Councilman Demands Another Federal Probe of New Brunswick County Police: Witnesses say Officers Shot Black Man Without Warning as he Drove Away

From [HERE] A New Castle County councilman wants a federal investigation of the latest fatal shooting by a county cop, saying the police department’s account “too conveniently” adheres to the policy on an allowable use of force. James L. Green, 27, was shot and killed on Memorial Drive near New Castle on Thursday. Police said Green was reaching for a gun at the same time he was turning his car and accelerating toward an officer after a vehicle stop.

Councilman Jea Street, who represents the neighborhood where the shooting occured, said the department’s story is nearly identical to the May 10 police shooting of Erik Turnbull. Turnbull, 32, was shot and killed outside the Harbor Club Apartments near Ogletown after police said he aimed his SUV at two officers during a drug sting on May 10. The state Attorney General’s Office is reviewing that case. “It’s way too convenient that the exact same thing happened in both situations,” Street said.

Green's family gave a far different account from the police version of the story, saying Green avoided a confrontation with a man outside his apartment, and was heading to work when he was shot by police. Green’s relatives and his fiance', Jennifer Thomas were with him at Parma Avenue on Thursday when he was shot. Mike Green, and Janai Clark said they arrived as two women were fighting and an unknown man was looking to get in a fight. Rather than get involved, the cousins told Green to leave. He got into his car and pulled out, and they followed him in another vehicle, about three cars behind, they said.

They said they didn’t see an officer stop James Green’s car. “They didn’t give my cousin no chance, man,” said Mike Green. “They never tried to stop that car.”

They saw police cars, apparently responding to the reported shooting, enter the development as they were leaving behind James Green’s car, they said. Police had lights flashing, but no sirens, Mike Green said. Mike Green added that his cousin had made the turn onto Memorial Drive when the shot was fired. While police only said Green was struck in the upper body, his family said he was struck twice in the head. “We were literally 30 seconds apart,” Clark said. By the time I got to the corner and turned from Parma to Memorial an officer had shot,” she said. “He didn’t even tell him to stop his vehicle, didn’t ask him to stop his vehicle.”

After the officer fired the first shot at Green’s Cadillac, the car went from the far right lane into the oncoming lanes. That’s when Clark says the officer fired a second shot. “Two shots. Both hit in the back of the head,” she said. [MORE] The rear window of Green’s silver Cadillac was shattered on the driver’s side.  After the shooting, the car rolled along Memorial Drive, crossed to the other side of the road and hit an empty, parked car in front of a home in the 100 block of Memorial Drive, he said. [MORE] 

Green’s shooting in the 100 block of Memorial Drive near New Castle was Delaware’s fifth police-involved shooting since April and the third to result in death. 

Police said they received a report at 4:25 p.m. Thursday of a man shooting at another man in the 200 block of Parma Ave.  Police did not provide any description of the man they were looking for -  such as height, weight, age, race, complexion or color of clothes, etc. As officers were en route to the scene, witnesses reported to 911 the shooter had driven off and described his car. Officers saw Green’s light blue Cadillac as it was leaving the neighborhood, and an officer stopped the car on Memorial Drive.

During the stop, police said, the officer saw Green making “reaching movements” toward the center console area of his car’s interior. He ignored repeated requests by the officer to show his hands, police said. [MORE] 

“At this point, Green turned the vehicle in the direction of the officer and accelerated while still reaching inside the center console, at which time the officer discharged their departmentally issued weapon, striking Green in the upper body,” County police spokesman Cpl. John Weglarz Sr. said in a news release Friday night.

Councilman Street said,  “The policy says you can shoot when a moving vehicle could endanger an officer. But that does not comport in any way with what the community says happened in the latest case, so there’s cause to be concerned.”

Street is also the co-chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee.

The county police will investigate Thursday’s shooting, as will the Attorney General’s Office. Street wants a federal investigation after that.

“After the Harry Smith case from Wilmington, who I think was assassinated, there’s good cause to assume that state officials are going to defer to the findings of the local police department’s investigation.”

The 25-year-old Smith was driving a stolen police car in September 2003 when three Wilmington police officers opened fire at a roadblock at Fifth and Harrison streets. Thirty-one shots were fired, Smith was killed and one bullet hit a bystander in the thigh. Reviews by Wilmington police and the Attorney General’s Office, as well as a civil lawsuit by Smith’s family, cleared the officers of wrongdoing.

In the Green case, family members said his vehicle wasn’t stopped by police at all and that Green was shot twice in the back of the head. Police said Green was shot once in the upper body after a vehicle stop.

Police also said that ballistics tests show that the gun in Green’s car matched bullets that were fired at the scene just before police arrived.

Monday, the Black Clergy Consortium and Delaware NAACP will hold a news conference about the shooting. Officials from the groups could not be reached Saturday, but issued a release saying they “suspect foul play” and want County Executive Paul Clark to ensure that the shooting is investigated.

The groups’ release mentioned the case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter, who Arkansas police say shot himself in the right temple on July 29 in Jonesboro, Ark., while handcuffed in the back of a patrol car.

Clark said the Green case will be investigated.

“Our police quickly responded to a dangerous emergency call of gunshots in a residential community,” Clark said. “The traffic stop of the suspect and the loss of life that took place will be thoroughly investigated by the New Castle County Police and the Delaware Attorney General’s Office, as per standard procedure. As with any loss of life, our sympathy goes out to the family. Since this investigation is ongoing, I will delay any further comment until the investigation is completed.”

Street said he realizes that police have a dangerous job and noted that Lt. Joseph Szczerba was fatally stabbed during an arrest in September 2011.

“I’m as concerned about officer safety as I am about the two completely different versions of the story in the latest shooting,” Street said. “You’ve got to look at each situation individually and make determinations on a case-by-case basis.”

New Castle County’s policy on use of force reads: “Officers are prohibited from discharging their firearm…at a motor vehicle and/or the occupants therein, unless as last resort and only when the operator of the vehicle is directing the vehicle as deadly force against the officer or other innocent person, and the officer believes employing deadly force creates no substantial risk of injury to innocent persons.”

There is no consensus among experts on police procedures on whether officers should fire at moving vehicles.

Many police departments – including those in New York City, Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., and Cincinnati – have revised their use-of-force policies to prevent officers from shooting at vehicles, often in response to civil lawsuits and public outcry. Some say the changes have helped cut the number of police shootings.

The shooting of James Green led one state representative to express concern Friday about the number of shootings in a state that averages four such acts per year.

“I don’t want to be critical of the police but I am concerned that we don’t let the situation turn into more violence,” said Rep. James Johnson, D-New Castle, who visited Green’s family at Christiana Hospital Friday. “We don’t want to lose our perspective of what our responsibilities are as law enforcement officers.”

Johnson, who represents the district in which Thursday’s shooting occurred, said he wanted to see the results of the department’s investigation before deciding what steps to take next.

The Rev. Derrick Johnson, pastor of Joshua Harvest Church in Wilmington believes the recent number of police-involved shootings need to be investigated by someone other than police themselves. Officers also need to be trained to the know the communities they patrol.

For example, Johnson said, had officers known the residents of this community better, they would have known who was more likely to be causing trouble and who was not.

“There are cops who don’t know the ’hood,” Johnson said. “You come into the community, you take this group’s word that these people over here are trouble or this guy has a gun or what have you.”

Johnson, who in May led a rally outside the Boggs Federal Building in Wilmington following the fatal shooting of 32-year-old Erik Turnbull by county police, called for a federal investigation.

Thomas said Green held two jobs in order to provide for his family. This included his full-time job as a custodian at a Wilmington day care center and a part-time position at The News Journal, inserting ads into the paper, that he’d had since Oct. 27.

On his off time, Green enjoyed taking his family out, including to the beach or amusement parks.

“He was just there for us all the time,” Thomas said. “He just enjoyed being with his family. He was a family man, he was a working man.”