A fair ruling in Raleigh police shooting of Akiel Denkins

The police shooting of Akiel Denkins tested Raleigh, and Raleigh has passed the test.

In other cities, a shooting by a white officer of a black suspect has led to unrest, in some cases justifiably so. But in Raleigh, leaders on all sides responded quickly, urged patience and worked with the State Bureau of Investigation as it conducted a thorough investigation and came to what appears to be the right conclusion: Raleigh police officer D.C. Twiddy was justified in shooting Denkins, 24, during a struggle in which Denkins reached for a gun in his waistband.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman directed the shooting review fairly and with urgency. She said, “No criminal charges in this matter are warranted based on the evidence available.”

But a finding of no criminal wrongdoing by the officer does not resolve all questions raised by the encounter. There are still questions about the priorities and style of policing in Raleigh’s low-income and mostly black communities. And while Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown is African-American, her department’s officers do not reflect the diversity of the city they serve.

Twiddy appears to have had no choice but to use deadly force, but police and city leaders should examine how the incident came about and escalated into a fatal encounter. Denkins was wanted for failing to appear on a drug charge. Was there a better way to bring him in than to have a lone officer chasing him through backyards until they struggled at a fence?

Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane referred to the work to be done when she said in a statement, “Lives have been forever changed, and we are committed to building trust and strengthening relationships in Raleigh to ensure the health and safety of both our officers and the public.”

Freeman said, “I think that this tragedy, and it is a tragedy ... has caused and created opportunity for some very important conversations in our community, conversations about the way police interact with the public, conversations about what the process is in the days and months following one of these incidents, conversations about how we prevent people from ever getting into these situations to begin with.”

As this review ends, may those conversations begin.

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 7:58 PM with the headline "A fair ruling in Raleigh police shooting of Akiel Denkins."