No charges will be filed in fatal shooting by Callaway County deputies
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A special prosecutor decided Thursday that two Callaway County deputies who had a fatal shootout with a suspect will not face charges.
Cpl. Justin Bax and Deputy Gardner Pottorff were shot on Oct. 14 during an exchange of gunfire with a Texas man, Jonathan Beason. Beason died from gunshot wounds suffered in the shootout.
Boone County Prosecutor Roger Johnson, who was appointed special prosecutor in the case, wrote in a letter to a Missouri State Highway Patrol investigators that body cam video clearly shows Beason opened fire on the officers first, hitting them both.
Bax and Pottorff then returned fatal fire, Johnson writes.
The traffic stop was also based on probable cause because Beason was speeding in a construction zone.
"The deputies involved acted lawfully using force both as officers conducting an arrest and as individual in defense of self and others," Johnson wrote.
Johnson's letter noted that traffic continued to flow by the scene of the stop on Interstate 70 during and after the fatal shootout.
The deputies had to break Beason's driver-side window after he would not open it, Johnson states. One deputy uses a stun gun on Beason and Beason pulls a gun and starts firing, the letter says.
Bax was released from the hospital after two days but Pottorff spend 15 days in the hospital.
Callaway County Sheriff Daryl Maylee said the two deputies are recovering. He said he expected the prosecutor to clear both men of any criminal charges.
"Beason set the tragic event into motion that early morning by shooting both Cpl. Bax and Dep. Pottorff," Maylee told ABC 17 News in an email. "The deputies who were both struck by gunfire returned fire in self-defense. Beason who was wanted out of four counties in two states, could have taken responsibility for his past actions. He chose a different path and he lost his life because of that choice and the deputies lives will forever be changed by having to live with the knowledge that they had to take Beason's life. Even knowing that Beason was trying to take their lives and it was in self defense makes it no less of a struggle to deal with on their part."
