Citing insufficient evidence, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday that a U.S Park Police officer who climbed into a vehicle he suspected might be stolen and fatally shot a 17-year-old in the driver’s seat will not face charges. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in a statement said the decision not to charge the unidentified officer in the 2023 death of the driver, Dalaneo Martin, followed a “careful, thorough and independent review” of materials that determined the office could not prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that the United States Park Police Officer is criminally liable for Mr. Martin’s death,” the Washington Post reports. Martin’s death caused an outcry among his family members and community leaders who questioned the policing tactics captured on body-camera footage, which the U.S. attorney’s office characterized as “extremely upsetting” in a release last year.
The video, compiled from four body-worn cameras into a roughly 11-minute video and released to the public, shows officers strategizing over how best to take Martin into custody as he sat, apparently asleep, in the front seat with the engine running in the Northeast Washington neighborhood of D.C. When officers enter the vehicle, he appears to startle and hits the accelerator. Ultimately, one officer draws his gun fires five shots at Martin’s back, the footage shows. At the time of the shooting, Martin’s family said they believe he was frightened and panicked. “This decision is deeply troubling and sends a disturbing message to our community that it is okay for officers to use deadly force against children in the community,” Andrew O. Clarke, one of the Martin family’s attorneys, said in a statement Thursday. “Dalaneo was never posed a direct threat to the officer’s safety or to others in the vicinity. Yet, seconds later, he paid the ultimate price in an encounter that never should have ended in the use of lethal force.”
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