An officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old black man four times at his home will not be charged, Wayne County’s prosecutor said Wednesday.
Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced during a morning press conference that U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent Mitchell Quinn’s shooting of Terrance Kellom was justified.
A fugitive apprehension task force made up of Quinn and six other officers from local and federal agencies came to serve two arrest warrants for Kellom, a suspect in the armed robbery of a pizza delivery man, on the afternoon of April 27.
Officers and Kellom’s father, Kevin Kellom, offer conflicting accounts of what happened during the attempted arrest. Quinn said Terrance Kellom advanced on him, holding a hammer, despite orders to stop, and he shot in self-defense while moving backwards. Kevin Kellom has said Terrance was unarmed and not resisting when he was shot multiple times.
Worthy acknowledged the swell of community concern and anger over the young black man’s death but noted inconsistencies in Kevin Kellom’s statements and stressed that the evidence they reviewed verified Quinn’s account.
“Yes, black lives matter,” she said. “Of course they matter. But you know what else matters? Credible facts matter, supportable evidence matters, probable evidence matters, doing justice matters and the truth matters.”
She described in detail the evidence her office collected and considered during its investigation — including interviews with 17 people and Michigan State Police analyses of bullet trajectories, paint, blood spatter, fingerprints, trace evidence, DNA and blood — before concluding that Quinn’s account was factual.
After Worthy’s announcement, Kellom family attorney Karri Mitchell and police brutality activist Ron Scott chalked up any inconsistencies in Kevin Kellom’s account to a traumatized father misremembering details and officers’ incorrect accounts.
“That’s what trials are for,” Scott said. “You always have inconsistencies.”
“My son was assassinated in [front of] my face. I will never forget that day,” Kellom said.
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SOURCE: Kate Abbey-Lambertz
The Huffington Post
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