(WCPO) The Justice Department says it won’t bring federal charges against a white police officer who killed a black shopper carrying an air rifle in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio, in 2014.
The case involved a 22-year-old Fairfield man, John Crawford III, who had taken a BB/pellet gun off a store shelf. A 911 caller reported that a man was pointing a gun at customers, and police charged into the store. Store surveillance video shows that Officer Sean Williams shot Crawford.
In a joint statement Tuesday, the DOJ Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern Ohio said evidence from their investigation was “insufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Officer Williams violated [Crawford’s] federal civil rights.”
