MUSKEGON, MI – No charges will be filed against a Muskegon Police officer who shot a teen girl in the leg as she held a knife and chased a boy she was arguing with, Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson announced today.
“It’s my opinion in this particular incident that the officer involved did everything in accordance with the law,” Hilson said. “It was essentially self defense of others.”
Officer Doug Conrad was called to the Carriage House apartments just after 1 p.m. Aug. 12 by a 16-year-old boy who was hiding in a bathroom, dispatch calls indicate. He told the dispatcher the 15-year-old girl, his girlfriend, had cut him with a knife.
“She’s tripping, she’s crazy,” the boy told the dispatcher about the girl who police indicated had threatened to kill him in the past.
The prosecutor during a press conference Tuesday afternoon played 911 recordings as well as police car video before and after the girl was shot outside the apartment near Oak Avenue and Carriage Street.
Hilson said the evidence showed the officer was justified in shooting the teenager to prevent her from assaulting the teen boy. Video from the cruiser shows the officer walking up to the apartment when the boy emerges fleeing at a full-speed run from the pursuing girl who police say was armed with an 8 1/2-inch knife and a 14-inch barbecue fork.
The officer yelled “Hey, hey, hey, drop it, drop it” as he pulled out his gun. He shot four times, aiming for the girl’s “center mass,” and she was hit once in the leg, officials said. The officer then went to the injured teen and rendered aid, the video shows.
“It is truly fortunate that this young lady was shot in the leg,” Hilson said, explaining she could have been much more seriously injured.