Seattle officers won’t face charges in shooting death

SEATTLE — King County prosecutors said Friday they will not press charges against the two Seattle police officers involved in the shooting death of motorist Aaron Roberts last May.

In a six-page report on the incident, prosecutors said Roberts was endangering officers and the public and that the shooting was justifiable.

The shooting prompted protests in Seattle’s Central District, where many people said they believed Roberts was killed because he was black. Both officers are white.

"There is no evidence that either officer acted with malice or in any way other than in the good faith performance of their duties," the report said. "Absent such evidence, it is the plain intention of the Legislature that no police officer should be held criminally liable."

The decision was based in part on the findings of an inquest jury, which ruled earlier this month that Officers Greg Neubert and Craig Price reasonably feared for their safety when Price shot Roberts.

Roberts was shot during a traffic stop May 31. The officers said that while on routine patrol, they saw him back his car erratically out of a convenience store parking lot, cutting off two cars and nearly hitting their cruiser.

They pulled him over, and Neubert, who had arrested Roberts in January 2000 for a domestic violence incident, approached the car.

Roberts told the officer he had no identification and instead handed him a pile of miscellaneous papers, Neubert told the inquest jury. As Neubert began looking through the papers and ordered Roberts to turn his car off, Roberts grabbed his arm and drove 160 feet toward the intersection of 23rd Avenue and Union Street.

Price, seeing his partner being dragged, ran to the car and climbed in the passenger side, ordering Roberts to stop the car. Price said he struggled with Roberts for control of the gearshift, then fired a single shot, hitting Roberts in the liver and heart.

A medical examiner’s report found that Roberts had cocaine, heroin and Ecstasy in his system when he was killed.

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