historical records are particularly useful in this case because they establish a final disposition that was unavailable in the initial news coverage: the investigation was submitted on 01/21/2022 and formally cleared on 11/22/2022.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2021/09/16/phoenix-police-shooting-kills-woman-24th-street-thomas-road/
https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/woman-killed-officer-involved-shooting-phoenix/75-3c1f6e1b-6c9b-4b8b-9f6b-9c2a1e7f3a4d
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/dps-involved-in-shooting-near-24th-street-and-thomas-in-phoenix
https://patch.com/arizona/phoenix/2-killed-officer-involved-shooting-identified
https://www.phoenix.gov/content/dam/phoenix/policesite/documents/media_advisories/09152021_dpsois_%2024th_street_thomas_road.pdf
https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/phoenix-pd-fugitive-kills-self-woman-fatally-shot-by-officers
https://maricopacountyattorney.org/562/First-Responder-Critical-Incident-Callou
 

On 09/15/2021, Independence Police Department Field Training Officer Joshua Gena shot and killed 33-year-old Cody Levi Harrison inside the garage of a residence in the 2300 block of South Northern Boulevard. Harrison simultaneously shot and critically wounded 22-year-old Independence Officer Blaize Madrid-Evans, who died at a hospital later that evening. A later Missouri State Highway Patrol investigation identified Gena as the officer who fired the fatal police gunfire.
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The encounter began after Independence police received an anonymous tip that Harrison, who was wanted, was staying at the residence. The underlying reason for the attempted arrest is therefore identifiable: Harrison had an outstanding Jackson County warrant issued on 09/13/2021 after he failed to appear in court in connection with burglary and stealing charges arising from a 2020 Grain Valley case. He was also on parole from an earlier firearms conviction.
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Four Independence officers went to the residence. Officer Cody Burch was dispatched as the primary officer for the residence check. Master Patrol Officer David Wehlermann arrived first and waited for Burch, Gena and Madrid-Evans before they approached. Madrid-Evans was still in field training, and Gena was his field training officer.
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Gena and Madrid-Evans initially spoke with another man in the driveway and asked about Harrison. They then saw Harrison inside an attached garage. According to Gena's subsequent statement to Missouri State Highway Patrol investigators, Harrison had both hands in the pockets of his shorts. Gena drew his service handgun while Madrid-Evans approached Harrison.
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Police alleged that Harrison told Madrid-Evans, "I'm not going back," stepped backward, pulled a handgun from his pocket and shot Madrid-Evans from only a few feet away. Gena then opened fire on Harrison, killing him inside the garage.
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Madrid-Evans was struck in the head. The other officers carried him from the scene to a patrol vehicle, and he was transported to Centerpoint Medical Center, where he died shortly before 6 p.m. Harrison died at the scene. The medical examination documented bullets or bullet fragments recovered from eight locations in Harrison's body.
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The subsequent investigation produced considerably more information than was available in the initial news reports. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined that the handgun attributed to Harrison was stolen. Investigators also interviewed people who had been at the residence, some of whom reported using methamphetamine with Harrison that morning. According to the investigative file, Harrison had reportedly been awake for several days and had told acquaintances that he intended to engage police with gunfire rather than return to prison. These claims came from witness interviews and investigative records and should be distinguished from independently observed facts.
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The case also exposed an important sequence immediately preceding Harrison's death. Kansas City police had arrested Harrison on 09/02/2021 for investigation of felon in possession of a firearm and recovered a handgun during that arrest. KCPD released him pending further investigation and submitted the case to the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office on 09/07/2021. Prosecutors said they did not receive it until 09/09/2021, by which time Harrison had already been released.
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Separately, Harrison failed to appear in the pending Grain Valley burglary case, resulting in the warrant issued two days before the fatal encounter. Thus, when Independence police received the anonymous tip on September 15, they were attempting to locate and arrest Harrison on an active warrant rather than conducting a routine investigative contact.
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The Missouri State Highway Patrol conducted the investigation of the fatal shooting rather than leaving Independence police to determine whether Gena's shooting was legally justified. MSHP completed its investigative file and suspended the investigation pending prosecutorial review on 11/29/2021.
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The Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office completed that review on 03/01/2022 and declined criminal charges against Gena or anyone else in connection with Harrison's death, determining that Gena's use of deadly force was justified.
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The later investigative record therefore resolves several gaps in the original 2021 reporting. Joshua Gena was the officer who killed Harrison; Madrid-Evans did not fire the fatal police gunfire; four Independence officers were present; Harrison was being sought on an active warrant; and the shooting was subsequently investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and reviewed by the Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Joshua Gena was the Independence Police Department field training officer who shot and killed Cody Harrison. Madrid-Evans, whom Harrison allegedly shot during the encounter, was Gena's trainee and had graduated from the police academy only two months earlier. Because Madrid-Evans was still in field training, Gena was the senior officer directly supervising him during the attempted arrest.
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Gena later became a named defendant in litigation arising from a separate fatal Independence police pursuit. On 03/22/2023, Jake Monteer and Jessica Fields were killed after a fleeing vehicle struck Monteer's motorcycle during an Independence police pursuit. Monteer's parents sued the City of Independence and officers Joshua Gena, Robert Romey, Jeremie Stauch and Eric Simpson.
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The lawsuit alleged that Gena and the other officers failed to follow Independence Police Department pursuit policy and negligently handled the operation. Specifically, the complaint alleged that Gena failed to communicate with a supervisor and that officers effectively "freelanced" their response after locating an allegedly stolen Jeep. The lawsuit also challenged officers' decisions concerning the pursuit and deployment of stop sticks. These are civil allegations and do not establish that Gena committed misconduct, but they constitute a later documented fatal police-encounter case in which his conduct was specifically challenged.
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The Independence Police Department itself had significant documented use-of-force history at the time Harrison was killed. Only months before this shooting, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its May 2021 decision in the Bryce Masters case. Masters had sued Independence Officer Timothy Runnels for excessive force after Runnels used a Taser during a traffic stop. A jury found for Masters and awarded compensatory and punitive damages, and the appellate court ultimately restored a $425,700 punitive-damages award against Runnels.
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The department also became the subject of a city investigation in early 2022 over alleged misuse of overtime funds. A whistleblower reported that a department employee had received substantial overtime compensation while performing construction work at police headquarters during 2021, the same year as Harrison's shooting. The City of Independence opened an investigation into the department's overtime practices.
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These institutional matters are not evidence that Gena's shooting of Harrison was improper. In Harrison's case, the available investigative record presents unusually strong evidence supporting the conclusion that Gena fired after Harrison shot Madrid-Evans at close range, and an outside MSHP investigation followed by prosecutorial review resulted in no criminal charges against Gena.
.

https://www.kmbc.com/article/independence-police-officer-shot-suspect-killed/37612554
https://www.kshb.com/news/crime/independence-police-officer-shot-suspect-killed
https://www.fox4kc.com/news/independence-police-officer-shot-suspect-killed/
https://www.kmbc.com/article/independence-police-officer-involved-shooting-1631729795-1631748065/37614347
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/mshp-report-sheds-new-light-on-deadly-shooting-of-independence-officer
https://www.kmbc.com/article/suspect-cody-harrison-independence-police-officers-death-had-long-criminal-history/37624768
https://www.kmbc.com/article/kcpd-prosecutors-office-releases-joint-statement-on-cody-harrison-independence-officer-blaize-madrid-evans/37638115
https://www.kshb.com/news/crime/man-who-killed-independence-police-officer-paroled-twice
https://www.kctv5.com/2023/11/15/lawsuit-claims-negligence-police-officers-improper-training-led-fatal-independence-crash/
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/19-2242/19-2242-2021-05-27.html
https://www.kmbc.com/article/independence-missouri-investigation-police-department-overtime/38972820

On 09/15/2021, a Davis Police Department officer shot and killed 25-year-old Christopher George outside a residence in Davis after police responded to a reported disturbance. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation subsequently investigated the fatal shooting. Later statewide tracking also identifies George as 25 and White.
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According to OSBI's account, the first Davis officer arrived to investigate the reported disturbance and encountered George at the residence. A physical struggle developed between George and the officer. Police alleged that during that struggle George gained control of the officer's handgun.
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A second Davis police officer arrived while the confrontation was underway. OSBI alleged that George fired one shot from the first officer's handgun as the second officer arrived. Public accounts do not establish that the shot struck anyone.
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The second officer then fired multiple rounds at George, killing him. The available account therefore establishes an unusual sequence in which the fatal shooting officer was not the officer who initially struggled with George: George allegedly disarmed the first officer, allegedly fired that officer's weapon as a second officer arrived, and the second officer then shot and killed him.
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The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation handled the investigation rather than leaving Davis Police Department solely responsible for investigating its own officers. OSBI publicly identified George but did not identify either the officer who was allegedly disarmed or the second officer who fired the fatal shots in the contemporary reporting located for this update.
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The publicly available record remains sparse regarding the precise circumstances that preceded the struggle. Contemporary reporting describes the initiating call only as a disturbance at a residence and does not provide a detailed explanation of what George was allegedly doing before the first officer encountered him, who called police, or what occurred between the officer's arrival and the beginning of the physical confrontation.
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The later record located for this update also does not provide a detailed public reconstruction of the shooting, identify the officers, specify how many rounds the second officer fired, or provide a readily accessible final prosecutorial disposition. Those underlying OSBI records would be particularly important because the police account depends on the sequence of the struggle, George allegedly taking the first officer's firearm, the alleged shot from that weapon, and the second officer's subsequent use of deadly force.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Davis police officer who shot and killed Christopher George and the officer who initially struggled with him have not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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The lack of officer identification prevents a reliable individual review for previous shootings, complaints, discipline, lawsuits or other significant misconduct involving either officer.
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There is, however, significant agency history from the same period. Less than five months before George was killed, another Davis Police Department officer, Dale Smith, was arrested following allegations that he repeatedly sexually assaulted a woman beginning in fall 2020. The Murray County Sheriff's Office investigated after the woman reported the alleged assaults, and Davis Police Chief Danny Cooper was notified during that investigation. Smith was terminated by the Davis Police Department following his arrest. This matter was unrelated to George's death and does not establish misconduct by the unidentified officers involved in his shooting, but it represents serious documented misconduct within the small department during the same year.
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The most directly relevant unresolved issue in George's case remains identification of the two Davis officers. Because the police account alleges that one officer lost control of his service weapon during a physical confrontation and another officer subsequently used deadly force, the officers' reports, body-camera or other available recordings, dispatch records, firearms evidence and complete OSBI investigative file would provide substantially more information than the abbreviated public account.

https://www.kxii.com/2021/09/16/davis-police-investigate-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.news9.com/story/6142c7b8b5b8a50bd3a5e5d0/davis-police-investigate-fatal-officerinvolved-shooting
https://kfor.com/news/local/davis-police-investigating-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2021-09-17/police-man-who-took-oklahoma-officers-gun-fatally-shot
https://www.newstalkkzrg.com/2021/09/17/police-man-who-took-oklahoma-officers-gun-fatally-shot/
https://www.readfrontier.org/special-projects/shot-by-shot-oklahoma-police-shootings-in-2021/

On 09/15/2021, Jacob Hernandez, 28, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while law enforcement officers were attempting to arrest him at a hotel in the 2300 block of East Thomas Road in Phoenix. The encounter also resulted in the police shooting death of Kenzie Keyes, 30. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office records Hernandez and Keyes as the two involved people in the September 15 critical incident at approximately 2300 East Thomas Road.

An Arizona Department of Public Safety officer and a Maricopa County Adult Probation officer were working together to locate and arrest Hernandez. Police described Hernandez as a fugitive wanted on felony charges. After officers located Hernandez with Keyes at the hotel, Hernandez and Keyes ran from them.

According to the Phoenix Police Department investigation, Hernandez produced a handgun while police were pursuing him on foot and shot himself in the head. Police did not fire the shot that killed Hernandez. He died at the scene.

Police reported that after Hernandez shot himself, Keyes picked up his handgun. Officers repeatedly ordered Keyes to drop the weapon. Police alleged that Keyes pointed the gun toward officers, who then opened fire and killed her. Hernandez and Keyes therefore constitute two separate fatalities from the same police encounter: Hernandez died by suicide during the attempted arrest, while Keyes was killed by police gunfire.

Phoenix Police Department personnel were not involved in the attempted arrest or the fatal gunfire but assumed responsibility for investigating the incident because the involved personnel were from the Arizona Department of Public Safety and Maricopa County Adult Probation. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office later recorded the case as cleared, with the incident submitted for review in January 2022 and a decision recorded in November 2022.

Hernandez’s obituary identifies him as Jacob “Jake” Michael Hernandez and confirms that he died on September 15, 2021.

OFFICER BACKGROUND:
No law-enforcement officer fired the shot that killed Hernandez. The law-enforcement personnel involved in the attempted arrest were not identified by name in the available records.

https://maricopacountyattorney.org/562/First-Responder-Critical-Incident-Callou
https://patch.com/arizona/phoenix/2-killed-officer-involved-shooting-identified
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/dps-involved-in-shooting-near-24th-street-and-thomas-in-phoenix
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/west-valley-city-ut/jacob-hernandez-10412216

On 09/15/2021, 21-year-old John Fitch of Henrico County was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his vehicle after a multi-agency police search that began with an incident in Harrisonburg the previous evening.
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At approximately 8:00 p.m. on 09/14/2021, a Harrisonburg Police Department officer responded to a residence in the 2300 block of Purple and Gold Way after police received a report of threats. The officer was standing on the front porch speaking with the person who made the complaint when police alleged that Fitch, who knew the complainant, drove past the residence and fired at least a dozen rounds from his vehicle toward the house.
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Multiple bullets struck the residence close to where the officer and complainant were standing. The shooting prompted Harrisonburg police to issue a shelter-in-place order for the surrounding neighborhood for approximately 90 minutes while officers secured the area and searched for Fitch.
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Harrisonburg Police Department detectives identified Fitch during the investigation and obtained warrants charging him with attempted capital murder of a police officer and attempted capital murder. Police then began a broader effort to locate him.
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The search expanded well beyond the Harrisonburg Police Department. Agencies assisting included the James Madison University Police Department, Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office, Goochland County Sheriff’s Office, Henrico County Police Department and Virginia State Police.
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Through the investigation, Harrisonburg detectives developed information concerning Fitch's location and directed the Goochland County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by Virginia State Police, to where he was believed to be. Shortly after midnight, officers located Fitch inside his vehicle. He was dead from what authorities described as an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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No police gunfire was reported as causing Fitch's death. His death occurred, however, while multiple law-enforcement agencies were actively searching for him and attempting to apprehend him on warrants obtained after the Harrisonburg shooting. His death therefore qualifies for this database as suicide under police duress.
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The incident date for database purposes is 09/15/2021 because Fitch's fatal self-inflicted gunshot and discovery occurred shortly after midnight, although the police encounter that triggered the manhunt began at approximately 8:00 p.m. on 09/14/2021.
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The two links supplied for this update appear to have become problematic over time. The original WHSV URL now returns a missing page, while the WRIC page is no longer readily retrievable. Contemporary WHSV reporting preserved under a different URL establishes Fitch's identity and the sequence leading to his death.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
No police officer shot John Fitch. Because Fitch died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, there is no shooting officer requiring an individual officer-background investigation.
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The agency history nevertheless contains a noteworthy fatal-force record. Harrisonburg Police Department officers had previously participated in the 03/31/2020 fatal shooting of 29-year-old John Henry Ross II after a police pursuit in Rockingham County. Harrisonburg police, Rockingham County deputies and Virginia State Police were involved in that encounter. Police alleged Ross pointed a rifle toward officers following approximately an hour of negotiations.
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Harrisonburg police had also shot and killed 31-year-old Thomas Albun Beall Jr. inside a Chili's restaurant in 2018 after police responded to reports of a person with a knife, and Harrisonburg police killed 23-year-old Michael Thomas Pierce during a disturbance response in 2015.
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A separate 2021 federal civil-rights action, Halter v. Hanlon, accused Harrisonburg Police Officer David Hanlon and the city of excessive force and other constitutional violations. The lawsuit does not establish misconduct and was ultimately dismissed without prejudice, but it represents contemporaneous documented civil-rights litigation involving the department.
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More recently, the department and several current or former personnel were sued over their handling of the investigation into Towan Cappell's 2022 killing. Cappell's mother alleged that police failed to properly investigate the death and that she personally discovered significant evidence at the scene after police had completed their initial work. The allegations are unrelated to Fitch's death and do not establish wrongdoing in his case.

https://www.whsv.com/2021/09/15/man-killed-in-harrisonburg-police-shooting/
https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/state-police-investigate-harrisonburg-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.whsv.com/2021/09/15/police-incident-harrisonburg-leads-shelter-in-place-some/
https://augustafreepress.com/news/suspect-in-harrisonburg-shooting-found-dead/

On 09/14/2021, 58-year-old Paul Bruner died after Waukesha police officers Bryce Butryn, Draelon Leija and Jarrett Fintel repeatedly used a Taser and physical force against him while taking him into custody during what had begun as an emergency medical call. The Milwaukee Area Investigative Team investigated the death, with Greenfield Police Department serving as the lead outside agency.
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Shortly after 1 a.m., Waukesha firefighters were dispatched to the 1300 block of Ellis Street because Bruner was having difficulty breathing. Dispatch information specifically advised responders that Bruner had COPD and used a prescribed inhaler. Bruner had significant respiratory disease; the subsequent district attorney review also documented COPD, emphysema and a heart murmur.
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A woman at the residence told responders that Bruner had previously kicked a paramedic and might become combative. When police arrived, she also reported that Bruner had struck her, and officers observed minor injuries. Police determined that probable cause existed to arrest Bruner for domestic abuse/battery. He was also subject to an existing domestic abuse injunction.
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The encounter then shifted from medical assistance to an arrest. Police said Bruner would not comply with commands and became combative. Later-released recordings provide considerably more information than was available in the initial reports. Waukesha police did not have body cameras at the time, but the officers wore microphones that captured much of the encounter.
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The recordings document officers ordering Bruner to step outside and get on the ground. Police deployed a Taser against him. According to the later district attorney review, officers used the Taser against Bruner three separate times, each deployment lasting approximately five seconds. Officers also kicked Bruner several times during the struggle.
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Critically, Bruner remained conscious and verbal during the force. After being tased, he explicitly warned the officers that their actions were endangering him, saying that they were going to kill him and that he was going to have a heart attack. He also said that he was dying while officers continued trying to handcuff him.
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After the third Taser deployment and physical struggle, Bruner became limp and unconscious. Once he was handcuffed, officers recognized that he was no longer breathing and could not find a pulse. They began CPR and used an AED. Bruner was transported to Waukesha Memorial Hospital, where he died shortly after 6 a.m.
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A neighbor who witnessed the encounter later questioned the level of force used against Bruner, describing him as an older man who had difficulty getting up and questioning why officers could not have physically restrained him without the repeated Taser use. The woman whose original medical call brought emergency personnel to the residence also told reporters afterward that she regretted calling for help.
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There was no officer body-camera recording because Waukesha police had not yet implemented body-worn cameras. Initial reporting also stated that there was no squad-camera recording of the police response. Officer microphone recordings nevertheless preserved the audio, and later reporting described police dash-camera footage showing portions of the response. The department subsequently purchased body cameras and upgraded its squad-camera system.
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Because Bruner died after police used force against him, Wisconsin's outside-investigation procedure was invoked. The Milwaukee Area Investigative Team investigated, and Greenfield Police Department led the investigation rather than Waukesha Police Department investigating its own officers. Greenfield's official MAIT case listing continues to identify the 09/14/2021 Waukesha Police Department death of Paul Bruner as one of its investigated cases.
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By June 2022, approximately nine months after Bruner's death, Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper had not yet announced a final charging decision. After FOX6 obtained the officer audio through an open-records request, Opper said she expected to announce her decision shortly.
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On 06/28/2022, Opper announced that Butryn, Leija and Fintel would not face criminal charges. The district attorney concluded that the Taser use was necessary under the circumstances. All three officers had already returned to full duty.
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Bruner's case is particularly notable because the police encounter originated as a call for emergency medical assistance for a man already experiencing serious breathing difficulty. Officers subsequently developed probable cause for an arrest, but Bruner's medical vulnerability remained part of the encounter. During the force itself, he verbally warned police that he believed he was dying and would suffer a heart attack. Police nevertheless continued the arrest, including three Taser deployments and physical force, before Bruner became unresponsive. He died several hours after the original call for help.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Bryce Butryn, Draelon Leija and Jarrett Fintel were the three Waukesha Police Department officers involved in the force used against Bruner. Their identities were not initially disclosed but became public when records and officer microphone recordings were released in 2022.
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At the time of Bruner's death, the three officers had relatively short careers with the department, collectively ranging from approximately one to four years. Because the officers' individual experience levels were not clearly assigned in the initial reporting, no specific tenure should be attributed to an individual officer without the underlying personnel records.
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The officers were placed on administrative leave immediately after Bruner's death while the outside investigation proceeded. By June 2022, all three had returned to patrol duty. The district attorney subsequently declined criminal charges against all three.
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The most important documented issue involving the officers in this case is therefore the force used against Bruner itself: three five-second Taser deployments, additional physical force including kicks, and continuation of the arrest while a man originally encountered for respiratory distress verbally warned officers that he believed he was dying and would suffer a heart attack.
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The department's equipment practices also changed after this period. Waukesha police did not have body-worn cameras during Bruner's encounter. By 2022, the city had purchased a body-camera system and upgrades to its squad cameras and was installing infrastructure and training officers for deployment.
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The Bruner investigation was not conducted internally by the officers' own department. Greenfield Police Department, acting through the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team, conducted the outside investigation, and the Waukesha County District Attorney subsequently performed the criminal review. The final result was no criminal prosecution of Butryn, Leija or Fintel.

https://www.fox6now.com/news/domestic-abuse-suspect-dead-combative-with-police-waukesha-officials-say

https://www.fox6now.com/news/waukesha-suspect-tased-dead-officers-audio-released

https://www.fox6now.com/news/waukesha-man-tased-died-officers-no-criminal-charges

https://www.wisn.com/article/waukesha-man-dies-in-police-custody-after-being-shocked-with-taser/37596128

https://www.cbs58.com/news/domestic-abuse-suspect-tased-by-waukesha-police-after-confrontation-dies-a-short-time-later

https://www.ci.greenfield.wi.us/551/Milwaukee-Area-Investigative-Team

On 09/14/2021, Mantua Township Police Officer Salvatore Oldrati shot and killed 49-year-old Charles Sharp III outside Sharp's own home in the 200 block of Elm Avenue. Sharp was the person who had called 911 seeking police assistance after reporting people trespassing on his property, including a person he believed was armed. The New Jersey Attorney General's Office later concluded that less than five seconds elapsed between Oldrati getting out of his patrol vehicle and beginning to shoot Sharp. A state grand jury subsequently indicted Oldrati for manslaughter.
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At approximately 1:35 a.m., Sharp called 911 and reported that several people were trespassing on his property. He described people attempting to enter his shed and vehicle and told the dispatcher that one of the alleged trespassers had a handgun. Sharp remained on the telephone with the police dispatcher as Mantua officers arrived.
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Two uniformed Mantua Township officers responded: Cpl. Robert Layton and Salvatore Oldrati. Layton arrived first, followed shortly afterward by Oldrati in a separate police vehicle. Sharp was standing outside his home and was still connected to the 911 dispatcher.
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Sharp possessed what initially appeared to be a handgun but was subsequently determined to be a detailed replica of a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun. The distinction became central to the subsequent investigation. Sharp had also discussed the replica handgun during his 911 conversation.
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As Oldrati arrived and got out of his patrol vehicle, Layton alerted him that Sharp had a handgun. According to the Attorney General's reconstruction, Layton began giving Sharp commands to drop the weapon.
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Oldrati did not give Sharp a verbal command or warning before firing. The Attorney General's Office determined that less than five seconds passed between Oldrati stepping out of his police vehicle and beginning to shoot Sharp.
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Oldrati fired multiple rounds, striking Sharp while Sharp was still on the telephone with the 911 dispatcher. Sharp was transported to Jefferson Washington Township Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:49 a.m.
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Layton did not shoot Sharp. Oldrati was the officer responsible for the fatal gunfire.
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The Attorney General's Office released Sharp's 911 call and police body-camera footage on 10/06/2021. The recordings provided direct evidence of the extremely short period between Oldrati's arrival and his use of deadly force and preserved Sharp's conversation with dispatch immediately before police killed him.
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The shooting was not investigated solely by the Mantua Township Police Department. Under New Jersey law governing deaths during encounters with law enforcement, the New Jersey Attorney General's Office investigated through its Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, with assistance from the New Jersey State Police.
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The investigation eventually produced a result substantially different from the preliminary police justification for the shooting. After completion of the investigation, the Attorney General's Office presented the evidence to a state grand jury.
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On 05/23/2023, the grand jury indicted Oldrati on one count of manslaughter. The Attorney General announced the indictment the following day. The grand jury determined that Oldrati's conduct was not justified and warranted criminal prosecution.
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Attorney General Matthew Platkin emphasized that Sharp had been killed by one of the officers he himself summoned for protection. OPIA Executive Director Thomas Eicher specifically cited two circumstances underlying the prosecution: less than five seconds elapsed between Oldrati exiting his vehicle and beginning to fire, and Oldrati gave Sharp no verbal commands or warnings before shooting him.
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The manslaughter indictment is particularly significant for the database because it converts what early reporting described primarily through the police account into a fatal shooting in which the state's independent investigative authority subsequently determined there was sufficient evidence to criminally prosecute the shooting officer.
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Sharp's family also pursued civil litigation. A lawsuit filed on behalf of Sharp's child named Oldrati, Mantua Township and the police department and alleged that Oldrati had a documented propensity to prematurely draw his service weapon and react excessively with his firearm before he killed Sharp. Those allegations are civil claims and should not be treated as established findings.
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The lawsuit alleged that fellow officers had previously observed Oldrati prematurely drawing his firearm and using it in an over-reactive manner and that the department knew about that behavior. It further alleged that only hours before Sharp's killing, Oldrati threatened over police radio to shoot a barking dog and a supervisor intervened, directing him not to shoot the animal and to wait for the supervisor.
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The civil complaint also alleged that Sharp never raised or pointed the replica handgun before Oldrati shot him. The criminal case did not depend merely on that civil allegation: the New Jersey Attorney General's own investigation independently concluded that Oldrati fired without giving Sharp any verbal command or warning and that the entire interval between his emergence from the patrol vehicle and the beginning of his gunfire was under five seconds.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Salvatore Oldrati was identified as the Mantua Township police officer who shot and killed Charles Sharp III. Cpl. Robert Layton was also present but did not fire his weapon.
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Oldrati was subsequently indicted by a New Jersey state grand jury for manslaughter in Sharp's death. The charge carries potential imprisonment of five to ten years under New Jersey law, with a conviction subject to the state's No Early Release Act requirement.
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The subsequent civil litigation contains additional allegations directly pertinent to Oldrati's use of deadly force in this case. Sharp's family alleged that before the killing, other Mantua officers had observed Oldrati prematurely drawing his firearm and using it in an over-reactive manner and that the police department was aware of that behavior.
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The lawsuit further alleged that only hours before killing Sharp, Oldrati threatened to shoot a barking dog while responding to another incident. According to the complaint, a supervisor instructed Oldrati not to shoot the dog and directed him to take no further action until the supervisor arrived. These allegations have not been established as criminal findings, but they are directly relevant because they allege prior firearm behavior known within the department immediately before Oldrati fatally shot Sharp.
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Oldrati also became a defendant in separate litigation concerning a Mantua police incident that occurred just two days before Sharp's death. In that case, Brandon Becker alleged that he returned home on 09/12/2021 and encountered Mantua Police Lt. Shaun Butler in a compromising situation with Becker's wife. The subsequent lawsuit alleged that when Mantua police responded, Oldrati pointed his service weapon at Becker and Becker was handcuffed and detained in a patrol vehicle for approximately 30 to 45 minutes before being released.
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That lawsuit went considerably beyond allegations against Oldrati. It accused members of the Mantua Township Police Department of altering or falsifying records to protect Butler and alleged that Police Chief Darren White pressured officers to change the original report in a manner that would prevent public access to information concerning the incident. Those are civil allegations rather than adjudicated findings, but the timing is extraordinary: the underlying incident occurred two days before Oldrati killed Sharp.
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The allegations therefore create substantive agency context rather than unrelated departmental history. Within a period of approximately 48 hours before Sharp's death, Oldrati was allegedly involved in another encounter in which he pointed his service weapon at a civilian who was ultimately released, while the department was subsequently accused of manipulating records concerning that incident.
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Sharp's killing itself provides the strongest documented accountability finding. Unlike many police shooting cases in which later review simply resulted in no charges, New Jersey's independent state investigation resulted in the shooting officer being criminally indicted. The state grand jury specifically rejected justification for Oldrati's conduct and returned the manslaughter charge.
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The department's actions after the shooting are also noteworthy. Oldrati was permitted to return to police work following the shooting and was subsequently promoted to corporal in 2022, before the state grand jury indicted him in 2023.
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As of this update, the most consequential established disposition remains the state grand jury's manslaughter indictment. The independent state investigation, released 911 call and body-camera evidence, criminal indictment, civil allegations concerning Oldrati's prior firearm behavior, and separate allegations of serious misconduct within the Mantua Township Police Department make this a substantially more significant case than the original September 2021 reporting indicated.

https://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/2021/09/mantua-man-killed-by-police-in-early-morning-shooting.html
https://www.inquirer.com/news/mantua-police-shooting-new-jersey-911-response-20210915.html
https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/2021/09/15/police-shooting-mantua-charles-sharp-911/8377089002/
https://www.njoag.gov/ags-office-releases-911-call-and-video-from-body-worn-camera-related-to-fatal-police-involved-shooting-in-mantua-on-september-14/
https://www.njoag.gov/update-grand-jury-indicts-mantua-police-officer-on-manslaughter-charge-in-september-2021-fatal-shooting-of-homeowner/
https://www.inquirer.com/crime/mantua-township-new-jersey-police-officer-indicted-grand-jury-20230524.html
https://patch.com/new-jersey/gloucestertownship/nj-cop-indicted-killing-previously-drew-gun-prematurely-lawsuit
https://www.yahoo.com/news/suit-claims-mantua-police-doctored-085618661.html

On 09/13/2021, 39-year-old Andres Salazar died from gunshot wounds during a Harris County Sheriff’s Office response to an armed robbery at a game room in the 16200 block of Avenue C in Channelview. Salazar's obituary confirms that he died in Channelview on September 13, 2021.
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Harris County deputies were dispatched shortly after 1:30 a.m. following reports of an armed robbery at the game room. Investigators said multiple armed men had entered the business. During the robbery, a security guard was assaulted and pistol-whipped and was later transported to a hospital in stable condition.
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The encounter developed into an exchange of gunfire involving at least one Harris County deputy. Authorities subsequently found one man dead near the entrance to the game room. Two other men were taken into custody, with a SWAT team deployed during the operation and at least one of the men eventually surrendering.
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Critically, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said investigators did not initially know who fired the shot or shots that killed the deceased man. Gonzalez specifically said it was unclear whether the fatal wounds occurred during the exchange of gunfire with a deputy or during an earlier possible encounter with the game room's security guard.
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That uncertainty is important for classification of this case. Contemporary reporting establishes that a Harris County deputy exchanged gunfire during the incident, but the Sheriff's Office itself did not initially establish whether police gunfire caused the fatal wound. The death therefore should not be described definitively as a deputy shooting unless later ballistics, autopsy or investigative records establish that the fatal projectile came from the deputy's firearm.
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The original reporting also did not publicly identify the deceased man. However, subsequent obituary records identify 39-year-old Andres Salazar as having died in Channelview on 09/13/2021, the same date and community as this fatal incident. Salazar was born on 02/12/1982 in Houston and left a wife, son and three daughters.
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The obituary evidence strongly points to Salazar as the deceased man in this incident, but the sources located for this update do not provide an official Harris County Sheriff's Office record explicitly connecting his name to the game room shooting. For that reason, the identification should be treated with caution pending confirmation through the Harris County medical examiner or complete HCSO investigative file.
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The most important unresolved evidentiary question is the source of the fatal gunfire. The initial Sheriff's Office account expressly left open two possibilities: Salazar was struck during the deputy's exchange of gunfire, or he had already been shot during a confrontation with the security guard. Determining that question requires the autopsy, firearms examination, recovered-projectile comparison and complete HCSO shooting investigation.
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If forensic records establish that the security guard rather than the deputy fired the fatal shot, this case should be removed from the database as a police-caused fatality. If the projectile is matched to the deputy's weapon, the Cause of Death and Event fields should be revised to reflect a fatal police shooting.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Harris County deputy who exchanged gunfire during the Channelview game room incident has not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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Because the deputy's identity remains undisclosed, no reliable individual investigation of prior shootings, complaints, discipline, civil-rights litigation or other significant use-of-force incidents can be attached to that officer.
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The Harris County Sheriff’s Office had substantial documented use-of-force and accountability issues during this general period, particularly involving deaths in custody and allegations of excessive force. However, those institutional matters do not resolve the central issue in this particular case: whether a sheriff's deputy or a private security guard fired the shot that killed the deceased man.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/crime/article/One-dead-in-Channelview-during-armed-robbery-of-16454453.php
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/09/13/1-suspect-dead-2-in-custody-after-armed-robbery-at-game-room-in-channelview-deputies-say/
https://www.compeanfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/andres-salazar

On 09/13/2021, a Cobb County Police Department SWAT officer shot and killed 39-year-old Robert Parks during a nearly four-hour barricade at the Concord Crossing Apartments, 2935 Old Concord Road in Smyrna. Cobb County police responded at approximately 9:45 a.m. after receiving several 911 calls reporting gunfire and an armed man at the apartment complex.
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When officers arrived, police said Parks was on an apartment balcony throwing objects and that another man was beside him with his wrists bound. According to Cobb police, Parks went back inside the apartment with the bound man after seeing police. Officers treated the situation as a hostage incident and called the department's SWAT team and crisis negotiators.
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Police alleged that Parks possessed both a handgun and a knife during the barricade. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation's initial release stated only that Parks was armed with a gun. Cobb police spokesman Sgt. Wayne Delk subsequently said officers had observed both a gun and knife in Parks' possession.
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Importantly, Cobb police acknowledged that Parks did not fire at police during the encounter. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Delk specifically confirmed no gunfire was directed at officers.
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After several hours, a Cobb County SWAT officer fired at Parks. The publicly released GBI account does not provide a detailed description of Parks' actions at the precise instant the SWAT officer fired, including whether Parks was pointing the firearm, threatening the hostage with it, or otherwise moving the weapon immediately before the shooting. Police described the shooting more generally as an action taken during the hostage situation.
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Parks was struck by police gunfire and died from his injuries. The second man was rescued and transported to a hospital with injuries police described as non-life-threatening.
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Later reporting revealed important context that was largely absent from the first police accounts. Parks' family said he had been experiencing an acute mental-health crisis before the barricade. According to relatives, Parks had gone to the emergency department at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital earlier that morning seeking help but left after waiting for hours without receiving treatment.
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Family members said they subsequently contacted police because Parks was experiencing what they described as a mental breakdown or mental episode. A cousin told WSB-TV after the killing that she believed she could have helped police communicate with Parks and said she would have tried to talk him down.
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That information materially changes the context of the encounter. Police were not confronting a person whose behavior arose without warning; Parks' family reported that he had sought emergency medical help shortly before the barricade and that relatives had specifically alerted authorities to his mental-health crisis.
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The available reporting does not establish whether Cobb County's behavioral-health resources were involved in the response, whether a mental-health clinician participated in the negotiations, whether family members offered to communicate with Parks during the standoff, or whether SWAT commanders considered using a relative to assist negotiators.
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Cobb County had begun a police behavioral-health co-responder program in 2020, pairing officers with clinicians for mental-health-related cases. Parks' documented mental-health crisis therefore makes the role, if any, of that program in this incident directly relevant to a complete reconstruction of the police response.
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The Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted the independent investigation rather than Cobb County Police Department making the criminal determination concerning its own SWAT officer. The GBI stated that its completed investigation would be forwarded to the Cobb County District Attorney's Office for review.
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The GBI's later statewide accounting of 2021 police shootings confirms Parks' death as its 69th police shooting investigation of that year and identifies Cobb County Police Department as the involved agency.
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The publicly available record located for this update does not identify the SWAT officer who killed Parks. It also does not provide a detailed final GBI reconstruction of the shooting, the number of rounds fired, the distance between Parks and the SWAT officer, the precise position of the hostage when police fired, or the evidence establishing exactly what Parks was doing with the firearm when deadly force was used.
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Those details are especially important because the standoff lasted nearly four hours, police acknowledged Parks did not fire at officers, and his family reported that he was undergoing an acute mental-health crisis after unsuccessfully seeking emergency medical treatment earlier that day. The complete GBI file, SWAT operational reports, body-camera recordings, sniper/observer logs, crisis-negotiation recordings, 911 calls and Cobb County District Attorney's disposition would provide a substantially more complete account of the decision to use deadly force.
.
OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Cobb County SWAT officer who shot and killed Robert Parks has not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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The lack of a publicly disclosed name prevents a reliable individual background investigation for previous shootings, use-of-force incidents, complaints, discipline or civil-rights litigation involving the shooting officer.
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The agency itself had a substantial recent fatal-force history. Just three months before Parks was killed, on 06/13/2021, multiple members of Cobb County SWAT shot and killed 20-year-old Luis Rey Ruiz following a domestic-dispute response in Acworth. The GBI reported that Ruiz initially shot a Cobb County officer and fled before SWAT located him approximately three hours later. Several SWAT members then fired at Ruiz, killing him. The GBI investigated that shooting independently.
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Less than one month before Parks' death, on 08/18/2021, a Cobb County police officer shot and killed 28-year-old Devonte Dawayne Brown following an attempted traffic stop and police pursuit. Police attempted to box Brown's vehicle in with police vehicles before a Cobb officer opened fire. The GBI reported that a handgun was subsequently found inside Brown's vehicle but did not state in its preliminary account that Brown pointed or fired the gun.
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Brown's family later filed federal civil-rights litigation challenging the shooting. Body-camera footage subsequently made public showed the officer firing approximately a dozen rounds as Brown's vehicle was boxed in by police vehicles. That separate case does not establish wrongdoing in Parks' shooting, but it documents another contested fatal use of force by Cobb County police immediately before Parks' death.
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Cobb County police were also defending litigation arising from the 07/13/2020 killing of 17-year-old Vincent Demario Truitt. Officer Max Karneol shot Truitt in the back as the teenager ran from police following a vehicle pursuit. Truitt's family brought federal claims including excessive force, wrongful death, assault and battery, and negligence against Karneol and Cobb County. A federal court record confirms that body-camera and dash-camera recordings became evidence in that litigation.
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The department also had earlier documented misconduct involving Lt. Greg Abbott, whose dash-camera recording captured him telling a woman during a traffic stop, "we only shoot black people." After the recording became public, Abbott was placed on administrative duty and subsequently announced his retirement while the department moved toward termination. That episode substantially predates Parks' death and is not evidence concerning the unidentified SWAT officer, but it is part of the department's documented accountability history.
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The most directly pertinent agency pattern surrounding Parks' death is the concentration of fatal police shootings during 2021. Cobb County police killed Luis Rey Ruiz in June, killed Devonte Dawayne Brown in August, and killed Robert Parks on September 13. Four days after Parks' death, on September 17, another Cobb County officer shot and killed 41-year-old Matthew Joseph Wilbanks during a response to a domestic dispute involving a suicidal man. Each shooting generated a separate GBI investigation.
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Parks' case therefore occurred during a period of repeated Cobb County Police Department deadly-force incidents, including two encounters involving reported behavioral or mental-health crises within four days of one another. That history does not establish that the shooting of Parks was unlawful, but it makes the department's SWAT deadly-force policies, behavioral-health response procedures, crisis-negotiation practices and identification and prior history of the officer who fired particularly relevant to a complete review.

https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/man-killed-by-cobb-police-after-barricade-situation-in-smyrna/
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/cobb-county/man-shot-killed-by-police-during-barricade-situation-smyrna/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/crime/smyrna-police-shooting-old-concord-road/
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/swat-active-shots-fired-during-hostage-situation-at-smyrna-apartments-officials-say
https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-09-14/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-swat-on-scene-of-hostage-situation-at-smyrna-apartments/FTQENRITE5D27FZL5RRWJMB33M/
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/cobb-county/i-would-havetalked-him-down-family-metro-man-killed-during-swat-standoff-speaks-out/PYTIIBVS6ZDLNJPDKCLS76R2ZY/
https://gbi.georgia.gov/news/2022-05-20/2021-officer-involved-shootings
https://gbi.georgia.gov/node/24186
https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-08-19/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-cobb-county
https://gbi.georgia.gov/node/24571
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/georgia/gandce/1%3A2022cv00121/298777/30/

On 09/13/2021, an unidentified FBI special agent shot and killed 31-year-old Michael Jonathan Cortez inside the U-U Smoke Shop at 2585 Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood. The FBI agent was deputized as a U.S. Marshal and was participating in a regional fugitive task force attempting to arrest Cortez on federal and state warrants.
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Cortez had gone into the neighborhood store to buy snacks and a drink. Store employees knew him as a regular customer. Surveillance video from outside the business showed an unmarked vehicle arrive and an agent run toward the store with his handgun already drawn. The FBI later acknowledged that only approximately eight seconds elapsed between the agent entering the store and shooting Cortez.
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The warrants reportedly included two state warrants originating in Hayward involving domestic-violence and police-evasion allegations and a federal mail-theft matter. Hayward police later said that although their department had supplied information concerning Cortez, it had not specifically requested that the federal fugitive task force arrest him. The U.S. Marshals Service was conducting the operation, while the shooter was an FBI agent assigned to the task force.
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The FBI alleged that the agent was clearly marked as law enforcement, identified himself, issued commands and attempted to arrest Cortez. According to FBI San Francisco Special Agent in Charge Craig Fair, Cortez attempted to move out of the store, came into contact with the agent, stepped backward and then allegedly pulled a .40-caliber handgun from a bag.
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The FBI alleged that the agent believed Cortez presented an immediate danger and fired a single round. Cortez was struck in the torso and transported to a hospital, where he died. Cortez's girlfriend later said doctors told the family that the bullet passed through his right arm before entering his heart.
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Witness and family accounts sharply disputed important portions of the FBI's narrative. Store personnel said the agent approached with a gun drawn so abruptly that people inside initially believed an armed robbery was occurring. A store employee and another man ran toward the rear of the business because they were frightened by the armed man entering the store.
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The store operator said Cortez had simply been buying a drink and snacks immediately before the encounter. An outside surveillance recording showed the agent rapidly approaching the business with his firearm drawn, but did not show what occurred inside during the critical eight seconds.
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Cortez's family disputed the FBI's allegation that he threatened the agent with a firearm. Their later federal wrongful-death lawsuit went considerably further, alleging that Cortez was unarmed at the moment he was shot, was kneeling in a surrendering position and did not pose a threat when the FBI agent fired.
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The lawsuit also cited witnesses who said they did not hear the plainclothes agent identify himself or issue commands before entering. A friend waiting outside reportedly saw a person dressed in ordinary clothing run toward the store carrying what appeared to be a gun. The complaint alleged that the circumstances were so confusing that people at the store believed a robbery was underway.
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The family's allegations directly conflict with the FBI's account that the agent identified himself, gave lawful commands and shot only after Cortez drew a handgun. Those competing accounts make the unreleased interior surveillance recording and complete investigative files central evidence in determining exactly what occurred during the approximately eight-second encounter.
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The Oakland Police Department obtained surveillance video from inside the store as part of its investigation. In the immediate aftermath, however, authorities did not publicly release that footage. The store's security equipment was seized before the store operator could personally review the recording.
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The shooting generated unusual concern within Oakland government because the person who killed Cortez was a federal agent operating inside the city rather than an Oakland police officer. Oakland officials subsequently held public discussions specifically addressing the presence of outside law-enforcement agencies and the mechanisms available for investigating their use of deadly force.
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Oakland Police Commission proceedings subsequently confirmed that OPD treats a fatal use of force by an outside law-enforcement officer within Oakland as a Level One use-of-force incident for purposes of a local criminal investigation. Thus, there were effectively parallel accountability structures: Oakland police conducted a criminal investigation into the shooting while the FBI announced an internal federal review through its Inspection Division.
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The federal arrangement raised a separate independence issue. The FBI publicly announced that its own Inspection Division was investigating a shooting committed by an FBI agent, even though that agent had been operating as a deputized member of a U.S. Marshals Service task force.
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Transparency became a significant issue after the killing. Cortez's family repeatedly demanded the identity of the shooting agent and release of the store surveillance footage. Community organizations organized demonstrations calling for the FBI to identify the agent and release the evidence.
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Oakland records show that public-records requests specifically sought the September 13 store video, Cortez's arrest warrants, records concerning Oakland officers deputized by federal agencies, and information about Cortez's arrest. OPD acknowledged locating responsive materials including a report, video footage, statements and photographs but initially withheld them under the active-investigation exemption.
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The records dispute continued into 2022. OPD said its Criminal Investigations Unit would communicate with the FBI concerning the records. The continuing dispute is significant because it confirms that substantial evidence beyond the abbreviated public FBI account existed, including video, statements, photographs and investigative reports.
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In March 2023, Cortez's family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the federal government. The lawsuit alleged that the FBI agent killed Cortez without reasonable justification and characterized the shooting as an execution. The complaint alleged that Cortez was kneeling and surrendering when the agent shot him and that he presented no immediate danger.
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The FBI continued to dispute that account, maintaining that Cortez drew a firearm during the attempted arrest. Authorities reported recovering a handgun, an illegal magazine and additional firearm components from the scene. The presence of a firearm at the scene, however, is distinct from the disputed question of precisely what Cortez was doing with it at the instant the agent fired.
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Later information provides an important development in the case. By 2026, reporting examining the difficulties local authorities encounter when investigating federal law-enforcement shootings stated that federal video evidence ultimately supported the agent's claim of self-defense and that no criminal charges were filed. That later evidence substantially strengthens the government's account compared with the limited information publicly available immediately after the killing.
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Nevertheless, Cortez's case remains an unusually important federal deadly-force case because of the speed of the encounter, the plainclothes agent's armed approach, the conflicting initial witness accounts, the family's subsequent wrongful-death allegations, the withholding of evidence during the active investigation, and the unusual overlap between an Oakland criminal investigation, a U.S. Marshals fugitive operation and an FBI internal shooting review.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The FBI special agent who shot and killed Michael Jonathan Cortez has not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Oakland-FBI-shooting-Fruitvale-16465033.php
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/east-bay/fbi-agent-shooting-oakland-fruitvale/2660184/
https://oaklandside.org/2021/09/14/fbi-agent-shooting-oakland-fruitvale-avenue/
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/14/fbi-agent-fatally-shoots-man-in-oakland/
https://abc7news.com/jonathan-cortez-oakland-fruitvale-fbi-shooting/11091764/
https://www.ktvu.com/news/lawsuit-against-fbi-alleges-oakland-man-was-executed-in-2021-shooting
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/30/jonathan-cortez-fbi-shooting-oakland
https://www.kqed.org/news/11888796/we-just-dont-understand-family-and-friends-of-man-killed-by-fbi-inside-oakland-store-hold-vigil
https://www.ktvu.com/news/family-identifies-man-fatally-shot-by-fbi-agent-in-oakland
https://abc7news.com/jonathan-cortez-oakland-fruitvale-shooting/11086205/
https://www.ktvu.com/news/man-shot-and-killed-by-fbi-in-oakland-allegedly-drew-a-gun-agents-say
https://oaklandnorth.net/2021/10/16/oakland-cortez-fbi-shooting-rally/
https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-09-20/fbi-shooting-east-oakland-michael-cortez-essential-california
https://oakland.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?GUID=982F2C16-0D75-4615-978B-C0B60AB9163C&ID=895936&Options=&Search=
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/ice-kills-bay-area-investigate-21286581.php
 

On 09/13/2021, five San Juan County Sheriff’s Office deputies shot and killed 44-year-old Tedman Werito following an approximately two-hour warrant service and SWAT barricade at his residence on County Road 3935 in the Wildflower area outside Farmington.
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The police operation began with a separate incident at approximately 1:33 a.m., when Farmington police encountered a severely injured woman near Dustin Road and Almon Street. Investigators said the woman had been beaten with a bat at a residence and had jumped from a moving pickup truck. She was hospitalized with substantial blood loss and a broken femur that required surgery.
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Police determined that the assault allegedly occurred at the County Road 3935 residence where Werito lived. The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office subsequently obtained a search warrant for the property. Deputies also knew that Werito had three outstanding warrants involving aggravated assault, battery and possession of a controlled substance.
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Deputies arrived at approximately 9:06 a.m. and used a loudspeaker to order the people inside to come out. Six people, including Werito, initially exited the residence.
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According to the Sheriff’s Office, Werito made verbal threats toward deputies and then went back inside, telling deputies he was retrieving a firearm. Deputies continued attempting to persuade him to surrender.
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The San Juan County SWAT team arrived with an armored vehicle at approximately 10:20 a.m. Police alleged that Werito repeatedly moved in and out of the residence while holding a firearm. Deputies continued giving commands for him to surrender.
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Police also alleged that Werito threw what appeared to be a grenade toward deputies. The device was subsequently examined and determined to be inert.
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SWAT deputies deployed two flash-bang devices in an attempt to force Werito from the residence. When those were unsuccessful, deputies introduced tear gas into the house.
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At approximately 10:57 a.m., Werito came out of the residence. The Sheriff's Office alleged that he pointed a firearm toward deputies. Five deputies then simultaneously or nearly simultaneously opened fire, killing him.
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Body-worn-camera footage subsequently released by the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office provides significant independent visual evidence of the final confrontation. The recording shows portions of the prolonged standoff and the final moments in which Werito emerged from the residence before five deputies fired. The Sheriff's Office released the footage publicly in October 2021.
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The existence of that video is important because this case is not dependent solely upon written officer statements. The publicly released footage permits direct examination of substantial portions of the encounter and was cited in later reporting as showing Werito emerging with a gun pointed toward deputies.
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The San Juan County Regional Officer Involved Shooting Task Force investigated the killing. Importantly, the San Juan County Sheriff's Office did not serve as the primary investigative agency for its own deputies' shooting. Farmington Police Department was designated the primary investigating agency.
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The publicly accessible reporting located for this update does not identify the five deputies who fired. This is a significant remaining gap in the record because five separate law-enforcement officers used deadly force, yet their identities were not disclosed in the contemporary accounts or subsequent body-camera coverage located during this review.
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Identification of all five shooting deputies is particularly important for this database because each deputy should be individually checked for previous shootings, use-of-force incidents, complaints, discipline and civil-rights litigation. The complete Farmington Police Department task-force investigation, administrative records and district-attorney review may contain those identities even though they did not appear in the public news coverage.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Five San Juan County Sheriff’s Office deputies fired at Tedman Werito. Their names have not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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The San Juan County Sheriff's Office had another highly significant fatal shooting only two months before Werito's death. On 07/17/2021, Deputy Jon Gonzales shot and killed 36-year-old Shawn Marvin Thomas near Shiprock after a police pursuit.
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That earlier shooting became the subject of wrongful-death litigation. Thomas's family alleged that Gonzales used excessive force and that Thomas was unarmed when Gonzales shot him. The Sheriff's Office initially reported that civilians and Gonzales had seen Thomas with a weapon, but investigators did not recover a firearm after the shooting. The agency subsequently suggested that Thomas may have possessed a replica gun that was destroyed when his vehicle caught fire.
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Thomas's mother filed wrongful-death actions in state and federal court challenging the shooting. Gonzales remained employed by the San Juan County Sheriff's Office following Thomas's death. The disputed Thomas shooting occurred less than two months before five unidentified deputies killed Werito.
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That history is relevant to the agency rather than evidence that the five deputies who killed Werito acted improperly. Because their names remain unavailable, it cannot presently be determined whether Gonzales or any deputy involved in the Thomas shooting was among the five deputies who fired at Werito.
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The agency's handling of Werito's shooting did include an important outside-investigation safeguard. Farmington Police Department served as the primary investigative agency through the regional officer-involved-shooting task force rather than allowing the Sheriff's Office to conduct the principal criminal investigation of its own deputies.
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The Sheriff's Office also released body-worn-camera footage within weeks of the killing. The recording materially improves the evidentiary record because it documents the prolonged barricade and portions of the circumstances immediately preceding the five deputies' gunfire.
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The most important remaining officer-background issue is therefore identification of those five deputies. With five officers firing, a complete update requires the shooting roster from the task-force investigation followed by an individual background review of each deputy.

https://www.daily-times.com/story/news/crime/2021/09/14/san-juan-county-deputies-shoot-kill-man-farmington/8339898002/
https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/deputies-shoot-kill-man-during-warrant-service-in-san-juan-county/
https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/deputies-kill-man-during-warrant-service-in-san-juan-county/
https://www.krqe.com/news/crime/video-shows-san-juan-co-deputies-open-fire-on-man-who-pointed-replica-gun/
https://www.kob.com/archive/lapel-video-details-what-led-to-deadly-san-juan-county-shooting/
https://www.ksje.com/news/local-news/man-fatally-shot-sheriffs-office-shooting-investigated/
https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/news/suspect-dead-after-officer-involved-shooting-in-east-farmington/
https://www.the-journal.com/articles/suspect-dead-after-officer-involved-shooting-east-of-downtown-farmington/

On 09/12/2021, two San Antonio Police Department officers shot and killed 46-year-old Rodolfo Gonzales in the 200 block of Pima Street after pursuing him on a bicycle and physically struggling with him during an attempted traffic stop. Initial police reporting described the officers as conducting a routine drug patrol and approaching Gonzales while he was in a vehicle, but SAPD's later critical-incident release materially clarified the circumstances: Gonzales was riding a bicycle, and officers initiated a traffic stop after observing alleged traffic violations.
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The two officers were conducting a directed patrol near Pima Street and Palo Alto Road because police considered a nearby residence a known narcotics location. According to SAPD's later reconstruction, officers saw Gonzales riding a bicycle toward that residence. Police said they observed traffic violations and decided to stop him. The publicly available descriptions reviewed for this update do not specify precisely which bicycle traffic violations officers alleged Gonzales committed.
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Gonzales initially appeared to stop when officers attempted to make contact with him but then continued riding away. The officers pursued him in their patrol vehicle and ordered him to stop over the vehicle's public-address system. SAPD alleged that Gonzales discarded an unidentified object while riding away.
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The officers continued following Gonzales until they used their patrol vehicle to cut off his path in the 200 block of Pima Street. Body-camera and dash-camera recordings of the encounter were subsequently released by SAPD.
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After Gonzales was stopped, the officers attempted to physically take him into custody. Police alleged that during the struggle Gonzales reached toward his waistband and grabbed a handgun. SAPD said the officers attempted to wrestle the firearm away from him and that Gonzales would not release it.
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Both officers then fired at Gonzales. He was struck multiple times and died at the scene. SAPD's released video shows a handgun beside Gonzales' right arm after the shooting.
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The body-camera evidence is particularly important in this case because it provides considerably more information than the initial September 12 police account. One officer's camera was substantially obstructed during the physical struggle, while the second officer's camera provided a clearer, although still imperfect, view of the confrontation.
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SAPD did not release the critical-incident video until 11/11/2021, approximately two months after Gonzales was killed. The department released both an officer-narrated presentation and unnarrated footage. At that time, SAPD said the investigation remained under review by the Bexar County District Attorney's Office.
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An important correction to the original reporting is therefore necessary. This was not simply an encounter in which officers approached Gonzales during a generalized drug investigation and he attempted to avoid arrest. SAPD's own later account establishes that officers were conducting directed narcotics patrol but initiated their enforcement action against Gonzales as a bicycle traffic stop for alleged traffic violations. Gonzales then continued riding away, officers pursued him, blocked his path, and the fatal confrontation occurred during the resulting physical attempt to take him into custody.
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SAPD's public officer-shooting archive continues to list this incident separately as the 09/12/2021 shooting at 206 Pima Street, confirming the precise address associated with the fatal encounter.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The two San Antonio Police Department officers who shot Rodolfo Gonzales have not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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The most directly relevant agency issue in this case concerns the nature of the stop itself. The officers were assigned to directed patrol around what SAPD characterized as a known narcotics house, but the legal intervention against Gonzales was described by the department as a bicycle traffic stop based upon alleged traffic violations. The exact alleged violations therefore matter in reconstructing why officers initially exercised police authority over Gonzales.

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021/09/12/man-shot-killed-by-officers-after-reaching-for-gun-while-avoiding-arrest-police-say/
https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021/11/12/sapd-releases-bodycam-video-from-officer-involved-shooting-on-southwest-side/

https://www.sanantonio.gov/GMA/NCDWeek/Event-Details/ArtMID/26569/ArticleID/21829/San-Antonio-Police-Department-Critical-Incident-Video-Releases

https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/San-Antonio-police-release-footage-of-fatal-16614173.php/

https://www.sa.gov/Directory/Departments/SAPD/Transparency-Open-Data/Open-Data-Library/Officer-Involved-Shootings

On 09/13/2021, a Fort Walton Beach Police Department officer shot and killed a man during an encounter in Fort Walton Beach. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was called to investigate the fatal shooting.
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The initial reporting from Northwest Florida Daily News, WEAR-TV and WJHG identified Fort Walton Beach police as the involved agency and FDLE as the outside agency investigating the shooting.
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This case presents an unusually serious records gap in the surviving public record. The original news stories supplied for this database entry are no longer readily accessible through their original URLs, and the later searchable record located for this update does not reliably establish the man's identity, the precise location, the reason police initially encountered him, the sequence preceding the shooting, or the identity of the officer who fired.
.
Those facts should not be reconstructed from similarly dated Fort Walton Beach or Okaloosa County incidents. In particular, this is not the March 2021 homicide of Earnest Riggs Jr., nor should information from later Fort Walton Beach-area police shootings be merged into this record. The available evidence is insufficient to safely make those connections.
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The most important established investigative fact is that Fort Walton Beach Police Department was not left to conduct the principal criminal investigation of its own officer's fatal shooting. FDLE was brought in as the outside investigative agency.
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A complete rebuild therefore requires the FDLE officer-involved-shooting investigative file or subsequent State Attorney disposition. Those records should establish the decedent's identity, shooting officer, initiating reason for the encounter, witness accounts, physical and firearms evidence, any available body-camera or dash-camera recordings, and the ultimate prosecutorial determination.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Fort Walton Beach police officer who fired the fatal shots has not been publicly identified in the verifiable records located for this update.
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The officer's identity is particularly important because it would permit the mandatory review for prior shootings, use of force, complaints, discipline, civil-rights litigation and subsequent misconduct.
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There is documented Fort Walton Beach Police Department litigation predating this shooting. In Michael Hogan v. City of Fort Walton Beach, a former Fort Walton Beach police officer alleged retaliation and constitutional violations involving the department and former Chief Edward Ryan. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of Hogan's federal action in 2020. Because that litigation did not concern this unidentified shooting officer, it should not be treated as evidence about the 2021 killing.
.

https://www.nwfdailynews.com/story/news/2021/09/13/fdle-investigates-police-shooting-fort-walton-beach/
https://weartv.com/news/local/fdle-investigating-officer-involved-shooting-in-fort-walton-beach
https://www.wjhg.com/2021/09/13/man-killed-in-fort-walton-beach-police-shooting/

.
REASON FOR POLICE CHASE:
Reported hit-and-run crash. Shortly after 10:00 p.m., Gloucester Township police received a report of a hit-and-run collision. Two Gloucester Township officers subsequently located the vehicle police believed was involved and attempted to stop its driver.
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EVENT NARRATIVE:
On 09/12/2021, an unidentified male driver died following a Gloucester Township Police Department pursuit that began in Gloucester Township and ended before a four-vehicle crash on Sicklerville Road in Winslow Township.
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Shortly after 10:00 p.m., police received a report of a hit-and-run crash in Gloucester Township. Two Gloucester Township officers subsequently located the vehicle police believed was involved. The officers began pursuing the driver after attempting to stop him. The New Jersey Attorney General's Office did not publicly describe the circumstances of the original collision beyond identifying it as a reported hit-and-run.
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The two officers pursued the vehicle but terminated the chase before the fatal collision. Available public accounts do not give the pursuit's duration, distance or speeds, identify the location where officers terminated it, or state how much time or distance separated the termination from the subsequent crash. No PIT/TVI maneuver, stop sticks, roadblock or police-vehicle contact was publicly reported.
.
Soon after police terminated the pursuit, at approximately 10:15 p.m., the driver was traveling southeast on Sicklerville Road in Winslow Township when his vehicle collided with three vehicles traveling in the opposite direction. The sequence resulted in a four-vehicle crash.
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Winslow Township police responded and provided first aid to several injured people until emergency medical personnel arrived. The pursued driver was transported to Jefferson Washington Township Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:57 p.m.
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Three other drivers were injured. One was transported to Cooper University Hospital in critical but stable condition. Two male drivers were transported to Jefferson Washington Township Hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening.
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The New Jersey Attorney General's Office investigated the death under the state's requirement for independent investigation of deaths occurring during encounters with law-enforcement officers. The investigation was subsequently closed without presentation to a grand jury.
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Despite the passage of nearly five years, the driver's identity does not appear to have been publicly released in the official or later reporting located for this reconstruction. Because his identity remains unconfirmed, biographical information about his life, family, occupation or interests cannot reliably be attributed to him.
.
OFFICER BACKGROUND:
The two Gloucester Township police officers who initiated the pursuit have not been publicly identified.

https://www.njoag.gov/ags-office-investigating-death-of-driver-in-multi-vehicle-crash-in-winslow-township-that-occurred-shortly-after-police-attempted-to-stop-his-vehicle/
https://nj1015.com/after-fleeing-cops-in-nj-hit-and-run-driver-ends-up-dying-in-another-crash/
https://www.insidernj.com/press-release/ags-office-investigating-death-driver-multi-vehicle-crash-winslow-township-occurred-shortly-police-attempted-stop-vehicle/

.
REASON FOR POLICE CHASE:
Reckless driving. At approximately 3:30 a.m., a Lawton Police Department officer attempted to stop a black 2021 Chevrolet Camaro after police said the driver was driving recklessly. Harris continued driving away and the officer pursued.
.
EVENT NARRATIVE:
On 09/11/2021, 21-year-old D’Monte L. Harris of Kathleen, Georgia, was killed when the Chevrolet Camaro he was driving crashed during a Lawton Police Department pursuit in Lawton.
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At approximately 3:30 a.m., a Lawton police officer attempted to stop Harris for alleged reckless driving. Harris continued driving away and the officer pursued. Lawton police characterized the chase as a short pursuit.
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Harris drove south on Sheridan Road at what the Oklahoma Highway Patrol described as a high rate of speed. Publicly available reports do not provide a measured maximum speed, the total pursuit distance, or identify the officer driving the pursuing police vehicle. No PIT/TVI maneuver, stop sticks, roadblock, or intentional contact between the police vehicle and Harris's Camaro was reported.
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At approximately 3:35 a.m., Harris lost control of the Camaro while traveling south on Sheridan Road. The car left the roadway, struck a curb and a mailbox, continued south across Jefferson Avenue and struck an embankment.
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The Camaro then overturned and struck a fence, an unoccupied van and a trailer. The vehicle rolled an undetermined number of times before coming to rest upside down. Harris was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Oklahoma Highway Patrol investigated the fatal crash.
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OHP publicly identified Harris three days later as D’Monte L. Harris, 21, of Kathleen, Georgia. Public reporting about his death provides little additional information about his family, work, education, or life in Georgia.
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Lawton police subsequently released dash-camera video of the pursuit in November 2021. The approximately one-minute recording shows Harris's Camaro traveling south on Sheridan Road with the police vehicle following. The Camaro eventually disappears from the dash camera's view, while the impact from the crash can be seen in the distance. The video therefore provides evidence that the pursuing police vehicle was behind Harris rather than physically contacting his Camaro when it crashed.
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The Lawton officer who initiated and participated in the pursuit has not been publicly identified.
.
OFFICER BACKGROUND:
The Lawton Police Department officer who initiated and participated in the pursuit has not been publicly identified.

https://kfor.com/news/local/man-killed-in-crash-after-running-from-oklahoma-police/
https://www.koco.com/article/man-dies-after-pursuit-with-lawton-police-officer-ends-in-single-vehicle-crash-ohp-says/37558467
https://www.kswo.com/2021/09/11/one-killed-saturday-morning-crash-lawton/
https://www.kswo.com/2021/09/14/ohp-identifies-man-killed-lawton-crash/
https://www.kswo.com/2021/11/04/lawton-police-release-video-deadly-september-chase-crash/

.
REASON FOR POLICE CHASE:
Traffic violation. NYPD officers attempted to stop Tyrik Mott after police observed him run a red light. Mott continued driving away and officers pursued.
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EVENT NARRATIVE:
On 09/11/2021, 3-month-old Apolline Mong-Guillemin was killed during an NYPD pursuit in Brooklyn. Police said Tyrik Mott drove at high speed the wrong way on Gates Avenue while fleeing officers, struck another vehicle at Vanderbilt Avenue, and caused that vehicle to strike Apolline and her parents, Julien Mong and Marion Guillemin. Apolline was killed and her mother suffered severe injuries requiring multiple surgeries.
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Mott had an extensive documented history of dangerous driving before the fatal pursuit. His vehicle had accumulated 106 camera-issued speeding and red-light violations since 2017, and he had previously driven with a suspended license.
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In July 2022, Apolline's parents filed a civil lawsuit against Mott, the City of New York, NYPD, New York City Department of Transportation and other defendants. The family directly challenged NYPD's decision to pursue Mott.
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The lawsuit alleged that unidentified NYPD officers acted with wanton disregard by pursuing Mott after the red-light violation, continued the pursuit when circumstances warranted terminating it, and failed to comply with NYPD pursuit policy. The family alleged that the danger created for pedestrians and other motorists outweighed the need to apprehend Mott immediately.
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The lawsuit separately alleged that New York City had prior notice that the intersection of Vanderbilt and Gates avenues presented a dangerous condition and failed to make it reasonably safe. It also alleged that the city failed to effectively implement its Dangerous Vehicle Abatement program despite Mott's extensive record of camera violations.
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Apolline's mother continued receiving medical treatment for the injuries she suffered in the crash. The family's attorney described her injuries as severe and said they had required multiple surgical procedures.
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Mott was criminally charged with manslaughter and other offenses arising from the fatal crash.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-police-pursuit-leads-to-fatal-crash-kills-3-month-old/3465932/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/nyregion/brooklyn-pursuit-accident-kills-baby.html
https://brooklynda.org/2021/10/14/driver-charged-with-assault-and-reckless-manslaughter-for-allegedly-striking-3-month-old-baby-and-her-mother-while-driving-the-wrong-way/
https://www.brooklynda.org/2023/06/14/wrong-way-driver-sentenced-to-9-years-in-prison-for-striking-and-killing-three-month-old-baby-seriously-injuring-her-mother/
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/07/20/city-sued-over-killing-of-baby-apolline-by-recidivist-reckless-driver-on-a-dangerous-street/
https://www.timesunion.com/projects/2024/police-pursuits/
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2022_osi_annual_report.pdf

On 09/11/2021, South Carolina Highway Patrol Master Trooper Whitney Blake Benton shot and killed 33-year-old Tristan Vereen following an attempted traffic stop, vehicle pursuit, foot pursuit and physical struggle in the Longs area of Horry County. Vereen was pronounced dead at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center at approximately 5 p.m.
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At approximately 3:47 p.m., Benton attempted to stop Vereen on S.C. 905 near S.C. 22. SCHP initially described the reason as an equipment violation. The subsequent solicitor's report specified that Benton observed several large cracks in Vereen's windshield and considered the damaged windshield unsafe equipment. Vereen's family and attorneys disputed that the cracked windshield provided a lawful basis for a traffic stop, arguing that South Carolina law prohibits a windshield obstruction but does not categorically prohibit a cracked windshield.
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Dashcam footage shows Vereen continuing driving while Benton pursued. Vereen made U-turns, drove onto the wrong side of the road at points and eventually drove onto a residential property near McNeil Chapel Road, where his Honda Element crashed into a utility building. Vereen got out and ran, and Benton pursued him on foot.
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Benton repeatedly ordered Vereen to stop and get on the ground and then fired his Taser, causing Vereen to fall. A white container fell from Vereen during the encounter; investigators subsequently reported finding small plastic bags containing cocaine, cocaine base, marijuana and fentanyl.
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Benton attempted to arrest Vereen and the two struggled on the ground. Benton initially attempted to use the Taser in drive-stun mode, then dropped it so he could use both hands to control Vereen. Vereen picked up Benton's Taser during the struggle. Surveillance footage shows Vereen using the Taser against Benton's neck. Investigators also documented a bite injury to Benton's forearm.
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The physical struggle lasted approximately 37 seconds. Vereen was on top of Benton when Benton drew his handgun and fired one round into Vereen's chest. Benton told investigators he believed shooting was his last option before Vereen could obtain his handgun. Benton suffered a dislocated shoulder requiring surgery as well as injuries associated with the Taser and bite.
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After Benton fired, dashcam audio recorded Vereen saying, "He killed me." Benton continued ordering Vereen to turn over and get on the ground. Surveillance video shows Vereen later staggering across the scene while removing his shirt as Benton followed with his handgun drawn.
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Benton also told investigators that during the foot pursuit he heard Vereen ask bystanders to shoot Benton. State investigators specifically noted that this alleged statement could not be heard on the available audio recording.
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The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division conducted the criminal investigation rather than SCHP. The 15th Circuit Solicitor's Office reviewed SLED's investigation and concluded in February 2022 that Benton acted in self-defense and would not face criminal charges. The solicitor determined that Benton had probable cause to believe Vereen was committing felony assault on a police officer while resisting arrest and posed an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury when Benton fired.
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Vereen's family continued to dispute both the legality of the original stop and the use of deadly force. Their attorneys argued that the encounter originated with an unlawful stop because a cracked windshield by itself was not prohibited by South Carolina law. They publicly called the killing unlawful and sought further review.
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On 09/07/2023, Marion C. Vereen, administrator of Tristan Vereen's estate, filed a federal civil-rights and wrongful-death lawsuit against Benton individually. The complaint asserted a claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and state-law tort claims arising from Vereen's killing.
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Benton moved to dismiss the lawsuit. On 06/25/2024, U.S. District Judge Joseph Dawson III denied Benton's motion to dismiss, allowing the litigation to continue.
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The case ultimately settled. On 06/20/2025, the federal court approved a $250,000 wrongful-death settlement funded through South Carolina's liability insurance carrier. The settlement expressly contained no admission of liability or responsibility by Benton. The action was dismissed with prejudice following payment and distribution of the settlement.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The officer who killed Tristan Vereen was Whitney Blake Benton, identified in contemporary reporting as Master Trooper W.B. Benton of South Carolina Highway Patrol Troop 5.
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Benton had a documented prior complaint arising from another cracked-windshield traffic stop. In 2013, Benton stopped a driver named Holler for a cracked windshield and later discovered that the vehicle was unregistered and displayed another person's license plate. During the encounter Benton made comments about the man's painted toenails, asked whether he was wearing "girls' jeans," and made another remark when taking him to jail. SCHP reprimanded Benton for inappropriate and unprofessional remarks and for using tobacco while on duty.
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Benton was also previously accused of excessive force during a separate 2013 traffic stop involving Teko Washington. According to Washington's subsequent federal lawsuit, Benton attempted to stop Washington for speeding; Washington ran because he possessed a small amount of marijuana. The lawsuit alleged Benton used excessive force when he Tased and handcuffed Washington, causing back and wrist injuries. Washington filed the federal action in 2016. The case was subsequently dismissed.
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The earlier cracked-windshield complaint is directly notable in Vereen's case because Benton again initiated a traffic stop involving a cracked windshield. Vereen's attorneys challenged whether the windshield condition constituted a lawful traffic violation, while the solicitor concluded the visible cracks constituted unsafe equipment.
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Following Vereen's death, Benton's use of force was investigated by SLED and reviewed by the 15th Circuit Solicitor. The solicitor declined criminal charges in February 2022 and concluded the shooting constituted lawful self-defense.
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Vereen's estate nevertheless brought the 2023 federal civil-rights and wrongful-death action against Benton. His effort to have the case dismissed failed in June 2024, and the litigation ultimately ended in the court-approved $250,000 settlement in 2025 without an admission of liability.

https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/crime/article254264683.html
https://www.wbtw.com/news/local-news/horry-county/trooper-shoots-kills-man-after-crash-in-longs/
https://www.live5news.com/2021/09/12/trooper-involved-shooting-under-investigation-horry-county/
https://www.wbtw.com/news/grand-strand/i-believe-he-was-murdered-friends-family-of-man-killed-in-horry-county-officer-involved-shooting-want-justice/
https://wach.com/news/local/sc-trooper-involved-in-deadly-shooting-acted-in-self-defense-sled-reports
https://www.wmbfnews.com/2025/10/28/settlement-reached-lawsuit-over-deadly-trooper-involved-shooting-horry-county/
https://scdps.sc.gov/news/2021/091121
https://www.wmbfnews.com/2021/09/13/south-carolina-highway-patrol-identifies-trooper-deadly-officer-involved-shooting-longs-area/
https://www.wmbfnews.com/2021/09/14/coroner-identifies-man-killed-trooper-involved-shooting-longs-area/
https://www.wmbfnews.com/2021/09/24/let-me-see-your-hands-dashcam-footage-released-deadly-trooper-involved-shooting-longs/
https://www.live5news.com/2021/09/29/family-man-killed-trooper-involved-shooting-longs-calls-death-be-ruled-homicide/
https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2021-10-01/family-traffic-stop-that-led-to-fatal-shooting-was-unlawful
https://www.wmbfnews.com/2022/02/28/sled-investigation-determines-trooper-acted-self-defense-deadly-longs-shooting/
https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2022-03-01/sc-trooper-who-fatally-shot-man-in-fight-wont-be-charged
https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/crime/article254618167.html
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/south-carolina/scdce/4%3A2023cv04564/284011/33/
https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/south-carolina/scdce/4%3A2023cv04564/284011/65

On 09/11/2021, Shreveport police officers responded to a trespassing or loitering call at West 70th Street in Shreveport, Louisiana. Police stated Desmond Lewis moved away from officers after they arrived and that an officer later caught up with him. Police alleged a prolonged physical altercation occurred. Police alleged that during the struggle, Lewis produced a firearm. The officer opened fire and shot and killed Lewis.

https://www.ksla.com/2021/09/12/shreveport-police-investigate-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2021/09/12/shreveport-police-shooting-desmond-lewis/
https://www.ktbs.com/news/crime/shreveport-police-investigate-officer-involved-shooting/article_6b2f4e9c-13b5-11ec-9d2f-0f7a9a3c4c5e.html
https://www.ksla.com/2021/09/12/large-police-presence-responds-incident-off-w-70th-street/
 

On 09/11/2021, Winnebago County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a reported assault at 164 Van Buren Street in Thompson. Police later said the call was a ruse. Police said Deputy Josh Douglas encountered resident James Anderson, 48, who had a loaded 9mm handgun and refused to drop it while officers negotiated for nearly ten minutes. Police said Anderson was despondent over a recent medical diagnosis and pointed the gun toward officers, after which Douglas shot him once. Police said Anderson later died from the gunshot injury. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation investigated, and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office later ruled Douglas’s use of deadly force legally justified.

https://dps.iowa.gov/press-release/2021-09-24/iowa-office-attorney-general-rules-winnebago-county-officer-involved-shooting
https://www.kcci.com/article/thompson-iowa-authorities-investigating-officer-involved-shooting/37573680
https://www.kcci.com/article/officer-involved-shooting-deemed-legally-justified-by-iowa-ag/37724299
https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/man-despondent-over-medical-diagnosis-killed-during-police-standoff-in-n-iowa
https://www.thegazette.com/crime-courts/suicide-by-cop-a-growing-concern-for-iowa-law-enforcement/

On 09/11/2021, at approximately 10:09 p.m., a Bexar County Sheriff’s Office deputy stopped an SUV for a tail-light violation in the 3000 block of Interstate 35 North southbound near Hormel Drive. William Frank Hull Jr., also known as William Albert Conort IV, was a passenger in the SUV.

According to BCSO, Hull got out carrying a backpack and ran from the traffic stop. The deputy called for assistance, and a second deputy pursued Hull on foot.

BCSO alleged that Hull fired at least one gunshot at the pursuing deputy. Sheriff Javier Salazar said the deputy took cover or concealment, retrieved his patrol rifle and returned fire, firing at least two rounds and striking Hull in the upper body. Hull died at the scene.

BCSO reported recovering a 9mm semiautomatic handgun attributed to Hull and subsequently said the firearm had been reported stolen.

The deputy who killed Hull was a BCSO SWAT member. The deputy was placed on administrative leave while the shooting was reviewed by BCSO Internal Affairs and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.

OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office SWAT deputy who shot and killed Hull has not been publicly identified.

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/suspect-dead-after-shooting-at-bexar-county-sheriffs-deputy-during-traffic-stop
https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021/09/13/bexar-county-sheriff-blames-increase-in-deputies-being-shot-at-on-new-gun-law/
https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2021/09/12/2-shot-dead-in-separate-incidents-by-san-antonio-area-police/
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/2-shot-dead-san-antonio-area-police/
https://www.missionparks.com/obituaries/william-hull-9/#!/TributeWall
 

On September 11, 2021, deputies from the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, along with state police, responded to a domestic violence call along Spring Canyon Road near Ruidoso. Upon arrival, the man fired shots at the officers. After hours of negotiations, deputies heard gunfire from within the residence. Upon entering, they discovered the man deceased from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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https://www.krqe.com/news/crime/daylong-standoff-with-lincoln-county-sheriffs-state-police-ends-in-suicide/
https://www.facebook.com/ruidosopolice/posts/6160502800658823/

On 09/10/2021, Prince George's County Police Department Cpl. John Diggs shot and killed 29-year-old Cedric Williams during a confrontation outside an apartment complex in the 1100 block of Owens Road in Oxon Hill. Williams had no fixed address, but residents told reporters that his mother lived at the complex and that Williams stayed with her.
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The encounter began at approximately 12:45 p.m. when Williams arrived at the complex to pick up food that had been delivered to the front desk. Apartment personnel told Diggs that Williams had been banned from the property. Police said the ban involved previous behavioral problems and threats at the complex.
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Diggs was not dispatched to the complex in response to a 911 call. He lived there and performed private security duties as a "courtesy officer," receiving free or reduced rent in exchange for police-related services at the property. Diggs was wearing his Prince George's County police uniform when the apartment employee approached him about Williams.
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Diggs told Williams to leave. According to police, Williams did not comply, a verbal confrontation developed, and the two men began physically struggling. The struggle moved outside the building and into the roadway.
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Police alleged that during the struggle Williams removed what appeared to be a Colt .45 handgun from his backpack, pointed it toward Diggs and appeared to attempt to fire it. Police said the weapon did not fire and Williams threw it into a wooded area. Investigators later determined that the handgun was a realistic replica rather than an operable firearm.
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Diggs then deployed his Taser twice. Police said both deployments were ineffective. Williams subsequently retrieved what appeared to be an AR-15-style rifle from the wooded area. Police alleged that Williams pointed the rifle toward Diggs and failed to comply with commands to drop it.
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Diggs fired his service handgun multiple times, striking Williams. Williams died at the scene. Witness Viola West told the Washington Post that she heard approximately six gunshots followed by another two. Police did not state in the initial accounts exactly how many rounds Diggs fired or how many times Williams was struck.
.
Investigators examined the rifle and determined that it, like the handgun, was a realistic replica. Police subsequently released photographs comparing both replica weapons with genuine firearms. Neither weapon recovered from Williams was an operable firearm.
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Diggs suffered injuries to his face and hands during the physical struggle. He was treated at a hospital and released.
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Police Chief Malik Aziz said immediately after the shooting that witnesses had described Williams as having behavioral problems that may have involved his mental health. Residents said Williams helped care for his mother, who lived at the apartment complex.
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Prince George's County Police Department's Internal Affairs Division led the investigation of Diggs' shooting. Diggs was placed on administrative leave. The department stated that the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office reviews police shootings.
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The publicly searchable records located for this update do not establish a subsequent criminal charge against Diggs arising from Williams' death.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The officer who killed Cedric Williams was Cpl. John Diggs of the Prince George's County Police Department. Diggs was assigned to the Bureau of Patrol and had joined PGPD in 2009. At the time of the shooting, he lived at the Owens Road apartment complex and also worked there as a courtesy officer in exchange for free or reduced rent.
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A deep search of Diggs' name did not produce a verified prior fatal shooting, criminal prosecution, sustained serious-misconduct case or civil-rights judgment attributable to this John Diggs before Williams' killing. No unrelated allegations have been added.
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The institutional record of the Prince George's County Police Department around the time of Williams' death was considerably more substantial. In 2020, a federal civil-rights lawsuit brought by Black and Latino officers accused PGPD of systemic racial discrimination and retaliation and challenged the department's use-of-force review practices. An expert retained by the plaintiffs reported that department command review appeared to routinely "rubber stamp" officers' uses of force; county data examined in the litigation showed that Black civilians accounted for 86% of reported force incidents despite constituting approximately 64% of the county population. The allegations and expert findings arose from separate litigation and do not establish misconduct by Diggs in Williams' shooting.
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PGPD Chief Hank Stawinski resigned in June 2020 amid the litigation and nationwide scrutiny following George Floyd's killing. Prince George's County subsequently created a police reform work group examining use of force, hiring, training, discipline and departmental accountability.
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The department was also facing contemporaneous transparency disputes. After Maryland changed state law in 2021 to expand public access to police disciplinary records, PGPD resisted requests for misconduct files and litigation followed over disclosure. That dispute concerned departmental transparency rather than Diggs personally.
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Williams was killed before Maryland's statewide Independent Investigations Division began operating under the police-accountability reforms enacted in 2021. Consequently, this shooting was investigated under the earlier structure: PGPD Internal Affairs investigated a PGPD officer's fatal shooting, with the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office responsible for prosecutorial review.

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https://smnewsnet.com/archives/495753/pgpd-investigating-fatal-officer-involved-shooting-with-armed-suspect-in-oxon-hill/
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/prince-georges-county-police-identify-officer-who-killed-oxon-hill-man-allegedly-pointing-replica-guns-during-a-dispute/
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/officer-killed-man-who-pointed-replica-guns-at-him-prince-georges-police-say/2798755/
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/police-prince-georges-county-officer-involved-in-fatal-shooting
https://pgpolice.blogspot.com/2021/09/pgpd-investigating-fatal-officer.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/prince-georges-officer-shooting-oxon-hill/2021/09/10/d3a09d0e-125d-11ec-9cb6-bf9351a25799_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/prince-georges-police-fatal-shooting/2021/09/13/7eeea184-14bf-11ec-9589-31ac3173c2e5_story.html
https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2021/09/officer-shoots-man-after-struggle-in-prince-georges-county/
https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2021/09/prince-georges-co-police-id-officer-who-fatally-shot-man-during-struggle/
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/prince-georges-county-police-on-the-scene-after-officer-fired-weapon