Probe: Police Justified In Fatal Shooting During Middletown Standoff
TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- An investigation found police were justified in shooting a Monmouth County man who had barricaded himself in his house with his 13-month-old son.
A report released Thursday by the state attorney general's office concluded authorities were correct in not referring the case to a grand jury.
Thirty-nine-year-old Scott McAllister was fatally shot in Middletown Township in May. Police said McAllister had beaten his girlfriend, causing her to flee the house.
McAllister made threats to police and SWAT team members, including that he would "put bullets in heads'' and that "people were going to die,'' officials said.
He also sent threatening text messages to his girlfriend that read "any force will be met with force" and "if you want to go home to your family you will leave now, in my house I kill," according to the report.
After several hours of failed negotiations, SWAT team members entered the house. One climbed a ladder to the infant's room and shot McAllister through the window as McAllister entered the room swinging a knife.
The officer told McAllister to stay back and shouted "Show me your hands!" and "Drop the knife!" several times, but McAllister failed to comply, the report found.
The officer said "he was in fear for his own safety as well as that of his fellow officers and McAllister's infant child at the time he discharged his weapon."
The boy wasn't injured.
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