No criminal charges will be filed in the shooting death of Brian Garber, a Lexington resident, announced Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty Friday at a press conference at the Richland County Courthouse.
“The three Richland County Sheriff’s Deputies who shot 28-year-old Brian Garber to death were justified in their use of deadly force and will not face criminal charges,” McGinty said.
In this case, McGinty said, special prosecutors concluded that deputies acted reasonably under the circumstances.
The Garber family left the courtroom Friday shortly after it was announced that no criminal charges would be filed in the shooting.
“It was clearly one sided,” Connie Garber, Garber’s mother, said angrily after the press conference. “They didn’t present the evidence that they should have.”
Connie Garber said she feels the deputies got away with murder. She said the next step in her continued fight for justice is joining with Brian’s wife, Sarah Knowlton, to file a civil suit.
“They have no sympathy for me at all and said my son was suicidal,” she said.
Garber was killed by Richland County Sheriff’s Deputies, Raymond Frazier, Andrew Knee and Sgt. James Nicholson, in his parent’s upstairs bedroom. Brian Garber stated he had a gun and refused to show his hands to police, according to McGinty’s report concerning the officer-involved shooting.
Prosecutor McGinty’s office was appointed by the Richland County Common Pleas Court in September to review the case. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation handled the investigation in the officer-involved shooting to avoid any conflicts of interest. Garber’s body remained on the crime scene for around eight hours because crime technicians were coming from another area of the state, the report said.
“After hearing the evidence, the grand jury voted to no-bill a series of potential charges and the investigation is now closed,” McGinty said.
Garber was shot and killed by the Sheriff’s deputies on March 16, 2014 after two domestic violence calls to his parent’s home at 3400 Mill Run Road, Lexington.
“Based on the evidence uncovered during the investigation, there is also a reasonable possibility that Deputy Frazier fired his gun first in response to a sudden movement by Brian Garber with the object hidden under his shirt,” Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Meyer said. “Deputy Frazier unwisely put himself directly in the line of fire with no tactical cover.”
The autopsy of Garber’s body showed 14 bullet entrance wounds and six exit wounds.
Deputies had been called to Brian Garber’s wife’s (Sara Knowlton) home, on a domestic violence call, at 3425 Mill Run Road, which is across the street from his parent’s home. Connie Garber placed a frantic 911 call, according to the report. “We got a nut here, get the cops,” she reportedly said on the call.
Deputies then left and were called to come back to the home a second time because, according to Sara Knowlton’s second 911 call, Brian was “beating his mother and strangling me.” Both women filled out a domestic violence packet to have charges filed against Garber. Sara Knowlton also called 911 again to tell dispatchers that Brian had just texted her to say he had a gun. “Just so you know I have a gun now too…so don’t (F) with me!!!!,” the text message read.
Upon entering Connie and Matthew Garber’s home, deputies found Garber sitting in an upstairs bedroom where he refused to show his hands and “immediately stated he had a gun,” the report said.
“At that point, even before they encountered Brian Garber in his bedroom, all of the deputies on the scene had an objectively reasonable belief that they were about to encounter a violent individual who was likely high on drugs, who had previously assaulted his mother and wife, and who now had armed himself with a gun,” said James Gutierrez, Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.
It was determined that Brian Garber did not have a gun but, “all three deputies saw a rectangular-shaped object under his shirt,” the report said.
The determination of whether police used excessive force is governed by a federal constitutional standard set forth by the United States Supreme Court. All claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force are analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its ‘reasonableness standard,’ McGinty said.
“Police can only use deadly force in making an arrest where the police have probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of death or serious bodily harm to the police or to the public,” he said. “What is a reasonable belief in light of the officer’s perceptions could also be a mistaken belief, and the fact that it turned out to be mistaken does not detract from its reasonableness when considered with the factual context and compressed time frame of his decision to act.”
Investigators concluded that Garber’s statements and actions prior to the encounter with the deputies, as well as his refusal to follow police commands to show his hands and his brandishing of an object he claimed was a gun, demonstrated a significant likelihood that Garber intended to provoke the deputies’ use of deadly force.
“With the benefit of hindsight, it is possible that this incident could have been handled differently,” the report said. “Nevertheless, the law provides a clear standard to analyze police officers’ use of deadly force.”
Statement from Richland County Sheriff Steve Sheldon is shared as a related story, and a redacted version of the BCI’s report is available at prosecutor.cuyahogacounty.us
Twitter: @angelnichole222
