No indictment in Peyton Strickland shooting

“This was a tragic event for everyone involved.  The grand jury has spoken and we do not anticipate any further criminal proceedings by our prosecutors in this matter,” said Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Special prosecutors from the N.C. Attorney General’s Office sought the indictment in connection with the Dec. 1 shooting death of Strickland, an 18-year-old Cape Fear Community College student who died inside his Long Leaf Acres home as the sheriff’s Emergency Response Team served an arrest warrant in connection with a pair of stolen Sony PlayStation 3 game systems.

Don Strickland, Peyton’s father, declined comment after the grand jury foreman announced the indictment was found not to be a true bill, and left the courtroom.

Long and his wife Michele tearfully exchanged hugs with other family members after the grand jury action was announced. Long declined to make a statement, but his father Harry did outside the courthouse.

“We are pleased with the outcome,” Harry Long said. “It’s been very difficult for all concerned. We have faith in the system and God and we hope we will be able to move forward with the situation.”

The Strickland family released a brief statement late this morning:

“Our unarmed 18-year-old son, Peyton, was killed when Chris Long, a deputy sheriff, fired three bullets from a submachine gun through the front door of Peyton’s house while he was answering the unlocked door. The failure of the grand jury to indict Long on any charge compounds our family’s tragedy,” the statement said.

Family spokeswoman Joyce Fitzpatrick said Don Strickland and his wife Kathy are “devastated” by the grand jury’s decision not to indict Long.

“They’re trying to pull themselves together,” she said.

Long was represented by three well-known area criminal lawyers – Mike McGuinness, Thomas Hicks and Carter Lambeth.

“I’m happy for the Long family. I’m sorry about what happened in the case. I don’t think there was probable cause for an indictment,” Lambeth said.

Dean Bowman and Patrick Murphy, two special prosecutors from the N.C. Attorney General’s Office who took over the case from District Attorney Ben David in February, also declined comment. A civil lawsuit from the Strickland family is a distinct possibility, McGuinness said.

“We would hope we would not have to deal with that but it is a possibility,” McGuinness said. “We would hope to see some closure. There has been some divisiveness in the community about this case and we wish the community would move on as well.”

The grand jury began deliberations Monday afternoon after testimony Monday and Tuesday that included hearing from Long and Don Strickland.

On Tuesday afternoon, the minutes ticked away slowly in a tense, silent courtroom as Strickland’s parents, Don and Kathy, sat with supporters and awaited word from the grand jury. About 15 feet away, Long sat with his wife, eyes closed and rubbing a furrowed forehead.

The grand jury foreman came back shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday and asked if the 18-member panel could resume deliberations at 9 a.m. today. Judge Michael Beale agreed. The grand jury has spent about eight hours over two days hearing evidence and deliberating.

Beale took the unusual step of allowing Long to offer his version of events to the grand jury. Don Strickland, a lawyer, was permitted to give evidence about his son to the jury on Tuesday. Two State Bureau of Investigation agents also testified.

Voluntary manslaughter carries a prison term in the range of about four to nine years, far less than the second-degree murder conviction New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David sought from a grand jury in December. That grand jury came back with no true bill, but the foreman checked the wrong box on a form, leading prosecutors to think Long had been indicted for murder. The miscue was not corrected until the next day, after the mistaken murder indictment was announced to the public.

David turned the case over to the attorney general’s office in February. In doing so, he said the public would be skeptical no matter how his office proceeded. Two special prosecutors, Dean Bowman and Patrick Murphy, were appointed.

Long, 35, was serving as the leader of the SWAT-like unit dispatched to the rented house Strickland lived in. Strickland, a Durham native, was fatally shot in the head by Long when he went to the door. Long said he mistook the crash of authorities’ battering ram for a gunshot from inside.

In a statement presented to the grand jury, Long said Strickland and another man sought in connection with the PlayStation robbery, Ryan Mills, “were expected to be armed with firearms and dangerous,” a conclusion drawn from photographs on a Web site showing Mills and others armed with firearms. The photos were discounted by Strickland’s friends as a joke.

“I believed that the ERT and I were about to encounter a severely dangerous environment including heavily armed subjects with histories of intentional physical violence causing injuries to persons,” Long wrote in the statement.

Long was wearing a Kevlar ballistic helmet that “inhibits hearing,” he wrote. After another deputy knocked on the door, a man inside approached but didn’t open it. He saw the man “dart suspiciously to his left” at the same time Long heard a loud bang made by the battering ram and fired a burst of three to five bullets through the door.

Based on information he received at a briefing prior to the detail and the movement of the person behind the door in conjunction with the loud bang, “I believed the subject had fired a weapon at the team and me,” wrote the veteran deputy, who shot and wounded two teenagers in 2001 after he attempted to stop their car. Long was cleared of wrongdoing in that case.

Sheriff Sid Causey fired Long several days after Strickland was shot.

Defense lawyers for Long argued in motions pertaining to evidence reviewed by the grand jury that Long was a law enforcement officer who used deadly force in the performance of his duties, and the law protected him from prosecution even though he did not see Strickland with a weapon.

Prosecutors responded that no legal exclusion covers Long’s criminally negligent conduct, and that the deputy used unreasonable and excessive force.

Unlike juries that decide guilt or innocence, a grand jury does not have to be unanimous in its decision. The prosecution needs only 12 jurors to recommend indictment in North Carolina.