On Friday, federal officials with the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, the FBI, and the US Justice Department’s civil rights division told the family of Jeremy McDole, the man killed by Wilmington police, that evidence does not indicate the officers willfully used excessive force in shooting McDole.
“The Justice Department announced today that there is insufficient evidence to pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against the Wilmington Police Department (WPD) Corporals involved in the fatal shooting of 28-year-old paraplegic Jeremy McDole on Sept. 23, 2015,” the US attorney’s office said in a release, according to the News Journal.
The encounter between police and McDole, 28, was caught on cellphone video by a witness, eliciting outrage in Wilmington and beyond. Police arrived on the scene after a 911 call claiming an African-American man in a wheelchair was suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In a lawsuit filed against the city of Wilmington, McDole’s family said that McDole was robbed of his wallet and then shot, and that the thief or an accomplice called police claiming a self-inflicted gunshot was to blame for McDole’s condition.
Three white police officers and one Hispanic officer — Senior Cpl. Joseph Dellose, Senior Cpl. Danny Silva, Cpl. Thomas Lynch and Cpl. James MacColl — approached McDole; one officer pointed a shotgun or rifle at him, yelling at McDole to “drop the gun” and to put his “hands up.” The video shows McDole rubbing his knees with both hands.
As McDole moved his hand toward his waist, Dellose shot him several times, as McDole fell sideways to the ground. Dellose had fired about two seconds after first calling on McDole to put his hands up.