City drops menacing charges against man

The Columbus city attorney’s office won’t retry the case of a South Side man who was said to have threatened six people with a gun and then was shot by police.

Five aggravatedmenacing charges, all misdemeanors, were dismissed yesterday against Guilford “Gus” Thornton, 51, at the city’s request.

A Franklin County Municipal Court jury acquitted Thornton last month on one count of aggravated menacing but was unable to reach verdicts on the other five counts.

Afterward, jurors told prosecutors that they had deadlocked 7-1 in favor of acquitting Thornton on the five counts, Assistant City Attorney Jeffery Stavroff said yesterday.

“The city attorney’s office concluded that it wasn’t in the interest of justice to retry the case, and it wouldn’t be the best use of city resources,” Stavroff said.

Defense attorney Sam Shamansky said the city had no choice but to have the charges dismissed after learning that “one rogue juror” prevented his client from being acquitted on all counts.

“Obviously, they’re smart enough to know that any further wrongful prosecution would just dig a deeper hole,” he said.

Shamansky said his client declined to comment.

Thornton was accused of stepping from his house on Oakwood Avenue on April 21, 2013, and pointing a handgun at three teenage boys he thought had committed a mugging in the neighborhood. Thomas A. Davis Jr., the father of one of the boys, went to Thornton’s house to confront him and told police that Thornton pointed a handgun at him.

Columbus Police Officers Jeff Kasza and Danny Dupler, who responded to a report of the altercation, testified that they shot Thornton after they went into his house and he ignored their orders to drop a shotgun. Thornton was struck in the buttocks and hands.

Jurors heard conflicting testimony about whether Thornton ever had a gun outside the house. The officers testified that they saw Thornton holding the shotgun on the front step when they arrived at the house. Four neighbors who testified for the defense said they never saw a gun in Thornton’s hands.

Under cross-examination, Davis said he wasn’t afraid of Thornton’s gun. The jurors returned the not-guilty verdict on the charge that Thornton menaced Davis.

Under Ohio law, an aggravated-menacing conviction requires the victim “to believe that the offender will cause serious physical harm.”

An internal investigation into whether the officers acted within Police Division policy has not been completed.