Friday
Apr222005
Feds Clear Kalamazoo Police Officer in Fatal Shooting of Black Man
Friday, April 22, 2005 at 03:30PM
Federal authorities say they did not
find evidence of civil rights abuses in last fall's fatal shooting of a
black man by a white Kalamazoo police sergeant. Kalamazoo Department of
Public Safety Chief Dan Weston said he received a letter Monday from
the U.S. Department of Justice clearing Sgt. Stacey Geik of criminal
wrongdoing in the Sept. 30 shooting death of John Gill. "We have
concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation
of the federal criminal civil rights statutes," a letter from Albert
Moskowitz, chief of the criminal section of the Department of Justice's
civil rights division, said of its review of the shooting. Prior
investigations by the Department of Public Safety, City Attorney's
Office and Kalamazoo County Prosecutor's Office found Geik, who was
investigating a suspected arson at Gill's apartment, was justified in
shooting Gill when Gill refused Geik's repeated orders to stop as Gill
walked toward the officer and raised a cocked and loaded handgun.
Gill's widow has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the city alleging
the shooting was unjustified, an excessive use of force and an abuse of
power. The Rev. Jerry McNeely, president of the Metropolitan Kalamazoo
Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, has criticized investigations of the shooting and said a
coroner's report suggests to him that Gill was shot in the back.
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