Asheville officer cleared in AJ Marion shooting

ASHEVILLE – A city police officer will not face charges in the fatal shooting of a teenager who led police on a lengthy foot chase following a residential break-in, District Attorney Ron Moore said Tuesday.

The announcement comes nearly 10 months after 19-year-old Alexander Jamar Marion, a former star running back at Reynolds High School, was killed by a single bullet to the face.

Moore said the officer was justified in his use of force given the circumstances on Sept. 29 near The Meadows Apartments. According to a State Bureau of Investigation report: Multiple officers saw Marion with a gun during a chase that lasted nearly an hour, officers heard a gun discharged and one officer said Marion pointed a gun at him at one point. Marion did not have the gun when he was shot.

Moore said he met with Marion's mom for 90 minutes Monday before informing the media Tuesday of his decision.

"This is obviously tragic — any way you want to look at it," Moore said. "It's very sad."

The SBI's extensive investigation involved interviews with all of the officers who responded to the incident; about a half-dozen neighborhood residents; a couple of people who were sitting at a traffic light when Marion came out of the woods and was shot; and two others who saw Marion the night before he was killed, Moore said.

The ordeal began when a man called police at 7:27 a.m. Sept. 29 to say someone broke into his home on King Arthur Place in the Camelot neighborhood. While officers were talking to the man, Marion came out of the back of the house, Moore said. Officers yelled for him to stop, but he jumped the fence, starting the chase about a mile away from where it ended.

Marion cut through several streets, evading multiple officers that saw him along the way.

"All these officers that see him, they're trying to get him to stop and surrender, he keeps running," Moore said, noting that about a dozen officers responded to the situation.

Tension intensified throughout the chase, as evidenced by police radio transmissions obtained by the Citizen-Times last year.

"Just to clear anybody's mind, if he even points that gun or even turns, shoot him," an officer said over the radio. "Forget giving commands. He's already discharged it once."

Police set up a perimeter on New Leicester Highway and other officers were chasing him, pushing him in that direction, Moore said. Marion crossed Ascension Drive at The Meadows and went into a patch of woods between a grassy area and New Leicester Highway.

"One of the officers said they had seen him trip in the woods with his hands in his pants and he didn't even put his hands out to steady himself," Moore said. "So they thought he was holding his gun, frankly, although apparently he had dropped his gun earlier in the chase. But no one knew that at the time."

A driver waiting at a stop light on New Leicester Highway near The Meadows, heading toward Patton Avenue, also said Marion's arms were not up or out to the side, Moore said.

As Marion came out of the woods toward a female officer on New Leicester Highway, he was shot on the right side of his face by a male officer who had been tracking him as he moved through the woods. Moore said the officer who shot Marion was 20-25 feet away from him.

"The officer that he was coming toward, she doesn't believe he ever saw the officer that shot him," Moore said.

Marion died at Mission Hospital. The officer who fired the fatal shot was placed on administrative leave, which is standard in police shootings.

Marion's mother, Nicola Mouney, told the Citizen-Times last year he went to the West Asheville home over an ex-girlfriend. Moore said Marion was given a ride to the area the night before his shooting, around midnight. One person saw him with a gun and another said they saw him drop a clip, Moore said.

It is unknown where he was in the hours leading up to the break-in.

Mouney could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The SBI delivered its report to Moore in March, about five and a half months after agents began their investigation. Moore does not make SBI reports public and declined Tuesday to provide a copy in this case.

Moore consulted state law about deadly force in situations involving the threat of death or serious physical injury. He said the officer's actions were reasonable and justifiable given his belief that Marion was a danger to police based on the officer hearing that Marion had a gun and it had been discharged.

"We'll never know whether that was a gunshot that was intentionally fired toward an officer or if Mr. Marion fell and that gun accidentally discharged," he said. "We'll never know the answer to that. No one saw him fire it."

The gun, a .40-caliber Glock, was found hours later in the woods along the chase path. Authorities also found a spent shell casing that matched the gun.

Marion, who played on the Rockets' 2009 state championship football team, graduated from Reynolds in 2012. He rushed for 1,815 yards and 24 touchdowns his junior year and was offered a scholarship by East Carolina in the middle of that season. But a serious knee injury his senior year derailed his season and his college plans.