Feds Clear Kalamazoo Police Officer in Fatal Shooting of Black Man
Federal authorities say they did not find evidence of civil rights abuses in last fall's fatal shooting of a black man by a white Kalamazoo police sergeant. Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Chief Dan Weston said he received a letter Monday from the U.S. Department of Justice clearing Sgt. Stacey Geik of criminal wrongdoing in the Sept. 30 shooting death of John Gill. "We have concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes," a letter from Albert Moskowitz, chief of the criminal section of the Department of Justice's civil rights division, said of its review of the shooting. Prior investigations by the Department of Public Safety, City Attorney's Office and Kalamazoo County Prosecutor's Office found Geik, who was investigating a suspected arson at Gill's apartment, was justified in shooting Gill when Gill refused Geik's repeated orders to stop as Gill walked toward the officer and raised a cocked and loaded handgun. Gill's widow has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the city alleging the shooting was unjustified, an excessive use of force and an abuse of power. The Rev. Jerry McNeely, president of the Metropolitan Kalamazoo Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has criticized investigations of the shooting and said a coroner's report suggests to him that Gill was shot in the back. [
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