Ohio officer won’t face charges after shooting a Black man firing celebratory gunshots in his backyard on New Year’s Day
An Ohio officer who shot a Black man firing celebratory gunshots in his backyard on New Year’s Day won’t face charges. A internal review of the incident by a panel of Canton’s top law enforcement officials and the city attorney came to the conclusion that officer Robert Huber acted according to the police department’s policies.
Body-camera footage of the shooting shows Huber shooting gunfire through a wooden fence at the James Williams’ residence. Huber was responding to a call about gunshots in the area when he spotted Williams in his backyard. The man’s family said he was firing his Ruger AR-556 rifle in the air minutes after midnight to celebrate the New Year.
After shooting multiple rounds into the fence, Huber announces himself, the video shows. Williams’ wife and five children could be heard yelling.
“My husband’s been shot,” a woman standing on the house’s front porch yells to Huber.
“He’s the one shooting the gun,” Huber shouts back.
The woman tells the police officer that she does not have a gun, and he orders everyone out of the house. Williams’ wife calls the children out of the house before asking the officers to get help for her husband.
“Y’all not moving fast enough. He’s in here bleeding out,” she said.
Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner Dr. Erica Armstrong said in her report that Williams suffered gunshot wounds to multiple vital organs due to six gunshots.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation investigated the shooting. Huber told investigators that he automatically responded to the gunfire, the investigation report shows.
The police officer says he didn’t believe it was “celebratory gunfire” because it was in an urban and populated area and “to shoot, 40, 50, 60, I don’t even know how many rounds he was able to even fire, is one thing. That’s, in my opinion, you can’t do that. The risk to the public is so astronomical at that point in time that there’s no legal, there’s no sensible way to even try to justify it.”
A Stark County grand jury last month decided that Huber was justified in his response.
Stark County Prosecutor Kyle Stone said on Sept. 7 that he presented a “wide range of charges” to jurors. Stone did not have the authority to go after felony charges against the officer without the proceeding, he added.
Canton’s Mayor Thomas Bernabei announced last week that the city’s use-of-force review board decided that the officer’s actions did not require him being charged. Huber came back to the job 16 days after the shooting, according to Williams’ family. The family has since filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city in March. Bernabei offered his prayers to Williams’ family in a news release.
“Officer Huber, who was doing his job on patrol on Jan. 1, was placed in extraordinarily challenging split-second decision circumstances and acted through his training to confront and not walk away from an ‘active shooter’ incident and must now live with the trauma of this incident,” Bernabei said.
The review board unanimously agreed that Huber “could have reasonably believed there was an imminent danger of serious physical injury or death to himself and acted reasonably in that regard,” according to its final report.
Police Chief John Gabbard said the officer was responding to an “active shooter.”
“Training in the engagement of active shooters has developed and evolved into standard practice in law enforcement,” Gabbard said in a recent memorandum. “From every tragic incident across the country, lessons are learned and applied to that ever-improving training.
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