By Brendan McCarthy
Times-Picayune
NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Police Department has concluded its criminal investigation into the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man on New Year’s Day and cleared all nine members of the unit involved.
The officers had been reassigned to administrative desk duty and stripped of certain benefits during the investigation. Its conclusion clears the way for them to return to police work full time, according to the NOPD.
Though the NOPD case is closed, an FBI civil rights investigation into the shooting of Adolph Grimes III is ongoing, according to agency spokeswoman Sheila Thorne. Grimes was shot 14 times by police following an early-morning encounter with officers in the 6th Ward.
Police Superintendent Warren Riley did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. The NOPD issued a two-paragraph news release on the matter Tuesday evening after receiving inquiries from The Times-Picayune.
The recent receipt of lab tests for gunshot residue taken from Grimes’ body, clothes and vehicle was a key factor in wrapping up the investigation. Those tests recently came back positive, meaning that Grimes had fired his gun, according to police sources and the attorney representing the officers.
Grimes was killed by a plainclothes police unit that was trying to thwart armed robberies in the area before they occurred. Police said that as officers approached Grimes they identified themselves, and that Grimes pulled a handgun and fired. Seven officers responded with a volley of gunfire. In all, more than 60 bullets were fired, sources said.
Grimes’ family and their attorney have disputed the police account and questioned whether the officers properly identified themselves. They have said it’s likely Grimes didn’t know they were officers, and that if he fired first, it’s because he feared for his safety at 3 a.m. in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
The unit included Lt. Joseph Meisch, Sgt. Daniel Scanlan and Officers Julio Alonzo, Larissa Austin, Regina Barr, Collette Booth, Steven Keller, Marcellus White and Gregory Lapin. Split into two vehicles, the group was looking for a vehicle seen speeding away from a site of alleged gunfire in the 6th Ward.
Some of the officers in the unit have racked up numerous complaints of excessive force in their careers, though their files also include several commendations.
Five plainclothes officers pulled up near Grimes as he sat in a dark-colored vehicle in the 1700 block of Gov. Nicholls Street. The officers, in an unmarked Ford Expedition, illuminated a blue emergency light, thus “visually identifying” themselves as officers, according to the police report of the incident.
Immediately, the report states, Grimes turned off the interior light of his car, “appearing to acknowledge the officers’ presence.”
When an officer in the rear passenger seat of the SUV shined a flashlight on Grimes, the officer saw him raise a gun, the report states.
Grimes allegedly pointed his gun several times at officers, including when he was in the car and as he fled, according to the report. As he ran toward a second unmarked police car that arrived at the scene, he raised his gun again, the report says, and the officers in the second vehicle fired their weapons, the report states.
Grimes collapsed about 40 paces from his parked car. After he fell, the report states, an officer removed a black 9 mm handgun from his hand. Another officer immediately handcuffed him. Nine of the 14 gunshot wounds struck Grimes in the back of his body, according to the coroner.
Within three minutes of police first pulling up to Grimes’ car, he was dead.
Grimes, a Brother Martin graduate who was displaced to Houston following Hurricane Katrina, had driven a rental car to the city hours before his death to celebrate the New Year’s holiday with family.
In the days after the controversial shooting, police officials questioned Grimes’ motives that night, saying he not only had a handgun in his possession but also kept a shotgun and a magazine of bullets in his car. His family has said the weapons were legal, a point confirmed by police sources.
Riley met with reassigned officers as a group last week and told them the criminal case was being closed, according to police sources. The investigative file was presented to District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office in mid-April, but the office opted to hold off on moving forward until a federal inquiry is complete, according to the NOPD.
Though the officers have been cleared, they are still assigned to nonpatrol, administrative positions, said NOPD spokesman Bob Young. They are allowed to wear their uniforms and work outside normal business hours. They are still not allowed to work off-duty private details, Young said.
They will have full benefits and be allowed to work on street patrols once the federal investigation ends, according to Young.
Eric Hessler, an attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police and several of the reassigned officers, called the NOPD’s move a step in the right direction.
“They have been cleared,” he said. “They are now back to work, being productive officers. They are all happy to be back.”
Hessler said he is not concerned with the federal inquiry. “I actually welcome it; it’ll have the same results,” he said.
Grimes’ father, Adolph Grimes Jr., called Riley a “coward,” saying the chief would not take his calls. He called the investigation a whitewash.
“I understand the NOPD takes care of its own,” he said, adding that he has faith in the federal investigation.
Robert Jenkins, an attorney representing the Grimes family in a federal civil suit, criticized the police for conducting “an investigation in the dark” and not releasing more detailed findings.
Copyright 2009 Times-Picayune