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Suddenly, two shots ring out and Khalif Cooper falls face down in the street.
Officer Jerry Moravek, who fired the shots, handcuffs Cooper, 28, who is heard on a bodycam video telling him, "I don't got no gun."
A grand jury agreed.
Moravek was indicted in Trenton on criminal charges this week for shooting the unarmed Cooper, who was left paralyzed, in June 2022, state Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced on Thursday, Dec. 7.
“Deadly force against a fleeing suspect must be used only when absolutely necessary to stop an imminent danger,” Platkin said.
Moravek’s decision to do so “was not justified,” said the attorney general (pictured above).
State authorities initially signed complaints charging Moravek, 40, of Paterson, with aggravated assault and official misconduct 10 months ago.
Grand jurors supported those charges.
Moravek violated state law, attorney general use-of-force guidelines and the standard operating procedures of the Paterson Police Department when he shot Cooper after the sound of gunfire from somewhere in the area brought the two together, Platkin said.
Moravek's actions "contradicted his police training and his oath to protect and preserve life," Platkin said. "(They) fall so far outside these confines — shooting an unarmed man in the back, resulting in a serious injury — that criminal charges are appropriate.
“The victim was never told to stop running,” the attorney general said. “He was not warned that deadly force might be used."
On the bodycam video released publicly by Platkin's office in the summer of 2022, Moravek calls for an Advanced Life Support ambulance. Then he turns over the handcuffed Cooper and asks him why he ran.
"I was scared," Cooper replies. "I don't got no gun, though."
HERE's THE VIDEO:
A couple of screaming women arrive along with several uniformed officers who hold them back.
Moravek then heads back up the street, telling a colleague, "I saw him with a handgun."
He calls to another officer: "Did you get it?"
"Get what?" the other officer asks.
"You saw him with a gun here," Moravek says.
"Huh?" the other officer asks.
"You didn't see him with a gun here?" Moravek asks.
"He was runnin' from something. I don't know," the other officer replies. "He must've dropped it somewhere."
The officers begin searching the ground around parked vehicles on Garrison Street.
Seconds later, Moravek tells his colleagues he's found a black handgun between two cars.
"That's the one I saw him with," he says.
Platkin said Monday that the weapon wasn't “in the victim’s possession or within his reach.”
It also didn't match his DNA or fingerprints, the attorney general said.
In the end, Cooper was left with bullet fragments in his spine and unable to walk. He was never charged with a crime.
Another man was arrested, though. Two other officers approached ex-con Dominique Capron, 28, of Paterson, who took off on foot, dropping a handgun as he went, authorities said at the time.
Capron was caught and charged with resisting arrest, hindering apprehension and various weapons offenses – including possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.
Moravek’s lawyer had previously said that his client "believed his life and the life of other people in the street was at risk."
The officer "believed at that split-second that the person he was chasing was turning to fire that handgun at him and he realized that if he missed, the bullets could strike anyone nearby," defense attorney Patrick Caserta said. "He made that split-second decision and fired his weapon.”
Under state law and attorney general’s guidelines, any police shooting in New Jersey requires an investigation by the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA), followed by a grand jury hearing to determine whether it was justified.
The grand jury reviews a host of evidence -- including witness interviews, body and dashcam video, and forensic and autopsy results – before voting on whether to charge or clear an officer.
This time, however, Platkin ordered pre-indictment charges filed in February.
“The body-worn camera footage does not depict the victim brandishing any firearm or pointing a firearm at the defendant, other officers or any member of the public,” the attorney general said at the time.
“Under the law, discharging a firearm is meant to be a last resort, used by officers when they or the public face an imminent threat of death or serious injury," OPIA Executive Director Thomas Eicher noted. "That just wasn't the situation here."
The consequences for leaving Cooper with a disabling spinal injury must be as severe as the cost to the victim, Eicher added.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Kormann, who’s the OPIA’s director of investigations of fatal police encounters.
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