By Joel Currier
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis police sergeant acted in self-defense when he shot and killed an armed robber in January at a fast-food restaurant on South Grand, according to Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce.
Joyce on Monday released her office’s report on the Jan. 17 shooting of Crayton “Big Wes” West, 52, who was killed by a St. Louis police sergeant who confronted West inside the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Grand Boulevard near Gravois Avenue. West pointed a gun at the officer and refused to drop the weapon, police said at the time.
“The officer did not have time for an alternative method of force or opportunity for de-escalation,” Joyce’s report said, and evidence and witnesses corroborated the sergeant’s account of the shooting. She said she will not file charges in the case.
Police identified the officer Monday as Sgt. Michael Pratt, who has been on the force for more than 13 years.
Joyce’s findings are based on an investigation by the department’s Force Investigative Unit and interviews with several witnesses. The report says Pratt would not be interviewed by prosecutors based on advice from his lawyer.
A Robbery, Then a Shooting
The report includes a surveillance video clip that shows a man identified as West robbing a KFC clerk at gunpoint and grabbing money from the cash register.
A customer in the drive-thru who saw the robbery called 911 and flagged down the police sergeant at a gas station across the street to report the holdup, Joyce’s report says. Pratt parked in the KFC lot, got out and saw West inside, near the door. Pratt told investigators he believed West saw his patrol car as he was trying to leave and retreated back inside the restaurant.
Joyce’s report says that during the confrontation between the officer and West, West told the officer the robber was in the back of the restaurant. Witnesses and workers, however, contradicted West’s claim and told the officer that West was the robber.
The sergeant drew his gun, yelled at West to show his hands and yelled, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” as he saw West pulling a gun from his waistband, according to the report. The sergeant fired twice, hitting West once in the chest and once in the back.
Police found a loaded .38-caliber revolver at the scene, according to the report. Police also found fingerprints that matched West from the restaurant countertop, cash taken from the register, and the floor.
A second video shows West try to leave the restaurant before a uniformed officer confronts him at the exit. The officer draws his weapon and appears to fire and West falls to the ground.
A diner in the restaurant dives to the floor. Another officer arrives within seconds.
There were several customers and workers in the restaurant at the time of the 6 p.m. shooting, some of whom saw West with a gun. Some employees hid in a freezer during the robbery.
The sergeant was 42 at the time of the shooting. He was not hurt. He was not wearing a body camera at the time, though some sergeants had begun participating in a pilot body camera program.
Police Chief Sam Dotson responded to the report with a statement Monday, saying: “We appreciate the community’s patience as these investigations are complex and require a great amount of time and resources to examine the facts in totality. We are thankful for the cooperation of witnesses as they provided the insight investigators and prosecutors needed to arrive at their conclusion.”
History of Robberies
West was on Missouri’s sex offender registry for a July 1980 robbery in which he sodomized a boy, 16. West was 18 at the time.
Court records and Post-Dispatch news stories from 1987 show that West was sentenced to 60 years in prison for a string of fast-food restaurant robberies in St. Louis.
He used a cap pistol to rob seven restaurants over a 10-day stretch in October 1986.
After he was caught, he told police he had robbed the restaurants to pay his utility bills and meet his car payments, according to a Post-Dispatch article. People had been threatened in some of the fast-food holdups, but no one was hurt.
Pratt had been monitoring a march in memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before the shooting. The shooting drew some protesters from the memorial, where Black Lives Matter activists decried fatal police shootings. West was black. The police sergeant is white.
Copyright 2016 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch