Experts say grand jury was best route for Jerothe case in shooting of unarmed black man

Nine months after Aurora police Officer Paul Jerothe shot and killed Naeschylus Vinzant and six months after a grand jury took the case, prosecutors announced last week that Jerothe won’t face criminal charges.

While the secretive process was lengthy — and resulted in the controversial case wrapping up in the middle of a holiday week when it garnered less attention than it otherwise might have — experts say bringing the case to a grand jury was the best way for the community to resolve the matter.

Former Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant said some cases such as police shootings amount to a “community gut check” and the best way to tackle those is to put the decision about whether to prosecute in the hands of the people.

“It really is a community decision, and the grand jury reflects the community,” he said.

In the Jerothe case, Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler handed the case to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s office because his office had a conflict of interest. Brauchler didn’t specify what that conflict was when he made the decision last summer, but Jerothe was highly decorated and credited with saving several lives during the July 2012 Aurora theater shooting, a case Brauchler’s office prosecuted.

While the Jefferson County District Attorney investigated the case and presented it to the grand jury. That grand jury was made up of Arapahoe County residents.

Grant said that while the process may have seemed lengthy — Jefferson County District Attorney Peter Weir announced in late June that he was taking the case to a grand jury — there is no “typical” timeline for investigations like these.

In some cases, prosecutors know early on that they might need three sessions in front of the 12-person grand jury, but in others they really don’t know how long it could take until they get started.

“There are some cases that you know when you start out (that) you have no idea how long this is going to take,” he said.

The process can take longer based on the complexity of the case, or simply because it’s difficult to align the schedules of a dozen civilians and several investigators and witnesses, he said.

In the end, police shootings are especially difficult because while the statutes about use of force are fairly clear, the cases tend to come down to an individual officer’s decision in the heat of the moment.

“It’s not black and white, it’s not cut and dry,” Grant said. “It comes down to judgment and an interpretation of judgment.”

Roger Clark, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who has testified as an expert in police shootings, said for those judgment calls, a panel of community members is often the best way to come to a resolution.

“The grand jury was designed and set up to reflect the community’s values and to make a judgment call,” he said.

In Jerothe’s case, Vinzant, a parolee with a lengthy violent record, was unarmed but had told police before that he would rather shoot it out with officers than go back to prison. Jerothe testified that he believed Vinzant was pulling out a gun when he yanked his hand from his pocket, so he fired one shot at him, killing him.

The grand jury said Jerothe believed he was going to be killed.

Clark said even if an officer believes a person has a gun in a lethal situation, there may not be enough time for them to make sure whether, in fact, that person is armed.

“If he can’t,” Clark said, “he has got to consider the worst-case scenario.”