Des Moines police officers cleared in teen’s shooting death

The Des Moines police officers involved in the shooting death of a teen, will not be criminally charged.The Iowa Attorney General’s Office announced Wednesday, it has completed its review of the Dec. 26 shooting of the 16-year-old and found the officers were justified. The officers are identified as Noah Bollinger, Zachary Duitscher, Thomas Garcia and Nicholas Howard.The teen, identified only as "T.J.," was shot and killed inside an apartment on East McKinley Avenue. The Attorney General’s Office said it reviewed an investigation by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, including body camera video worn by all the officers involved in the shooting. In a statement, Attorney General Brenna Bird said, "In this particular case, four Des Moines police officers entered the scene knowing a perpetrator was armed. After refusing to comply with the officers’ requests to put the weapon down, they were forced to act, protecting themselves and those around them."The report found that officers responded to a 911 call from T.J.'s stepfather, who said the teen had pulled a gun on him. Four officers responded, and found T.J., his grandmother, and a friend, inside the apartment of T.J.'s grandmother, two units away from the teen’s stepfather.According to the Attorney General’s Office, T.J. was visibly armed with a handgun and pointing it toward the officers as soon as they entered the apartment. The report said officers negotiated with T.J. for four minutes and 20 seconds. During that interaction, the report said that T.J. told officers his brother had just died, and that T.J. can be heard saying, "I want to be with my brother" and "I am going to die."The report said the officers, the grandmother and the friend, collectively issued more than 70 pleas for T.J. to put the gun down, but he did not comply.The report said that eventually T.J. "abruptly raised the gun toward both Duitscher and Howard," and that Duitscher fired the first shot. T.J. was shot a total of 14 times. Officers Bollinger, Duitscher and Garcia fired their weapons. Howard did not fire his weapon.The report said bullets hit T.J. in his chest, abdomen and head, and that "it is reasonable to believe the shots to the head occurred as T.J. was falling to the ground."T.J. did not fire his gun, according to the report.The report also revealed that T.J. had been ordered by a judge to reside at the Woodward Academy, left the facility without permission, and went to the apartment on East McKinley.The Des Moines Police Department tells KCCI that they plan to release video of the shooting.