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Prince George’s officer faces murder charge in shooting of handcuffed suspect, two people familiar with the investigation say | |
(about 4 hours later) | |
Prince George’s County police will charge an officer with murder in the shooting of a man who was handcuffed and wearing a seat belt in the front seat of a cruiser, two officials said Tuesday. | |
Police Chief Hank Stawinski plans to announce the charges at a news conference at 6 p.m., said the officials, who spoke ahead of the public announcement on the condition they not be named. | |
Police have not identified the victim, but his family said William Green, 43, of Southeast Washington. He was killed while sitting in the passenger side of a police cruiser in the Temple Hills area. | |
His death was not caught on a body camera, prompting an outcry from Green’s family, advocates and some county officials. | |
“We have a lot of questions,” said John Mathis, whose mother was engaged to Green. | |
Mathis, 19, said Green was a Megabus luggage loader, who was slated to be promoted to dispatcher Tuesday. Mathis said Green has two adult children. Green attended the Temple of Praise Church in Southeast Washington. | |
State Sen. Obie Patterson (D-Prince George’s), whose district includes Temple Hills, said he was “sort of shocked” to learn the officer was not wearing a body camera when the incident took place. | State Sen. Obie Patterson (D-Prince George’s), whose district includes Temple Hills, said he was “sort of shocked” to learn the officer was not wearing a body camera when the incident took place. |
“It’s a red flag,” said Patterson, who previously served on the county council. | “It’s a red flag,” said Patterson, who previously served on the county council. |
Prince George’s County police spokeswoman Christina Cotterman said a news conference that was initially scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday was postponed so that police could continue investigating. | |
Gina Ford, a spokeswoman for county executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D), declined to comment ahead of the news conference. Ford said Tuesday afternoon that the county executive would not make any statement ahead of the police department. | |
Cpl. Kyndle Johnson, a police spokeswoman, said Monday night that police thought the suspect may have been under the influence of PCP, a hallucinogenic that has been associated with violent behavior. At some point, she said, a struggle broke out inside the cruiser and he was shot, then taken to the hospital, where he died. | |
Mathis said the suggestion by police that Green might be under the influence of PCP during the shooting didn’t square with the man he knew. | |
“That wasn’t like him,” Mathis said. | |
Database of police shootings from 2019 | |
He said Green had gone out to dinner at a restaurant on Monday night and was driving home when the incident unfolded. Police said they were called to Winston Street, near the intersection with St. Barnabas Road, after 8 p.m. | |
Green’s brother Ronald Green declined to comment saying his lawyer told him not to speak. | |
The ACLU said Tuesday that Green was “killed needlessly” and condemned the lack of a body camera worn by the officer. The ACLU statement described Green’s death as part of a pattern of Prince George’s County police harming black men in their custody. | |
The ACLU cited as examples the killing of Leonard Shand, who was armed with knives, by police in Hyattsville last year and the injury of Demonte Ward-Blake during a traffic stop in Oxon Hill. | |
“It is absolutely senseless for full transparency to not be a number one priority for this department,” the ACLU said. “It should have been a top priority years ago, but these recent tragic events only make this need more urgent.” | |
County Council Chair Todd Turner (D-District 4) said in an interview last year that council members are united in wanting police to wear body cameras, but the issue is funding their rollout. Advocates at Casa de Maryland, the state’s largest immigrant advocacy group, pushed last year for a bill to require police to wear body cameras. But that bill did not advance. | |
In Prince George’s, not all patrol officers are assigned body cameras. Currently one squad of officers per police district have body cameras. State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy said there are about 80 officers who have body cameras in Prince George’s department, which has more than 1,500 officers. | |
“We believe that the public should have that high level of transparency, but we only have what we have,” Braveboy said in an interview. | |
She said her office is in the process of obtaining information about the shooting and plans to “conduct a thorough investigation that is independent from the police investigation.” | |
“The public certainly deserves to get the full story,” Braveboy said. “Any in-custody death is problematic.” | |
Police experts said suspects are most commonly put in the back seat of cruisers, but some departments allow suspects to ride in front, especially if the car doesn’t have a cage separating front and back. | |
“It used to be you’d never put somebody in the front seat of your car,” said Philip Stinson, a professor of criminology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who studies police shootings. But some jurisdictions have decided “you put them in the front of the car because you can keep the closest eye on them.” | “It used to be you’d never put somebody in the front seat of your car,” said Philip Stinson, a professor of criminology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who studies police shootings. But some jurisdictions have decided “you put them in the front of the car because you can keep the closest eye on them.” |
Steve Thompson, Erin Cox, Martin Weil, Alice Crites and Dan Morse contributed to this report. | Steve Thompson, Erin Cox, Martin Weil, Alice Crites and Dan Morse contributed to this report. |
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