Officer in teen fatality resigns

The Memphis police officer who fatally shot a 15-year- old boy while off duty in September resigned Monday rather than be terminated from the department, the police director said.

At the conclusion of a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation inquiry, Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich elected not to charge Terrance Shaw, 28, with a crime and said the shooting was considered a justifiable homicide.

But that did not stop the Memphis Police Department from bringing administrative charges involving personal conduct and discha rging a firearm against Shaw during a twoday heari ng t hat concluded Monday when Shaw elected to resign.

“We felt that there was some conduct on his part that did not necessarily meet with our expectations,” Police Director Toney Armstrong said following Shaw’s resignation. “We expect our officers to conduct themselves in a manner above and beyond reproach.”

On Sept. 24, 15-year-old Justin Thompson allegedly tried to rob Shaw while the officer was off duty near the corner of South Perkins and Winchester.

Immediately following the shooting, Mayor A C Wharton called for a thorough review of the situation and the TBI soon stepped in to conduct the investigation.

The TBI’s findings are sealed, and Armstrong would not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the shooting except to say that Shaw “should not have been in that situation.” The police director spoke during a news conference Monday night, when he said that Shaw elected to resign rather than be terminated.

Responding to questions about public allegations made by Thompson’s mother that the two knew each other and were planning to meet that night, Armstrong said it was not fitting for an officer “to have an interaction with a child without the parent’s consent.” And, he added, Thompson’s mother had clearly not given Shaw permission to meet with her son.

If Shaw had not resigned, he could have faced disciplinary action ranging from an oral reprimand to termination.

Armstrong said he hoped this would bring at least a small measure of comfort to Thompson’s mother. Terrance Shaw