A year after his 22-year-old granddaughter, Jada Johnson, was shot 17 times by Fayetteville police officers in his home, Richard Iwanski is calling on the General Assembly to address the N.C. Department of Justice’s system for prosecuting officer-involved shootings of deadly force, which he says is in “dire need of reform.”
At a news conference outside the Cumberland County Courthouse on Friday, Iwanski read a petition for redress of grievances that he sent to state legislators the same day. In the petition, he requests urgent action by the General Assembly to address perceived biased treatment in the DOJ’s handling of cases involving excessive force by police officers and says officers rarely get charged for fatally shooting civilians.
The petition, Iwanski said, is not “seeking punitive damages resulting from any civil litigations,” but is rather a call for legislators to address the alleged failure in the justice system.
A civil case stemming from a lawsuit against the Fayetteville Police Department is ongoing in federal court.
“We’re looking for someone from the General Assembly to look at what is going on at the DOJ with these cases,” Iwanski said. “It appears that they are being biased on purpose. It appears to anyone with a reasonable mind that the application of excessive force is not being applied to any kind of determination, and particularly in Jada’s case. It appears that this is just a big dog-and-pony show to show people that we’re doing something, when we’re doing nothing except condoning death and murder.”
The petition announcement comes just over a month after N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein ruled that Jada Johnson’s death was a justified killing and that no criminal charges will be filed against the police officers involved, a decision that her family and community organizers have decried. Johnson was having a mental health crisis when the officers arrived at the scene, and they had been talking with her for an hour by the time she was killed. Officials have said Johnson was armed at the time of the shooting and posed a threat.
The police bodycam video of the July 1, 2022, shooting has not been released to the public.
Contrasting accounts
In the petition, Iwanski describes what he witnessed, an account that starkly contradicts the official report.
“After being tackled to the ground, Ms. Johnson was shot approximately seven times in the back. She was lying secured on the floor by another officer and not posing a threat to anyone. After shooting at her, the shooting officer left her bleeding on the ground and then returned to shoot her another 10 times.
“The autopsy report confirmed that she died from 17 gunshot wounds from just one gun, hit on the head and torso, and that other wounds were consistent with her already being secured by the officers. In fact, one of the officers even let her use a cellphone just before she was tackled. She called her ex-boyfriend begging him to spare her family, without violence or gunplay, in exchange for her own life. These officers clearly crossed a bright line in officer conduct.”
Iwanski said there are several legal problems with the DOJ’s process for handling cases of officer-involved use of force. Notably, DOJ can appoint a special prosecutor to oversee these cases, which Iwanski believes allows them to favor officers in excessive-force cases. For example, Iwanski said, the prosecutor assigned to his granddaughter’s case ignored, by his own admission, a section of the general statutes that denies any justification for use of excessive force (NC GS 15A-401).
Iwanski wants the General Assembly to take several actions to rectify his grievances. In particular, the petition asks for a legislative inquiry into the program design of deadly-force cases; passing legislation to reform police use-of-force policies; establishing an independent review board for police misconduct cases; and establishing a statewide use-of-force model.
The petition also urges the General Assembly to provide protection for attorneys reviewing such incidents who may feel threatened by the prospect of prosecuting an officer of the law.
Regarding Johnson’s case specifically, he requests that the General Assembly conduct a legislative inquiry into the facts of her killing by police and pass a resolution condemning her death and expressing support for the family.
Serious inquiry sought
According to Iwanski, the General Assembly has a few different paths it can take in response to the petition.
“They can take it on. They could table it. They can read it, then table it, or they can reject it. And if they read it, they can do some things with it, which is they can put it to a committee, or they can throw it back on the table.”
Iwanski believes that state lawmakers will take his petition seriously. He thinks there is a legal basis in state law that puts into question the authority of the DOJ’s ruling in Johnson’s case and similar cases.
“There’s no consequence for killing someone when everything is done their way,” he said, referring to the DOJ’s oversight of officer shooting cases. “And heaven forbid that we should even say, ‘Whoa, that was too much.’ Heaven forbid, because then all the rage from the Police Department and all the rage from all their supporters comes out, ‘How dare you? How dare you?” Well, yeah, we dare. We dare because it’s not in the statute. We dare because, as the people, we did not give you that power. You took that power.
“Right now, starting today, we’re taking it back. And I’m sending this to the General Assembly, and I’m asking our representatives to help me to get this up there in front of them so that they can act on it as soon as possible and stop these senseless killings by police officers using excessive force, negligence, or willful misconduct.”
Local government reporter Evey Weisblat can be reached at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com.
