By Rebecca S Green
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
FORT WAYNE, Indiana — Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards will not file charges in the December shooting of Yahree Cavin by Fort Wayne police officers.
Cavin, 23, was fatally shot by police inside a duplex at 2020 S. Harrison St. on Dec. 20.
Prosecutors found that the officer involved in the shooting was justified in using deadly force against Cavin, according to a statement issued Tuesday.
Police were called to the duplex where Cavin lived after he approached two men working on the building with what appeared to be a handgun.
It was a replica gun, made to look like a semiautomatic handgun, according to police.
When five officers, including a supervisor, arrived to talk to Cavin, he answered the door holding the fake gun and refused to put it down. When he raised the gun at officers, one shot him with a Taser, and Sgt. Mark Dolezal shot him with his gun.
Cavin was taken to a hospital in critical condition, where he later died.
Fort Wayne Police Chief Rusty York did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday afternoon.
In 2008, Cavin sued the city of Chicago and a number of Chicago police officers alleging violations of his constitutional rights.
According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Cavin was eating at a McDonald’s restaurant in November 2005 when it was robbed.
While the employees were ordered into the back office, Cavin remained in the front, where he remained until police arrived.
Cavin alleged that when he tried to tell police what he had witnessed, they instead arrested him for armed robbery, in spite of the pleas of the employees that he was not the person who robbed them, according to court documents.
The robber was never caught, but a then-18-year-old Cavin was detained for two years for the crime until the state’s attorney dismissed the charges against him. While in jail, Cavin contracted tuberculosis and missed the last half of his senior year in high school, according to court documents.
The city of Chicago and the officers denied Cavin’s claims, saying the officers made the decision to arrest him based on the information available to them at the time and were acting in their duties as police officers.
The case is pending and set for a hearing this month, though the court is aware of Cavin’s death, according to court documents.
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