A county prosecutor on Wednesday cleared a federal immigration officer who gunned down a black man during a raid at a Detroit home, describing the shooting as “justified by the law of self defense”.
Terrance Kellom, 20, was killed on 27 April during a multijurisdictional raid, in which Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Mitchell Quinn and several other officers raided Kellom’s home to arrest the Detroit resident in connection with an armed robbery. Quinn fired several shots after Kellom lunged at the officer with a hammer, Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy said.
Worthy said the investigation by the Michigan state police department and the Detroit police department’s homicide task force showed Kellom ignored warnings to stop advancing toward Quinn, who is black, before he was fatally shot.
“This is a case where a young man was a subject of a domestic violence police run the day before his contact with agent Quinn,” Worthy said during a press conference Wednesday. “He was also wanted for an extremely violent felony on two more gun charges.”
Over a dozen pieces of evidence were considered and 17 people were interviewed over the course of the near four-month investigation, she said.
The prosecutor’s 50-minute remarks, rife with detailed diagrams and photos of the scene inside following the shooting, revealed a sensational account of what occurred during the raid – an account Kellom’s father wholly disputed at the time of the shooting, and again after Worthy’s remarks on Wednesday.
Last August, Kellom absconded from probation over a 2013 concealed weapons offense, according to the Michigan department of corrections. Worthy’s office signed a warrant in April for Kellom’s arrest in connection with an alleged armed robbery of a pizza delivery man on 31 March.
According to Worthy, police officers were called on 26 April to the Kellom home on Detroit’s west side, after an ex-girlfriend accused him of breaking out “all her car windows”.
“He fled the area before the Detroit police officers could arrive,” Worthy said.
The following morning, the multiagency taskforce commenced a surveillance operation and identified Kellom going into the house with his father. Around 1pm, Worthy said seven officers on the taskforce were met at the door by Kellom’s father, Kevin. The officers asked if his son was home; Kevin said no, but “later admitted to investigators that he lied”, Worthy said.
Inside, the officers found Kellom’s girlfriend, his father, his sister and her boyfriend.
An officer went upstairs, looked into the home’s attic crawl space and found Terrance hiding by the heating duct, Worthy said.
“This is not a large area, easily visible,” she said. The officer then ordered him out of the attic, Worthy continued, to which Terrance allegedly responded: “I have a gun; shoot me, bitch, kill me now.”
According to Worthy, Kellom grabbed a hammer, disconnected the heating duct, and began to hit the floor of the attic, creating a hole.
Moments later, Quinn overheard Kellom drop to a room below, Worthy said. Kellom came out with a hammer, she said, and Quinn ordered him to drop the weapon “several times, but he did not”.
Kellom advanced toward Quinn with the hammer, the prosecutor said. Fearing for his safety, Worthy said Quinn fired once and “paused briefly to see if Terrance Kellom would drop his weapon”.
When Kellom continued to advance toward Quinn, he fired several rounds while backing away. Kellom fell forward into the hallway, Worthy said, “with the hammer still in his hand”.
“Other officers present … corroborate this,” she said.
The Kellom family household is near an intersection where two daycare centers are located. Neighbors have said children were walking about as the taskforce arrived to conduct the raid.
From the onset, Kevin Kellom disputed the official storyline proffered by officials, saying he witnessed the shooting and that his son was unarmed when he was killed.
“My son died with clenched fists,” he told reporters at the time.
That was a lie, according to Worthy.
In his account, Worthy said Kevin indicated officers carried his son downstairs, raised his hands over his head, and was shot twice.
“This story places two officers directly in the line of fire,” she said. “This would violate police protocol and common sense.”
Terrance Kellom was later transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy from the medical examiner’s office determined he died as a result of four gunshot wounds.
No officers present wore bodycams, Worthy said, and a security system installed at the household didn’t capture any footage of the incident.
Quinn, a Detroit native, ran for county sheriff in 2004, but came in last at the ballot box. In February 2008, he was accused of pointing a handgun at his wife’s head, but the case was dropped because of insufficient evidence. That September, he was hired by ICE.
An ICE spokesperson on Wednesday said Quinn was placed on administrative leave, consistent with the agency’s use of force policy, and has since returned to duty.
“This period of paid leave is a routine procedure following critical incidents,” said Khaalid Walls, ICE spokesperson. “The officer involved was fully compliant with the independent investigations into the matter.”
Worthy, who is black, didn’t shy away from the public focus on police shootings of unarmed black men around the country during her remarks.
“There are severe problems in this country with African American men being beaten, killed, maimed or otherwise assaulted by the police usually during a traffic stop,” she said. “This is an ugly fact for black, usually young, and even men and even some women in America.”
She continued: “Yes, black lives matter. Of course, they matter. But you know what else matter? Credible facts matter, supportable evidence matters … the truth matters.”
Earlier this year, Worthy filed assault charges against an officer who brutally beat a man during a traffic stop.
In a press conference following Worthy’s announcement, Kevin Kellom expressed dismay over the decision.
“My son didn’t have a hammer,” he asserted. “These are lies ... Kym Worthy is just giving these officers a right to assassinate people.”
He continued, “These young men have families.” Terrance Kellom had two children – a two-year-old son, and a two-month-old daughter whose birth he never witnessed.
“My son was assassinated in front of my face,” Kevin said. “I’ll never forget that day.”
Ron Scott, spokesman for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, disagreed with Worthy’s decision, saying the facts in other high-profile shootings – chiefly, the death of seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones – revealed the officer’s accounts didn’t line up with what actually occurred.
“We went over there, we looked at the ceiling, we have video of it, now unless there was some magic that happened, there was no hole in the ceiling,” Scott said.
The officer’s reasoning that he shot “in defense” of his life wasn’t justified, he said.
“I’ve heard that lie too many times fighting police brutality … how the hell do you defend yourself with seven to ten shots?” he said.
The family’s attorney, Karri Mitchell, told reporters a civil suit is expected to be filed.
Detroit’s police chief, James Craig, has defended the use of the agency that conducted the raid, the Detroit Fugitive Apprehension Team task force, which is comprised of officers from local police departments and the US marshals service.
