Why Idaho prosecutor won’t charge Caldwell police involved in shooting 92-year-old

Kernie Armstrong was diagnosed with severe dementia about a month before he was shot and killed by Caldwell police.

Armstrong, 92, lived in Caldwell. His neighbors brought him meals every day and described him as a “nice old man,” according to an Idaho State Police report after the shooting.

The same neighbors called Armstrong’s son, Glenn Armstrong, at 3 a.m. on November 16, 2021, to inform him that his father was killed.

According to an Idaho State Police investigation after the shooting, officers Nathan Douthit and Jeff Jensen were called to investigate a suspicious vehicle in the 1900 block of Alleghenny Way in Caldwell. They arrived to find Armstrong’s pickup parked improperly along the curb. Their patrol cars did not have emergency lights on, the report said.

As the officers reached the driver’s side of the pickup truck, the report said, Armstrong stuck out one of the many revolvers he owned and pointed it at the officers. They ran for cover. The report said Jensen hid behind another parked vehicle, but Douthit couldn’t find cover. He looked back at the pickup truck with his flashlight and again saw the revolver pointed at him. He began shooting.

Armstrong died after he was struck by six bullets, the report said. Douthit fired 16 shots, the report said.

In body camera footage from Douthit, obtained by the Idaho Statesman, a neighbor told the officers that the truck belonged to Armstrong.

“He’s 92 and he can’t hear,” the neighbor was heard saying on camera.

The Idaho State Police investigated the shooting, as it does every officer-involved shooting in Idaho, and sent its findings to Twin Falls Prosecutor Grant Loebs. In a memo to Canyon County Prosecutor Bryan Taylor, Loebs said he believes the officers were justified in using deadly force against Armstrong. He said there was no evidence to support prosecuting Douthit or Jensen.

‘It’s pretty rare that officers get charged’

The decision not to prosecute the officers is nothing new for Idaho prosecutors. Since 2005, only two cases have been brought against police officers in the state, and both were dismissed.

The Post Register in April reported that an Idaho Falls Police Department officer was charged with involuntary manslaughter after he shot and killed an innocent man in February. That was the most recent case to be dismissed.

The first case was in 2013, the Post Register reported, when a Nez Perce tribal police officer was charged with voluntary manslaughter after he was accused of shooting a man attempting to surrender.

“It’s pretty rare that officers get charged,” said Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University, who studies police behavior and crimes.

According to The Washington Post police shooting database, since 2015 there have been about 1,000 police shootings that have resulted in death in the U.S. Sixty-two of those were in Idaho.

Stinson has collected data on the number of officers nationwide who have been arrested and convicted for murder and manslaughter since 2005. His research said that since beginning of 2005, there have been 165 arrests of officers for shootings, with 52 convictions.

Details in the Armstrong shooting

According to the Idaho State Police report, Armstrong had been paranoid that someone was breaking into his home and stealing from him. His neighbors told police that two or three times a month, Armstrong would wait outside his home with his truck running, waiting for the people he thought were stealing from him.

Armstrong spoke to a Caldwell police officer the day before he was killed, because he thought someone left a knife under his pillow with a note he could not read.

Stinson said that nothing about the police shooting of Armstrong strikes him as unusual. The Statesman reached Stinson by phone on Monday and explained the case to him before the interview.

Officers are justified in using deadly force if a reasonable officer believes that there is an imminent threat of deadly force or serious bodily injury to the officer or someone else, Stinson said.

“You know, if you told me that it was an old man in the car who pointed his finger at them in the shape of a gun and went bang, you know, then we got a problem,” Stinson said. “But he was actually pointing a firearm at the officers, and they perceived it as an imminent threat. That is legally justified more likely than not.”

Stinson said there are situations where an officer is legally justified in using deadly force, but its use could also be deemed inappropriate, unnecessary and in violation of agency policy.

According to the Caldwell Police Department policy manual on excessive force, police should use an escalation pattern when confronted with situations where they may need to use force. That begins with presence or color of authority and escalates step by step through verbal control, chemical weapons/taser, compliance techniques at the officer’s discretion, defensive tactics, and lastly, deadly force.

The State Police report did not say that the Caldwell officers announced themselves before approaching Armstrong’s truck. After the shooting, Douthit said he announced, “Caldwell police,” and asked that Armstrong drop the gun. But Armstrong was already dead.

In the State Police interview with Douthit, he said he thought Armstrong was going to shoot him. Douthit also said Armstrong would have seen the side of his patrol car when he drove up.

The report said Douthit said he was “concerned for the safety of others because of the pistol pointed in my face. Twice.’”

Loebs, the Twin Falls prosecutor, said in his report that he thought Douthit and Jensen were acting to “protect the general public from imminent danger.”

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