DANIEL TEPFER
Connecticut Post Online (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
BRIDGEPORT -- A city police officer who fatally shot a man following a pursuit last May was cleared of any wrongdoing Tuesday.
State’s Attorney Jonathan C. Benedict found that officer Jason Amato was justified in using deadly force in killing 24-year-old Jamar Marrow because the officer believed Marrow was in the process of running over Amato’s partner.
“It was clearly reasonable for Officer Amato to believe that his partner was being run over by an armed robber driving a large motor vehicle and that firing upon the operator was his only means to stop the vehicle,” the prosecutor said. “While the law requires that the officers belief needs only to be reasonable, and not necessarily correct, in this case, they were both.”
But Norman Pattis, the attorney for Marrow’s family, is highly critical of Benedict’s findings.
“So the fox found all was well in the chicken coop, big surprise,” Pattis said. “They killed this young man in cold blood.”
Pattis said he is preparing a lawsuit against the Police Department.
According to a State Police investigation, Marrow was shot twice in the left shoulder after driving at police on Black Rock Avenue in a Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle on May 3. One of the bullets pierced his heart and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The police report states that shortly before 10:30 that night Marrow, armed with a rifle, attempted to rob a city man at the intersection of Maple and Harriet streets. During a struggle, two shots were fired into the ground and after wresting the rifle away, Marrow drove off in the SUV.
Responding to the robbery call, officers Amato and James Borrico chased the Ford through the city before the SUV finally crashed into a parked car on Black Rock Avenue. The report states the officers parked their car perpendicular to the driver’s side door of the Ford, and then approached the SUV. The report states Marrow then suddenly put it in reverse.
Amato, thinking that his partner had been struck and was being run over, yelled “stop” and fired four rounds at Marrow. The SUV proceeded a short distance in reverse before swerving off the road into a yard and coming to a final stop, tangled in a chain-link fence.
The report states that Borrico had leapt back from the Ford, but had been brushed hard by it, tearing his uniform and knocking him to his knees. Hearing shots, Borrico thought they were being fired from the Ford, and fired a number of shots at it, but none apparently hit Marrow.
While state police interviewed 20 residents who said they saw portions of the incident, only two actually saw a police officer fire a gun.