Previous killings by LR officers in fatal shooting ruled justified

The Little Rock officers who were involved in the fatal shooting of a Little Rock man late Monday morning, subsequently igniting a protest near the crime scene, have both shot and killed suspects while on duty prior to Monday’s shooting.

Terry McDaniel, the officer who chased Deon Williams on foot Monday and shot him in a confrontation in the backyard of a residence, shot and killed a burglary suspect in 2012.

His partner in Monday’s chase, officer Grant Humphries, did not shoot at Williams. He shot and killed a suspect during a 2011 traffic stop.

Investigators found that in both cases, the shootings were justified.

In Monday’s shooting, according to police, Williams, 26, had a gun as well as a “significant” amount of illegal drugs on him. When he fell in the backyard at 1110 Adams St. while running from McDaniel, a gun fell from his waistband.

McDaniel had his Taser in hand when he cut into the alley, according to department spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis, but when he saw Williams drop the gun, McDaniel dropped his Taser and pulled out his department sidearm. Williams picked the gun up from the ground and looked at McDaniel, who, Davis said,

“feared for his life” and fired three times, fatally wounding Williams.

After the shooting, paramedics took Williams to University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center in Little Rock, where he was pronounced dead at 12:17 p.m., a little more than half an hour after the shooting.

According to Davis, McDaniel and Humphries were on patrol near West 12th Street and Jonesboro Road when McDaniel thought he recognized Williams’ black Chevrolet Suburban from the department’s “hot sheets,” lists of recently stolen vehicles. The officers pulled in front of the SUV in hopes that the driver would pass them, but when they pulled over, the SUV remained behind them.

The two officers waited a few moments, Davis said, and started to turn around to get behind the SUV to check the license plate to see whether the vehicle was stolen.

Williams, who had served prison sentences for robbery and drug charges and who was paroled out of prison in May regarding a drug charge, didn’t wait for them to get behind him, police said. He stepped out of the car and walked off. When McDaniel tried to talk to him, Williams took off, police said.

Contrary to accounts given by police on Monday, the vehicle Williams was driving was not stolen, Davis said. But she said that given Williams’ suspicious behavior, McDaniel had cause to give chase.

The shooting is under both criminal and internal investigation, and both officers remained on paid administrative leave Tuesday.

The shooting drew a large crowd along the intersection of West 12th and Adams streets, numbering as many as 250, many of whom d protesting recent shootings by officers in Little Rock as well as Saturday’s acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood-watch captain in an Orlando, Fla., suburb who was charged in the slaying of a teenager, Trayvon Martin.

The crowd turned hostile, cursing at officers, egging them on and hurling soft drinks at officers, who had to shut down a large section of West 12th Street to handle the large crowd.

Eventually, police backed down and left.

Although Davis said Monday afternoon that there were no arrests, she corrected herself Tuesday and said that police arrested two men during the afternoon-long protest.

Moren Ellis, 31, of 2625 Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive was sitting on a bike at the intersection of West 12th and Peyton streets, less than two blocks from the center of the large crowd. According to police reports, Ellis was being loud and started cursing officers. An officer asked him to calm down, at which point Ellis told the officer to “go f*** yourself.”

He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and attempt to incite a riot.

A second person was also arrested, Davis said, but

The shooting is under both criminal and internal investigation, and both officers remained on paid administrative leave

Tuesday.

she didn’t know the person’s name or on what specific charge.

According to police records, both McDaniel and Humphries were exonerated after their respective shooting investigations.

McDaniel responded to a burglary in progress in Capital View during the afternoon of May 22, 2012, and spotted a suspect — who police said was responsible for killing one man and wounding another during an attempted burglary — running along the street with a gun in hand.

According to police, McDaniel was headed to 204 S. Thayer St. for the burglary call when he saw Charles Murry Jr., 19, running the other way on the street.

Murry was carrying a small revolver, police said, and when McDaniel ordered him to stop, Murry pointed the gun at McDaniel, police said.

McDaniel opened fire on Murry, according to police accounts, but the suspect kept running and cut between two houses in the 300 block of South Thayer Street, and McDaniel followed.

Murry pointed his gun again, and McDaniel shot at him again, fatally wounding him in the yard, the accounts say.

Humphries shot and killed Andrae Lambert, 28, after a scuffle outside the man’s vehicle that started with a routine traffic stop at South Woodrow and West 12th streets in April 2011.

Humphries, who rejoined the department five years ago after a seven-year stint with a federal agency, pulled Lambert over at about 2 a.m. on April 16.

Police said Lambert was acting “evasive” during the stop, which was captured on the dash camera in Humphries’ car. When Humphries patted him down, the officer found what he suspected to be drugs in the man’s pocket.

The two wrestled, police said, and fell into the cab of Lambert’s pickup truck, which is when Humphries spotted a gun wedged under the seat.

When Lambert reached for it, Humphries stepped back and drew his service weapon, yelled, “Gun! Gun! Gun!” and shot Lambert twice in the chest, police said.

Police found drugs on Lambert, who only months earlier had been committed to the State Hospital by his family as a chronic user of “PCP, meth, cocaine, angel dust and whatever he can get his hands on,” according to court records.

The department’s spokesman at the time, Capt. Terry Hastings, described Humphries’ actions in the shooting as “textbook.”

Williams’ death on Monday marks the third killing by police this year and accounts for the city’s 19th homicide overall in 2013.

The first fatal shooting by an officer this year happened on Jan. 11 when detective Todd Hurd shot a fleeing burglary suspect who was fighting with Hurd’s partner, detective Ken Blankenship, and was reaching for Blankenship’s gun.

Davis said that Hurd’s killing of 26-year-old Michael Daniel II has been ruled justified by the prosecutor’s office.

Hurd had shot someone dead previously. In January 1997, Hurd shot and killed James Patrick Harris, 33, at Harris’ 1305 Schiller St. home during a drug raid when Harris reached for a weapon. The shooting was ruled justified later that year.

The second fatal shooting this year happened on April 25 when officer Steve Gorbet fatally shot Kenzell Hobbs, 18, after Hobbs, an auto break-in suspect, turned towards him with a handgun during a foot chase at 1001 N. University Ave. early in the morning. Davis said that shooting has also been ruled justified.

In November 1992, Gorbet tried to pull over William Tayes, 38, on a traffic violation when Tayes fled and crashed his car into a brick wall.

The two struggled during the arrest, and Tayes got hold of a “2x4” fence post and started hitting Gorbet, police accounts say.

The officer pulled his gun and shot Tayes once in the chest. That shooting was also ruled justified.

In addition to investigation into Monday’s shootings, Little Rock detectives are also investigating an officer-involved shooting by an officer on July 9 in which a Little Rock man was wounded outside his exwife’s apartment by an officer after the gestured toward officers with a denim jacket wrapped around his hand. Police had been told that the jacket was concealing a gun.

Officer Eliot Young has not returned to work since the shooting. Police officials did not have any updates on the condition of the wounded man, Antoine Wilbert, which was “serious” last week.

According to department records, Wilbert, 27, was charged with harassment Monday night.