Callaway prosecutor reviewing officer-involved shooting at Columbia apartment complex
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A special prosecutor said he will start his review of a deadly Columbia police shooting that happened in August.
Police were called twice to The Landing -- an apartment complex on Campusview Drive in south Columbia -- on Aug. 4.
A man who reported being suicidal was killed after shooting at officers, Columbia Police Department Assistant Chief Lance Bolinger said the day of the shooting.
Bolinger said at the time that the man -- Marquis Rivera, 22 -- had first shot into the air and then at officers. CPD later stated in a press release the same day that “officers returned fire, resulting in the subject’s death.” Bolinger said that day that more than one officer fired their gun during the incident. The names of the officers involved have not been released.
Callaway County Prosecuting Attorney Benjamin Miller, who is serving as the special prosecutor for the case, told ABC 17 News on Wednesday that it will take him “a bit of time to review.”
CPD asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control to investigate the shooting because of an officer's involvement, the patrol said in an Aug. 4 social post. An MSHP spokesperson previously said on Aug. 7 that the investigation would likely take several months.
Rivera’s family hired a lawyer in August and also sent a letter to Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe, demanding to see the body-camera footage from the incident, hear the recording of phone calls with 911 dispatchers and receive a copy of the police report.
"Given our son was suffering from some type of mental health crisis and called the police for help, we would also like to listen to the audio recordings of the phone calls between your dispatch operators and our son," the letter signed by Katuiscia Penette and Ralph Edwards reads.
