Two narcotics officers with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee will not face any criminal charges after fatally shooting a man they were trying to detain in a drug case.
The two officers shot and killed Bryan Gregory, 34, on Jan. 17 as he was seated in a parked car on Decatur Street, according to a news release from Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich.
According to the release, Gregory was the target of a narcotics investigation, and officers also had a search warrant for his residence.
When two sheriff’s vehicles boxed in Gregory’s car, police said he put his car in reverse and rammed into one officer’s vehicle.
As an officer was attempting to remove him from the vehicle, the officer fired his weapon, striking Gregory in the right shoulder and chest.
Gregory died later at a hospital.
Police found a gun on the driver’s side floorboard, and they also found money and marijuana inside the vehicle.
According to officials, the second officer “accidentally discharged his weapon from the passenger side.” The bullet went through the suspect’s vehicle and out the driver’s side door.
“Officers had their weapons drawn and repeatedly commanded the suspects to ‘Show me your hands,’” Weirich said in a recent letter to then-Sheriff Bill Oldham. “(The passenger) complied. Gregory did not, but instead fumbled with a bag in his lap and then reached down for a handgun beneath the driver’s seat.”
Weirich said that an officer charged with using deadly force "does not need to prove that he or she was justified in using such force, but instead the prosecution would have to prove that the deadly force was not justified."
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