Did NC cop shoot to protect himself or police SUV? It could decide a lawsuit, expert says
Did Concord police Officer Timothy Larson fatally shoot an unarmed man in February to save himself or his SUV?
According to investigators and a court document, Larson used both answers to justify using deadly force against Brandon Combs on Feb. 13.
Which of the two is true could determine in a looming court case whether the shooting was legally justified or not, says Philip Stinson, a national expert on police crime, who watched a two-minute video of the deadly confrontation at the request of The Charlotte Observer.
North Carolina law allows the use of deadly force by police if officers have a reasonable belief of imminent threat of death to themselves or others.
Departing Cabarrus County District Attorney Roxaan Vaneekhoven already has announced she will not bring criminal charges against Larson, who was terminated by his department two months after he opened fire on Combs while the 29-year-old Gastonia man was sitting behind the wheel of the idling police vehicle.
But Larson, along with the City of Concord, faces civil claims in a federal lawsuit filed by Combs’ mother. If that case makes it to court, Larson’s motives for the shooting — as well as the acknowledgment by his police chief that Larson was fired in May for giving untruthful answers about the incident to investigators — will be thoroughly examined in front of a jury.
Police video released Wednesday by a judge to WSOC, the Observer’s news partner, shows Larson firing five times at Combs through the SUV’s windshield, briefly stopping to call in the shooting to his department, then firing one last shot.
Combs died later that morning at a Concord hospital. An autopsy found he hat been hit with five bullets.
In a statement released Wednesday only days before her retirement, Vaneekhoven said her investigation had concluded that Larson appropriately used deadly force because he faced the “imminent danger of death” in two ways: from being in the path of the “fully revved” SUV, which could have run him over and because the police vehicle carried an assault weapon that was within Combs’ reach.
Based on the law and the facts of the case, the sequence of Larson’s shots, including the sixth bullet fired after calling his department, was irrelevant, Vaneekhoven concluded. “Officer Larson did not use excessive force,” she wrote.
Officer’s safety or police vehicle?
However, the lawsuit by Combs’ mother offers another possible motive for the shooting. In a segment of police video not yet released to the public, Larson told fellow officers at the Nissan dealership that he fired on Combs, not out of fear for his safety, but because Combs was attempting to steal his car, the lawsuit claims.
If true, according to Stinson, a Bowling Green State University criminologist and former police officer, that admission could eliminate the legal basis for Larson’s use of deadly force.
“If the officer accidentally told the truth and in fact shot him to keep him from stealing his car, that is not a legally justified shooting because (car theft) in and of itself does not create an imminent threat,” Stinson said.
In addition, Larson largely “created the threat” to his own life by taking the position on the front right flank of the car, Stinson said. “All he has to do is step aside.”
He also questioned the level of danger posed by the AR-15 assault rifle stored in the SUV since it was secured by both a button and latch, which likely would have been unfamiliar to a civilian attempting to release the weapon.
Stinson also cast doubt on a section from Vaneekhoven’s statement, in which she quotes Larson as claiming he saw Combs “looking down in the direction of the release button” on the rifle.
“I don’t believe that for a minute. He did not have enough time to focus on that,” Stinson said, adding that police officers frequently attempt “to control the narrative of a shooting to justify what they did.”
In a statement released after Vaneekhoven announced her decision, the attorneys for Combs’ mother accused the the veteran prosecutor of ignoring the video evidence that Larson had committed a crime.
“District Attorney Vaneekhoven thinks that kind of brutality, disregard for human life and contempt for the rule of law is just fine if you wear a badge,” the lawyers said.
Stinson, however, said the DA had “not abused her prosecutorial discretion” because she had to base her decision largely on one witness — Larson — and one video.
“In my view, it’s a tough call, but I believe you can make the case in this instance that a reasonable officer could reasonably perceive an imminent threat,” Stinson said, adding: “This is the kind of thing prosecutors agonize over. There’s no easy answer here.”
Concord police chief’s remarks
Normally, police departments cheer decisions exonerating their officers. But in a remarkable public response to Vaneekhoven’s announcement, Concord police Chief Gary Gacek first dwelled on how “This tragedy has caused enormous grief for the Combs’ family, and we continue to extend our deepest condolences ...”
While Gacek said he respected Vaneekhoven’s decision and the independent investigation that proceeded it, the chief wrote at length on how Larson had been the subject of an internal police investigation following the shooting in which “he repeatedly made false statements, and he refused to cooperate with our review.”
“Because I hold our officers to the highest standards, I fired him for that,” Gacek said in his Wednesday.
Personnel files obtained by the Observer indicate Larson’s misstatements pertained to events that occurred hours before the shooting and not the shooting itself.
In Larson’s termination letter, Gacek also accused his officer of giving untruthful answers during a Feb. 25 interview about the shooting with the State Bureau of Investigation.
Larson did not respond to a phone call Friday seeking comment. Concord attorney Chris McCartan, who has represented Larson the past, did not respond to an Observer email that same day.
