District Attorney Backs Charlotte Officer In Fatal Shooting

CHARLOTTE, NC -- Body camera footage shows a Charlotte police officer was justified in using force when he shot and killed a Ukrainian man in early March, Mecklenburg County’s district attorney announced Thursday.

District Attorney Andrew Murray relayed his determination in a letter to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Kerr Putney, saying that CMPD officer Brian Walsh was justified in using lethal force March 8 and had a “reasonable belief that the danger existed” when Iaroslav Mosiiuk pointed a gun at another officer, the Charlotte Observer reported.

In June, an autopsy found Mosiiuk was killed by a single gunshot to the back, corroborating his sister’s eyewitness account of the shooting that was part of a chain of events set off after police were called after Mosiiuk began acting suicidal and looking for a rifle. Tabaka said her brother had his back to police and she told them he could not fire the weapon because it was missing a part that he did not know how to reinstall. “The officer looked at me and then he fired,” she told the Observer last month.

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Whether or not the gun could fire, however, was not relevant in the legal analysis, Murray said in his letter to Kerr. “That fact would only matter if Officer Walsh knew for certain the gun was inoperable,” Murray said. “There is no evidence that he nor anyone else knew for certain whether the gun was operable.”

Following the autopsy release, CMPD issued a statement: “The findings of the autopsy examination are consistent with the statements of several witnesses,” the department's June 6 statement said.

According to those witness statements, Mosiiuk leveled the rifle towards officers when they knocked at the door, “before he ‘exploded’ in the direction of the officers,” CMPD said. The officers took cover and Mosiiuk ran toward CMPD Officer Dezenzo as he tracked his movement the rifle, CMPD said. Officer Walsh, who was behind Mosiiuk, saw him point the weapon at the officer. “Officer Walsh interpreted this action as an imminent deadly threat to Officer Dezenzo and fired his service weapon striking Mr. Mosiiuk in the upper back,” CMPD said.

According to the newspaper, a CMPD spokesman said the department has submitted its information from its investigation into the shooting to the district attorney’s office, while the police department’s own internal investigation continues.

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