HOUMA, La. (AP) - Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter says he won’t be retraining his officers about lethal force in the wake of a shooting that killed a 14-year-old boy.
A grand jury’s decision against indicting Deputy Preston Norman shows it agreed that Norman “had no choice but to shoot” Cameron Tillman when he came to the door of an abandoned house Sept. 23, he told The Courier (https://bit.ly/1NLByZj ).
Very few Terrebonne Parish officers’ shootings are lethal, he added.
Norman and a second deputy went to the abandoned house because of complaints that boys there were brandishing guns.
Norman told investigators he announced himself and Tillman came to the door of an abandoned house pointing what appeared to be a semi-automatic pistol at him. A BB gun that looked like a Sig Sauer pistol was found in the house.
Three other teens who were with Tillman told investigators that he was not carrying any gun when he answered the door, but their accounts did not match physical evidence, according to a state police report released to the newspaper after a freedom of information request.
It said Tillman’s left ring and middle fingerprints were on the pistol.
“We have asked them to preserve the evidence so we can do our own report,” Tillman family attorney Carol Powell-Lexing said.
As a member of the SWAT team, Norman had more tactical training than other officers, Larpenter said.
“He was trained to go in and handle the situation. He had to try to make the right decision in less than a second,” the sheriff said.
Sheriff Craig Webre of neighboring Lafourche Parish said the real world doesn’t allow an officer to stop and consider every factor that may show up in hindsight.
After the fact, one can only really ask what the officer considered reasonable from his perspective and what information was available at the time to justify using deadly force, he said.
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Information from: The Courier, https://www.houmatoday.com
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