The Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office said Thursday it would not criminally charge the officer who made headlines earlier this summer for pressing his handgun against the head of a 24-year-old during a May arrest.
James Bentley, a spokesman for State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, said the office had reviewed the case and will not be proceeding with any charges against the man who was arrested, Jaemaun Joyner, or the officers involved.
Bates had a conflict in the case and was not part of that decision, Bentley said. The state’s attorney previously worked with Tony Garcia, one of Joyner’s attorneys.
Joyner already had seen his charges dismissed in July, shortly after his attorneys received body camera footage of that arrest. Prosecutors at that time told The Baltimore Sun they were dismissed for “further investigation” and said the matter was “currently under review” when asked about officer actions during the arrest.
In the footage, which Joyner’s attorneys shared with The Baltimore Sun, four police officers tackle him to the ground when he attempts to flee from being handcuffed. While on the ground, officers restrain him by holding his arms, putting their hands on his neck and a knee on his sternum. Toward the end of the video, a fifth officer presses his firearm to Joyner’s head for more than five seconds.
Defense attorneys identified that officer as Detective Connor Johnson.
“To not charge this officer — it’s a shame. It’s wrong,” said Garcia, one of Joyner’s attorneys. “The officer put a gun to a man’s head, under the color of doing his job. To allow that to take place, without accountability, without consequence, gives a bad message to the citizens of Baltimore and to other officers who feel they can get away with brutalizing the citizens of Baltimore.”
It’s possible the officer and others on scene could still face internal discipline. A police department spokeswoman, Lindsey Eldridge, said in July there was an internal investigation and that no officers had been suspended; she said Thursday that was still the case.
Garcia said he had not been contacted by Baltimore Police investigators. He doesn’t believe investigators have interviewed any witnesses or Joyner himself.
“Obviously, his opinion is valueless,” Garcia said.
In July after Joyner’s attorneys shared the video publicly, Police Commissioner Richard Worley defended the officer’s actions, saying he was “out there doing his job” and suggesting the officer was fighting for his life.”
But attorneys for Joyner pushed back against that characterization, arguing it was “excessive” and “unacceptable.” In a July interview, Garcia held up a screenshot of the body camera footage, showing officers’ hands on Joyner’s stomach and throat, and a gun to his temple.
“I don’t see an officer fighting for his life,” he told The Sun. “I see an officer inflicting a mark of fear.”
In the aftermath of the footage’s release by Joyner’s attorneys, reactions varied.
Leaders of Baltimore’s Police Accountability Board called for the detective who pressed his firearm to Joyner’s temple to be suspended. The chair of the board, Joshua Harris, said he didn’t believe it would be part of an officer’s training to “point a gun at point-blank range at the temple of an already subdued subject.”
The police union representing Baltimore Police officers, however, pushed back against criticisms of the actions. Fraternal Order of Police President Mike Mancuso said in a statement that “until you are in a situation where you are fighting for your life I think it’s best not to second guess.”
“I have been in this very same position many times when the suspect was able to free their hand(s). Then it’s life and death as the cops and suspect fight for control of the gun,” he said.
Mancuso did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Ian Adams, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said officers are typically given “quite a bit” of discretion when there is a gun involved in a physical struggle.
He agreed that the officer pressing his weapon against Joyner’s temple looked aggressive and could prompt concerns about the possibility of an accidental discharge. But, he said, that proximity did give him the ability to “react quickly enough” if he needed to use it.
Ashley Heiberger, a retired police captain from Pennsylvania, who works as a consultant and expert witness specializing in use of force, meanwhile, said he understood why the community was angry about the video, but that officers in this circumstance may have been permitted to display the threat of deadly force.