The New York State Attorney General’s office has released a report on the death of a man who died during a struggle with law enforcement last September.
State Attorney General Letitia James released the report from her Office of Special Investigation on the death of Dedrick James. He’s the 24-year-old Rochester man who the U.S. Marshals Service Task Force was trying to apprehend when they say he was shot by his own gun during a struggle with law enforcement on September 15, 2021.
The AG’s report released on Friday concluded that James died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.
The marshals' task force was trying to serve an arrest warrant on James at the time, after State Police had begun an investigation into injuries suffered by Dedrick James’ two-year-old son.
Authorities caught up with James at his grandmother’s house. They told the AG an officer tried to restrain James in a bear hug, and that James had a gun in his hand which he pointed at the officer’s head. There was a brief struggle, and officials say the gun went off, striking James in the chest.
The report from the Attorney General determined a prosecutor would not be able to disprove that the officers’ actions were justified. The report said that none of the officers at the scene had fired their guns.
But the AG did note that at the time of the incident, the U.S. Justice Department had recently changed its policy to permit the Marshal’s task force members to wear body-worn cameras, but full implementation had not occurred. The State AG urged that the U.S. Marshal’s task force and its member agencies take immediate action to outfit every officer with the body cams.
Local civil rights activist, Rev. Lewis Stewart of the United Christian Leadership Ministry issued a statement saying that his main concern is that no one outside of law enforcement knows what really happened in the death of Dedrick James.
Stewart also asked whether police could have tried to negotiate with James to have avoided the gunfire that led to his death.