No charges in Select Lounge shooting
Breaking news from Justin Fenton:
The four officers involved in the fatal shooting of a police officer and an unarmed 22-year-old man outside a downtown Baltimore club in January will not face criminal charges, the city state's attorney's office announced this afternoon.
Also cleared of wrongdoing is at least one civilian who got into an altercation with Officer William H. Torbit Jr., which is believed to have prompted the series of shootings that killed Torbit and bar patron Sean Gamble.
Investigators believed that Torbit shot and killed bar patron Sean Gamble in a struggle, and that the four uniformed officers returned fire unaware that Torbit was a fellow officer. Forty-one rounds were fired by the five officers, including Torbit.
Mayor's statement:
Today, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake released a statement on the charging decision made by the Baltimore City State’s Attorney in the police-involved shooting that occurred on January 9, 2011. The incident resulted in the death of police officer William Torbit, Jr., and Mr. Sean Gamble.
In February 2011, Mayor Rawlings-Blake appointed an independent panel of national law enforcement experts to review the incident and recommend changes to policies and procedures to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.
“This incident was a terrible and painful tragedy that we should never forget,” said Mayor Rawlings-Blake. “The independent review board that I established to review policies and procedures related to this incident has been working hard over the past several months, and I expect it to complete its work in the coming weeks and recommend changes to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
“Now that the State’s Attorney has made final charging decisions, Commissioner Bealefeld and I have asked the City Law Department to promptly review the investigative file and publicly release its contents as soon as possible.” said Mayor Rawlings-Blake.
The Independent Review Board will issue a written report in the coming weeks to Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Commissioner Bealefeld at the conclusion of its review that summarizes the steps it undertook to conduct the review, its findings and recommendations. The board was tasked to:
• Review the Baltimore Police Department’s investigation of the incident and its findings.
• Conduct a comprehensive review of the circumstances surrounding the events of January 9, 2011.
• Review the use of lethal force by officers of the Baltimore Police Department and determine whether or not the use of force was consistent with existing law and departmental policy.
• Review existing departmental policies and procedures and identify any policy violations that occurred.
• Identify best practices to improve BPD’s policies related to incident response and incident management. This assessment shall include, but not be limited to, the following issues:
o Identification of plain clothes officer
o Crowd control techniques in an urban setting
o Deployment and incident command in emergencies
o Judgmental shooting training
• Review Baltimore Police Department training practices related to use of force, crowd control and firearms training and make recommendations for improvement.
