Ex-Portsmouth officer indicted in 2018 fatal shooting

Nearly five years after a man was shot dead by Portsmouth police, a former officer was indicted on charges of voluntary manslaughter.

Vincent McClean, who retired from the police department in 2020, is accused of killing 28-yearold Willie Marable III on May 13, 2018, according to a release from the office of the Portsmouth commonwealth’s attorney.

Police said they were called to the scene of a “possible armed home invasion,” although the family of Marable disputed the authorities’ account.

According to Portsmouth police, dispatchers received a 911 call shortly after 11 on the night of the shooting, asking that officers come to the 140 block of Navajo Trail. In a news release early the following morning, Portsmouth police said officers were “confronted by two armed suspects” who “failed to comply with officers’ commands to surrender.”

In 2018, State Police said officers encountered two people, a man and a woman, and police confronted the armed man.

McClean allegedly shot Marable, who was taken to a hospital and died of his injuries.

In the days after the shooting, several neighbors said that after Marable was shot, he ran between two apartment buildings, then down the block, where he collapsed in front of a driveway. Blood spatters could be seen the following day, leading through the grass, across the sidewalk and down the street.

At the time, Marable’s family members provided conflicting accounts of incidents about the shooting. His aunt, Lizzie Hopkins, said he was “jumped” by two men and that he and his girlfriend went to the apartment complex with guns to confront them.

But Marable’s mother, Lorri Flythe, told The Pilot her son didn’t own a gun and couldn’t hold one because of a deformity in his hand.