Boise’s civilian police oversight office cleared two officers of any wrongdoing after they shot a man outside of his apartment near Boise State University last summer, but that doesn’t mean the office gave its full stamp of approval of how the incident was handled.
Boise’s Office of Police Accountability released its investigative report after Corporal Andrew Johnson and Officer Garrett Miller shot Christian Johnson, 54, outside of his apartment at 110 S Dale Street in the Lusk District on August 3, 2023.
Both officers were cleared of wrongdoing in the incident by a prosecuting attorney and OPA Director Nicole McKay, but unlike her previous reports issued so far, this report included extensive feedback on how BPD could have approached the incident differently, potentially avoiding Johnson’s death.
Former Wasden Chief of Staff tapped to lead City of Boise’s Office of Police Accountability
This was one of six times BPD shot someone last year, four of them fatal.
McKay’s report said BPD had knowledge of Johnson’s history of methamphetamine addiction, paranoia, and past history of mental health issues. Because this was a welfare check call initiated by Johnson on himself, instead of an immediate emergency, McKay said officers had time to plan their approach or call in BPD’s Behavioral Health team instead of approaching immediately. She also said officers did not try to engage him in conversation to de-escalate his behavior and instead just continued to command him to drop the knife in his hand.
In a news release last week, BPD said it reviewed OPA’s recommendations and updated departmental training requirements and procedures.
“The loss of Mr. Johnson’s life is extremely unfortunate, and we hope others in crisis can get the help and resources they need to stabilize their lives and behaviors prior to getting to the point where a deadly threat is made to others, including police officers,” BPD Chief Ron Winegar said. “I am grateful no bystanders or officers were physically injured in this encounter, but I recognize not all injuries are physical, and there is always a significant impact on officers and others involved, when deadly force is used, regardless of the circ*mstances.”McLean: On police shootings, oversight, politics — and the search for a new chief
This comes after the City of Boise settled a wrongful death suit from the mother of Zachary Snow for $190,000 earlier this year. Snow was shot by police in downtown Boise in 2021 after his mother Melissa Walton called the police because her son had expressed thoughts and intended to jump from a building. He was unarmed.
People with mental health crises are often involved in violent confrontations with the police. According to a Washington Post database, a fifth of those killed by police had a mental health crisis between 2015 and 2024. The newspaper’s analysis found these deaths were more likely to take place in small to mid-size cities, like Boise.
What happened during the shooting?
The events that led up to Johnson’s death started with him placing a 911 call and promptly hanging up, McKay’s report said.
Johnson called again and reported someone was trying to kill him with “a social media event,” referenced a gun in the garbled conversation with the 911 operator and eventually asked when officers would be coming to his home. The department sent out Miller and Corporal Andrew Johnson to the scene for a welfare check to Johnson’s apartment.
On the way to the apartment, Corporal Andrew Johnson called Johnson and asked him what help he needed. Johnson asked for a ride to a bail bondsman, which he did not explain the reason for, and then stopped responding to Corporal Andrew Johnson’s offers of other services like a hospital or counseling.
Miller then shared with Corporal Andrew Johnson how he had a similar welfare check call to Johnson’s apartment two days earlier, where he’d told Miller he’d been using methamphetamine, had not slept for several days, and was showing signs of paranoia about a nearby neighbor. BPD records then showed Johnson had past charges of resisting and obstructing officers during several previous interactions with the police.
The officers then parked within view of Johnson’s apartment and immediately heard yelling about a gun, but they were unable to make out any specifics and moved behind a parked car as Johnson appeared on the exterior staircase of the building. He was armed with a twelve-inch knife in his right hand and both a hammer and another sharp metal object in his left hand.
After pacing back and forth at the top of the steps for roughly a minute, Johnson walked to the bottom and into the parking lot to speak to the officers.
“Sir, you want to just take me out, or I mean, I’ll come at you,” McKay’s report said Johnson said.
The officers then gave multiple commands to drop the knife and his other weapons while calling him by his first name. Johnson responded by saying “no,” “come and get it” or “come and get me.” When he was 75-80 feet from the officers, he placed the point of the knife to his own stomach, as if he meant to stab himself. The officers called for two more police units to assist with the call.
After that, Johnson held the knife above his shoulder and ran toward the officers with the knife in an ice-pick-style grip meant for stabbing and yelled, “I’m going to kill you motherf*cker.” Both offers shot him when he was 18-20 feet from them, using nine rounds.
He died at the scene.
What did McKay suggest officers do?
McKay said because this call did not require an immediate response by officers, unlike another fatal shooting last year where the suspect was firing an assault rifle, the department could have planned a different approach.
BPD’s internal findings agreed, saying officers should take time to meet off-site to gather more information, call the behavioral response team or their supervisor or pre-plan less than lethal force options before approaching the suspect.
McKay said officers could have also dug further into their records to find Johnson’s status as a parolee for a felony DUI charge and contacted his parole officers for more information.
“Because the officers recognized the elevated risk factors, OPA concludes that they could have slowed down, made plans, prepared for predictable contingencies, and possibly influenced the sequence of events or the necessity for use of force,” McKay wrote. “OPA recognizes there is no guarantee that any amount of preplanning or deescalation tactics will influence an outcome, but we are certain that employment of such tactics increase the likelihood of a peaceful resolution.”
McKay said the minute when Johnson paced back and forth 80-90 feet from officers gave them an opportunity with trying to deescalate the situation by engaging him in conversation, but instead they just kept commanding him to drop the weapons over and over.
“This strategy ultimately proved to be unsuccessful, as Mr. Johnson
continued to ignore commands,” McKay wrote. “Thus, officers missed a second opportunity to possibly de-escalate the situation and avoid the necessity to use deadly force. However, once Mr. Johnson raised the weapons and ran directly toward the officers, he created an imminent risk of death or serious injury to the officers and to
others.”
But, despite the missed opportunities for de-escalation and pre-planning, McKay said the shooting doesn’t show officers broke department policy because of Johnson’s proximity to bystanders and the threat he posed to officers. She also pointed out Corporal Andrew Johnson’s phone call to Johnson before arriving and how he called other units to the scene, which did attempt to calm the situation.
BPD has updated its policy manual since this shooting to change its definition of when the use of force should be used, which prescribes a set of standards that require officers to demonstrate tactics before engaging a volatile suspect like Johnson to prepare offsite, gather intelligence, call for extra resources, allow for more flexibility in case the situation can resolve with time and documentation if this isn’t possible.
