Mount Horeb shooting incident; officers clear of criminal liability
MOUNT HOREB, Wis. - The Dane County District Attorney's Office on Monday, Aug. 12 announced "there is no potential criminal court liability for Village of Mount Horeb police officers involved in the shooting incident" on May 1.
In that incident, a 911 caller indicated they saw a person walking past their home wearing a backpack and carrying a gun. A news release says dispatch "informed Mount Horeb officers that a person with a gun was seen by the tennis courts near the tree line, which is east of the middle school. A Mount Horeb police officer was in his squad driving through the parking lot behind the high school heading towards E. Garfield Street in the direction of the middle school. As the officer approached E. Garfield Street he saw a large number of students sprinting from a door at the middle school toward the baseball field. These students were not smiling or goofing around, but instead appeared to be in fear and running for their lives."
Officials said as the officer exited the parking lot turning right onto E. Garfield Street he spotted an individual, with "what appeared to be a rifle, pulling on a door of the middle school. The officer indicated the subject was wearing an oversized green jacket and tattered pants." The subject appeared to be an adolescent, but the officer couldn’t tell if the subject was male or female. That person also had what appeared to be a black rifle with a synthetic stock, black barrel.
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The officer immediately began to yell commands to the subject to drop the rifle and to move away from the school. The subject did not comply with the demands to drop the rifle and instead turned to pull on the door of the school again. When the subject began walking toward the officer, h"he pointed the rifle toward the officer," the news release says. The officer fired one to two shots at the subject.
Active shooter situation in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin
More shots were fired from where other squads were parked. Then, "the subject flinched, appearing to have been hit in the back or on the side. The subject then fell." The release says when the subject got up from the ground again, more shots were fired and the subject fell to the ground again.
When officers approached the subject, they removed the rifle – and handcuffed the subject, who was later determined to be 14 years old.
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Mount Horeb shooting incident; students return to school
Teachers and students returned to the classroom Monday, May 6 for the first time after a student was shot and killed by police outside Mount Horeb Middle School last week.
The release finishes with the following information:
"Under Wisconsin law, which applies equally to members of law enforcement and to those who are not, any person may use deadly force to respond to a genuine fear of deadly force to that person or any other person. In this case, the Mount Horeb police officers were compelled to use deadly force when confronted by what they believed was evidence of a person with a firearm pointing the gun directly at an officer while advancing toward the officer’s position and not responding to commands to drop the firearm."