Wyoming Officer Won’t be Charged for Fatally Shooting Man
RIVERTON, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming prosecutor says a Riverton police officer acted lawfully when he fatally shot a man who attacked the officer with a knife during an arrest.
The Casper Star-Tribune reports that Fremont County Attorney Patrick LeBrun declined to press criminal charges against the unidentified officer in the Sept. 21 death of 58-year-old Anderson Antelope.
LeBrun says Antelope, an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, was intoxicated and stabbed the officer with a knife outside the Riverton Walmart.
The prosecutor says the officer’s body armor stopped the knife from entering his chest.
The officer was responding to a report of an intoxicated person.
LeBrun says the officer had a right to use deadly force if he believed his life or the lives of others were in immediate danger.