Durham DA will not charge officers who fatally shot 3 people this year. Here’s why.
Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry will not charge local law enforcement officers who killed three people in separate January shootings, according to letters her office released Monday.
No dashboard camera or body-worn camera video was released in any of the shootings, and the Durham County Sheriff’s Office stated after a fatal shooting by one of its deputies that it had not yet equipped its officers with cameras. The department has since begun using them, it announced in February.
Deberry released the letters, which had already been sent to the law enforcement agencies involved, in these cases:
▪ The Jan. 4 killing of Stephanie Monique Wilson in Bahama by a Durham County sheriff’s deputy.
Wilson, 28, was at home on John Jones Road when deputies responded to a disturbance she called in from the northern Durham County community.
Officials said Wilson pointed a shotgun at deputies multiple times despite attempts to get her to put the gun down, The News & Observer previously reported.
In a Facebook Live video, Wilson can be heard racking the shotgun. She tells officers she is not going to shoot them but also refuses to put the gun down, Deberry wrote.
Wilson can be heard saying “Y’all gonna have to shoot me, dawg” and “Make it easier on both of us,” the letter states.
Wilson’s behavior was erratic, according to Deberry’s findings, and officers had reason to believe they were were in imminent danger, the letter stated.
“The evidence in this case shows that Ms. Wilson was upset on the afternoon of January 4, 2022. Facebook Live footage and text messages with her roommate and friends indicated that she may have been contemplating suicide,” Deberry’s letter stated. “She initiated a false emergency call to 911 to induce an armed law enforcement response to her home.”
▪ The Jan. 12 killing of Charles Walker Piquet by Durham police officers at a Circle K gas station on West N.C. 54.
A clerk told police she was being attacked by a man at the store who had cut his neck with a bottle and was now cutting her neck, according to the 911 call, The N&O reported.
Piquet had suffered from mental illness most of his life, and Piquet’s son told investigators his father was “100 percent at a low point,” according to Deberry’s letter. After cutting his own neck, he got into the cash register area and began attacking the clerk, the letter stated.
When Piquet did not heed orders to stop, two police officers who responded to the call fired multiple rounds. An autopsy revealed five gunshot wounds, as well as deep cuts to Piquet’s neck and shoulder muscles., the letter continued.
▪ The Jan. 14 killing of Raishawn Steven Jones on Jan. 14 by a Duke University officer at Duke University Hospital.
Jones, 38, was in the custody of a city police officer, the letter states, when he grabbed the officer’s gun and a Duke police officer shot him, The N&O reported.
Deberry said her comments don’t address the officers’ tactics but that the use of deadly force wasn’t excessive under the circumstances.
“It is my conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to support the filing of criminal charges,” she wrote in each of the letters.
On the incident at the hospital, Deberry wrote that presence of a gun in the emergency department “dramatically increased the level of harm to others that night.”
Duke University officials should “strongly consider” a policy that requires guns to be stored before entering the department, she wrote.
This story was originally published June 13, 2022 at 12:25 PM.
