BOISE — The Idaho Attorney General’s Office will not file charges against four Pocatello police officers who shot a teenager with developmental disabilities this spring.
The officers fired 14 times in fewer than two seconds, with 12 of the bullets hitting 17-year-old Victor Perez. The police were called to his home on April 5 for a report of a disturbance. The teenager died a week later after doctors amputated his leg and he was clinically declared brain dead.
The shooting garnered attention from around the world. Cell phone video of the incident has been viewed millions of times, and protests have been held across the state with participants demanding justice for Perez. Members of the community expressed outrage at City Council meetings and demanded the officers be arrested and charged.
The Eastern Idaho Critical Incident Task Force investigated the shooting, and Bannock County Prosecuting Attorney Ian Johnson asked the office of Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador to determine whether criminal charges should be filed.
In a 12-page letter sent to Johnson on Wednesday morning, Idaho Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye acknowledged the shooting was a tragedy and explained why the officers will not be charged.
“The State would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the four officers who discharged their weapons were not justified in using deadly force,” Nye wrote. “We will thus not file criminal charges against the officers.”
"The State would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the four officers who discharged their weapons were not justified in using deadly force,” Nye wrote. “We will thus not file criminal charges against the officers.”
That’s for a court to decide.
We need a way of circumventing a complicit AG or prosecution and taking it to trial whether they want it or not. Like “ok, you won’t take the case so we will find someone who will do your fucking job for you.”
Can we cycle these guys out next election cycle with someone who will take the case? There is no statute of limitations on murder.
wtf, isn’t it on them to prove they were justified? It’s murder unless there’s a reason
Innocent until proven guilty
Sometimes it ends up with situations like this but it’s the best way to ensure that people don’t have to prove their innocence when accused of a crime.
Yes, but no. Sure they’re innocent until proven guilty, but once it’s proven that they shot and killed the victim, it’s up to them to defend themselves with reasons why it’s not murder. Typically this is where they’d try to demonstrate self defense or something
100% of police shootings should go through the courts.
Holy shit, this is horrible. I feel so bad for that kid and his family, gunned down for existing.
There needs to be more police accountability. Every time they refuse to charge officers for the crimes they DEFINITELY committed, it makes other cops feel safer that they can also murder an innocent person and get away with it.
Cops must have a reason to do better, but currently, they have zero reason to do better since they can do whatever they want without consequence.
“Police performed life-saving measures…”
Yeah sure, first unload your guns and then try to resurrect him?
90% of this article is justifying the cops behaviour. Media keeps backing the cops and blaming victims, this needs to stop.
Not being to prove beyond reasonable doubt does not appear to stop the government from going after everyday citizens
Some pigs are more equal than others.
Some of those who work forces, are the same that burn crosses
🎵🎶Some pigs’ mothers are more equal than other pigs’ mothers…🎵🎶
Er wait… Wrong reference…
Yeah I don’t see how this wouldn’t be grounds to not place most murder charges. We don’t think we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they didn’t pose a threat to the shooters well being, and thus it was their legal right to defend themselves so we aren’t bringing charges.
No jury, the people have no say
Usually they use a grand jury to determine that
Yeah, it doesnt sound like a grand jury decided that here, which is why I was saying it sounds like a double standard.
The State would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the four officers who discharged their weapons were not justified in using deadly force,” Nye wrote.
Could you just maybe try though? Just try?
I feel like it’s backwards. surely they should prove firing their weapons was justified and needed?
What really pisses me off is that even if we accept that, due to a series of procedural and communications failures, the limited information they had justified their actions… there’s almost zero chance that they will make any meaningful changes to try and prevent something like this from happening again.
As long as there’s no “qualified” in “qualified immunity” and the department also faces no consequences, there’s no incentive to change anything
I’m pretty sure it’s the job of the jury to decide that.
Then let him face mob justice. String him up outside his precinct as a warning to the others.
“Following the Eastern Idaho Critical Incident Task Force investigation, the Attorney General’s Office conducted 15 additional interviews. The officers involved in the shooting spoke with the task force but declined to be interviewed by AG investigators.
“Instead, they provided audio recordings and transcripts of interviews they completed with a third party,” Nye wrote.”
Well I hope if I’m ever involved in a controversial shooting and the AG asks to interview me I can just be like “no thanks bro, here’s a tape of my friend asking me about it” and that’s the end of it
Fun Fact:
As soon as there is any incident, LEOs are immediately cloistered with their union reps who carefully craft and modify every word of their reports.
Crazy how cops are the only workforce left that’s still allowed to unionize.
Really makes you think
Especially since it’s the only job that shouldn’t be allowed to organize, since cops are enforcers for the owner class, not labor.
I mean, we’re currently embracing militarization of the police. ICE and the National Guard don’t have unions. This isn’t improving anything.
I would say the problem isn’t that cops have a union. It’s that the rest of the labor force is blind to the very obvious benefits the police reap from the system.
Tbf, police unions are mostly union in name only. It’s more akin to an organized crime syndicate
Organized Crime is, in many respects, a labor response to organized segregated capital.
The Crooked Ladder: Gangsters, Ethnicity, and the American Dream is a 2002 book by James M. O’Kane that argues ethnic organized crime was a significant, though often ignored, path to upward social mobility for various immigrant groups in the United States.
Not a coincidence that ethic minorities would also use law enforcement as a path into middle class comfort and normalcy.
Cops dont have unions, those are just gangs
The 911 dispatcher requested that four officers respond, more than usual for a typical disturbance. The only information the officers had was what was relayed to them from the dispatcher. They did not hear the actual 911 call and were unaware of Perez’s disabilities or age.
None of the officers were given an address for the disturbance prior to arriving at the scene, according to Nye, and dispatch was working off the information provided by the 911 caller who said the address was “behind 702 North Main.” Perez’s residence was on North Harrison.
Officers from the Pocatello Police Department had responded to Perez’s home in the past, but none of them were present at the time of the shooting. Nye said AG investigators learned during the follow-up investigation that the Pocatello Police Department does not flag residences for mental health issues. Even though police had responded to calls involving Perez and his mental health before April 5, the home was not flagged in a system.
One of the cops had a bean bag gun. Instead of giving that a try before the deadly hail of gunfire, they all unloaded simultaneously.
I don’t want to play this shitty game anymore. Is there anywhere else to go?
If I was American, I’d absolutely, positively be pulling all nighters to find a way to emigrate.
Being in Canada, I’m already working on plans to leave. I’m not getting stuck here if absolute power seeking dude who talks about taking Canada and Greenland (and gets caught trying to take Greenland) gets absolute power. Fuck that shit, I give it 12 months once Trump crosses the rubicon before hen uses his sharpie to move the border.
If only it were that easy. Many of us have family we help take care of (and who wouldn’t move because they are to old). And children who would suffer greatly by such a drastic move (mine has special needs, so moving means new doctors and schools…). Then there is the issue of a job.
Those in power have done a great job making it hard for people to just up and move.
I am in the same boat. I’m ready to up and leave for almost anywhere else …but I can’t leave my family here. And they don’t want to move or can’t move
Oh come on! Canada IS my escape plan! I just finished step 1 and bought a house 20 miles from the border in Maine!
Escape to Canada only works if Trump is prevented from consolidating power and you just want to get away from the people who elected him.
Still a big upgrade from the US, just saying that it might only be temporary.
Move to europe, same exact shit but with putin.
Only place to escape is maybe Australia.
Not quite. I can put a good number of countries and militaries between myself and Putin there.
I’m literally in a spot where the US military would set up on day 1 if things went that way.
So yes, point taken but it’s really apples and oranges. For now.
The dude’s name is literally “Grossman.” Some nominative determinism?
When legal justice fails, vigilantism becomes the only alternative.
I look forward to reading about your heroic acts.
Don’t worry. It will be on Faux News but the talking points will be different.
I’d really love to start seeing evidence of this actually happening
Folks, NEVER call police on anyone. It’s a death sentence.
I just wish there was an alternative. I want to be able to call a welfare check on my neighbors if they are getting physical but the likelyhood that it gets worse instead of better after the cops arive is so high I would never do it.
This is exactly what the Black Panthers were trying to do in the 70s, and for pretty much the same reasons.
To be fair, no all of us live in a shithole.
“The State would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the four officers who discharged their weapons were not justified in using deadly force,”
Shouldn’t that be up to a jury to decide?
As an autistic adult myself shit like this terrifies me.
Murder. No question. They had several ways to deescalate and preserve the lives of everyone and they maximized the probability of someone getting shot by rushing in, not assessing the situation, getting within feet of the suspect, not applying any non-lethal force, and not backing away when the suspect would’ve been stopped by a chainlink fence.
yeah but have you considered that they wanted to feel powerful?
it’s a crime to deny a cop their right to exercise that
A TV show where vampires are real, so the cops are all scared, but the public doesn’t know. The cops keep shooting people dead thinking they’re vampires (so to the viewer the force seems justified).
During the final few episodes, it becomes more obvious that the vampires were never real. They were just gossip.
One season long.
Show title: Harvest Season.
Sounds like American Horror Story material right there.
I think i know a dude in Nashville and another in Napa who’d be down so that’s four of us
