A special prosecutor tasked with investigating the shooting death of Aaron Bailey — a 45-year-old Indianapolis man who was fatally shot by two police officers in June — has declined to file criminal charges against the officers involved.
According to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD), Bailey led officers in a pursuit on the city’s northwest side before crashing his vehicle in the early hours of June 29.
What transpired between the time of the crash and when officers Michael Dinnsen and Carlton Howard fired 11 shots into the rear and driver’s side of the car had remained a mystery until Tuesday, when Kenneth P. Cotter, prosecuting attorney of St. Joseph County, released a 16-page report detailing his decision to forgo indictments of the officers.
“Based upon the results of the investigation as outlined above,” the report concludes, “there is insufficient evidence to refute either the officer’s claim of subjective fear or the objective reasonableness of that fear.”
Cotter’s report explains that, in addition to receiving and reviewing IMPD’s investigation of the incident, he and his Chief Investigator David Newton conducted their own investigation, which included re-interviewing all witnesses in the case, scrutinizing IMPD’s training practices, investigating the histories of the officers involved and other facets. The investigation concluded on Oct. 26.
18 seconds
The prosecutor’s 16-page report walks readers step-by-step through the events of June 29, from the moment Howard first noticed Bailey’s Cadillac — at 1:30 a.m., parked at a gas pump with all four doors open and no occupants around — to the moment 28 minutes later when Dinnsen radioed dispatch to report a police-action shooting.
The report fills in the rest with statements from both officers; a statement from Shimeka Ward (also identified as Shiwanda Ward in parts of the report), who was in the car with Bailey throughout the whole ordeal; statements from two neighbors near the scene of the crash and subsequent shooting; a review of the officers’ radio and computer logs; and forensic evidence from the scene and from Bailey’s autopsy.
Twelve minutes after initially spotting Bailey’s car, Howard was approaching the gas station and saw the Cadillac at the parking lot’s exit. The officer says there was ample time for Bailey to pull out in front of the approaching officer, yet the Cadillac held back, waiting for Howard to pass before pulling out. Howard pulled over to let the Cadillac pass. The officer says he then saw the car change lanes without signaling. He “ran” the car’s plates and discovered the registered owner, Bailey, was listed as having a suspended license. A traffic stop was initiated.
Ward told investigators Bailey didn’t want to pull over at first, concerned that he’d be taken to jail because his GPS ankle monitor wasn’t working, but she convinced him to stop. Howard approached and asked for ID from both Bailey and Ward, but Ward says he did not explain why they’d been stopped. Howard says Bailey admitted to having a suspended license, but the officer assured him that it was “no big deal,” a fact confirmed by Ward. Howard and Ward both say Bailey grew increasingly nervous throughout the encounter.
Howard ran the two IDs through national and local databases, which identified Bailey as a suspect in multiple robberies and Ward as “being monitored” for a homicide. The database did not specify whether Ward was a suspect in the homicide, the report says. At that point, Dinnsen arrived at the scene, Howard asked Bailey to get out of the Cadillac “because he was suspended,” and Bailey rolled up the window and fled the scene. Ward says she begged Bailey to stop, but the chase ended only when the Cadillac crashed into a tree.
In the car, the airbags had deployed, and Ward says she was “stunned” and unable to see or hear.
Then she heard gunshots “and realized they … were being shot at by the police. She did not hear any commands by the officers,” the report says. “After the 1st shot, she believes there was a … delay, during which Mr. Bailey turned to her and said, ‘they shot me baby.’ At that point, she reached toward Mr. Bailey,” the report continues. Ward heard officers yell “get your hands up” and heard two more shots.
Outside the car, Howard had pulled up to the left and slightly behind Bailey’s car, and Dinnsen pulled up behind the Cadillac. “18 seconds later,” the report says, “Officer Dinnsen radioed … that there was a police action shooting.” When the shooting had concluded, Howard had fired six times, and Dinnsen had fired five times.
11 points
In the report, Cotter lays out 11 points to support his conclusion that the two officers’ use of deadly force was justified based on “an honest and reasonable belief of imminent death or great bodily injury,” noting that according to state law, the burden is on prosecutors to “disprove a claim of self-defense, beyond a reasonable doubt.” In other words, prosecutors have to be absolutely sure that the officers’ fears were “objectively unreasonable or insincere.”
The 11 points Cotter lists as relevant to evaluating the officers’ beliefs that they were in imminent danger are:
– Bailey’s unwillingness to cooperate with the original traffic stop and exit the vehicle;
-Bailey’s nervousness during the stop;
-Bailey’s “felonious” high-speed flight from the stop;
-That Bailey’s flight ended with a crash, not by Bailey’s own choice to stop;
-Howard’s knowledge that Bailey was a suspect in previous robberies;
-Howard’s knowledge that Ward was wanted in association with a homicide investigation;
-Bailey’s decision to turn toward the Cadillac’s center console after the crash;
-Bailey’s decision to open the center console;
-The officers’ inability to see Bailey’s hands, despite their instructions to show his hands;
-Ward’s decision to raise her hands, indicating the officers had issued the instruction;
-Bailey’s act of turning away from the console, rather than showing his hands.
Reliving the pain
The detailed report did little to assuage the pain and frustration of community members, some of whom organized a rally outside the City-County Building hours after Cotter’s decision was announced.
Indianapolis chef Chris Bass, who grew up riding on his father’s shoulders during civil rights marches in the South, said he was moved by the news that the officers would not be charged.
“I was laying at home and I heard on the news and that really touched me on my heart,” he said. “I don’t care how you put it, or what situation you want to categorize it as, that was purely murder.”
Bailey’s daughter, Erika, also attended the rally, where she expressed a feeling of defeat.
“I’m hurt. I’m confused. I just don’t understand,” she said. “This has been happening, and it’s going to keep on happening long as they let guys with badges back on the streets after they kill an innocent Black man.”
The frustration is real, but it’s not new, Kyra Harvey explained.
“I feel like every time you hear ‘no indictment,’ you just keep reliving the pain, and it just hurts like new all over again. I wasn’t surprised, but it still hurt the same way,” said Harvey, a member of Indy10, the local Black Lives Matter movement. “I heard it with Mike Brown, and with Eric Gardner and with Philando Castile … it still hurts the same every single time.”
Satchuel Cole, with DON’T SLEEP, took a leading role in organizing community actions on behalf of Bailey and his family. She had high hopes.
“I don’t want to say that I feel like a failure, but we failed. And I know that the odds were insurmountable for us … but you just keep hoping that this will be the case that breaks that wall that we can’t get past. But it’s not. It never is, and it feels like it never will be,” Cole said.
But despite their sadness, exhaustion, disappointment and everything else they’re carrying, many community leaders are prepared to press on.
Leah Humphrey, with Indy10, says the group’s focus will now fall on Bailey’s family and making sure they have everything they need to heal, such as resources for grief counseling.
Cole is already strategizing on ways to effect widespread reform within the city’s police department.
“Changing the culture within IMPD is huge, because that’s the only way we’re going to get changes,” Cole said.
And Brandon Randall, another member of DON’T SLEEP, has a particular call to action for his fellow white community members.
“White people need to step up. White people have been too quiet, too complicit when it comes to the Aaron Bailey case or any other incident of systemic racism and institutionalized violence,” he said. “White people need to get it together. … White silence is violence, so they need to start speaking the hell up.”
Tomorrow and beyond
The work isn’t done for investigators yet, either. Shortly after the shooting, IMPD Chief Bryan Roach asked the FBI to open a civil rights investigation into the case.
“I think they’re in the position that we are in, waiting for that information to come. But I think that’s still an open investigation,” Roach said Wednesday morning.
Within IMPD, a multi-faceted administrative review has been running parallel with the criminal investigation and will soon come to a conclusion.
“Internal affairs was running an investigation at the same time, which included compelled statements by the two officers involved in the shooting. Our training academy was also investigating the tactics and the training around the actions of the officers,” Roach explained.
Roach said all the investigative findings — from internal affairs, the training academy and the criminal investigation, including the 16-page prosecutor’s report — were sent Tuesday afternoon to the individuals on the firearms review board.
That review board is made up of the commander of the internal affairs division, the commander of the criminal investigations division (who is the board chair), the commander of the training academy, a lieutenant from the division of the officers — in this case, it’s the operations division — and a peer of the two officers, which is a person of the same rank as the officers.
Roach asked each member of the board to review the materials on their own and submit reports by 5 p.m. Nov. 2. The review board was then scheduled to meet Nov. 3 to discuss.
“At some point a decision will come to me. What that review board does is determines in compliance or out of compliance with training, policy and procedures,” Roach said, adding that he would then have three options: agree with the recommendation, disagree with the recommendation or send the report back to the board for revision.
“At some point, all my questions will be answered to the extent that they can be,” he said. “If there are any policy violations, the discipline that occurs is my responsibility. … I’m prepared to make that decision.”
Roach said if policy violations are found, his response could “run the gamut.” Since the shooting, the two involved officers have been working administrative duties.
“That status will change as soon as there’s a decision made,” the chief said. Should the officers return to their previous roles, they will undergo mental evaluations first, he added.
Beyond the scope of this case, Roach said IMPD has been taking steps to lessen the likelihood of similar situations in the future, specifically addressing implicit bias, which contributes to officers’ feelings of fear that can lead to lethal action. Roach said 15 IMPD command staff members and 15 community members have gone through implicit bias training, and all officers will go through the training in 2018.
“If we have an officer that’s fearful and we have someone that’s been pulled over that’s fearful, that’s a bad combination,” Roach said. “We have officers now (after participating in the implicit bias training) that feel like, ‘Wait a minute, everybody has these biases; the important part is that I’m not acting upon that.’ So that’s what we’re going to work toward.”
Read Prosecutor Cotter’s full 16-page report on indianapolisrecorder.com.
Ebony Marie Chappel contributed to this report.
Community reacts to the news
Reactions on social media were quick and heated.
If the criteria for police use of lethal force is fearing for their life, you’d expect the subject to at least be facing them. #AaronBailey
— S.E.B. MD (@ircrc) October 31, 2017
No indictment in the shooting of Aaron Bailey by IMPD officers Howard and Dinnsen. Not surprised, injustice is becoming the norm.
— #NaptownDontSleep (@DontSleepIND) October 31, 2017
There will be no indictment for the murder of #AaronBailey. Not surprised. Absolutely disgusted.
— victoria (@buttjovi) October 31, 2017
No indictment in the #AaronBailey case and we’re fed up. @Blklivesmatter @BLMChi @BLMHOU @BLMPhilly @BLMSacramento
— BLM INDY (@indy10people) October 31, 2017
Approximately 11 shots struck Aaron Bailey’s late-model Cadillac. Four of the shots resulted in fatal injury.
“> Approximately 11 shots struck Aaron Bailey’s late-model Cadillac. Four of the shots resulted in fatal injury.
