A Detroit police corporal faces felony assault charges amid allegations that he fired rubber pellets at three photojournalists who covered a May protest against police brutality in the city.
Cpl. Daniel Debono, 32, was charged Monday with three counts of criminal assault, which carries a maximum penalty of four years, in the “unprovoked” shooting, the Wayne County District Attorney’s Office said.
“Evidence shows that these three journalists were leaving the protest area and that there was hardly anyone else on the street where they were,” Kym Worthy, the county attorney, said in a statement.
“They were not a threat to anyone,” he said. “There are simply no explainable reasons why this officer’s alleged actions were taken.”
Efforts to reach Cape Debono on Monday night were unsuccessful. It was unclear if he has an lawyer. Messages left with the Detroit Police Officers Association, the police union, were not returned on Monday night.
The shooting occurred in the early hours of May 31, prosecutors said, after most protesters, protesting the death of George Floyd while in police custody just days earlier, had dispersed.
Nicole Hester, 30, who works for the local MLive news website, and two freelance photojournalists, Seth Herald, 28, and Matthew Hatcher, 29, were walking when they met Corporal Debono, who was dressed in riot gear and armed with his department. it issued firearms and a gun that fired rubber pellets, according to prosecutors. Corporal Debono was with two other police officers on Woodward Avenue and State Street. All three journalists had been covering the protest before and carried press badges.
The three journalists identified themselves as members of the press “and raised their hands to ask them to cross the street,” prosecutors said. But when they started crossing, Corporal Debono “fired his gun at them,” hitting them all with rubber pellets, prosecutors said.
Ms. Hester “suffered most of the injuries to her face, neck, arms and legs,” prosecutors said, while Mr. Hatcher had bruises on his face and ribs and a mark on his nose. Mr. Herald’s wrist was injured.
The Detroit Police Department said an investigation had begun as soon as it learned of the encounter, and that Police Chief James E. Craig had suspended Corporal Debono.
Once the investigation was completed, it was turned over to the prosecutor’s office “for review and collection of recommendations,” Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood, a department spokeswoman, said in an email Monday.
She said it was important to note that Corporal Debono’s actions did not reflect “the vast majority of men and women who have been working on the protest for the past eight weeks and doing the right thing.”
