A Longmont, Colorado, police officer shot Dariss Yearby, a 20-year-old Black man, once on Aug. 10. Yearby was unarmed, and no one will be charged.
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty announced Thursday that Officer Joshua Barry was “legally justified in using deadly force.” In his decision letter, Dougherty wrote that “no criminal charges can or should be filed against the officers who rushed to the scene.” The Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership, a Black advocacy group, has asked Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to review the case.
The group’s argument is that a finding of legal justification ends the criminal question and leaves the other one open: whether the force was necessary. Founder MiDian Shofner said in the request that “a legal justification for deadly force cannot become a substitute for examining whether that force was necessary, whether alternatives were available.”
What the DA found
Longmont officers were called to a home on Bluebird Drive at about 2:35 p.m. after a 911 call reporting that Yearby had threatened a woman. According to the DA’s account, officers found him holding her in a headlock with one hand inside a backpack pointed at her head. He told them he had a gun. The woman told officers he did not.
Officers ordered him to drop what he was holding. He did not, and Barry fired once. No firearm was found. Neither the woman nor any officer was hurt.
What the group says the letter leaves out
The group says two other officers had holstered their guns and drawn Tasers moments before Barry shot. It argues those choices are evidence in their own right. “When multiple officers are responding to the same encounter, and officers with greater opportunity to observe the unfolding circumstances elect to pursue less-lethal intervention, their decisions become relevant evidence in evaluating the necessity, proportionality, and objective reasonableness of another officer’s use of deadly force,” the group wrote.
The request also points to how fast it happened: the shooting came within 28 seconds of Barry entering the home. It says the DA’s letter does not make clear whether Barry knew beforehand that Yearby was suicidal.
Yearby’s mother, Christine Ware, spoke to the Longmont City Council about her son. “Dariss was my oldest child, my first son, who showed me what love really was,” she said.
Weiser’s office has not said whether it will take up the request.
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