Coast deputy cleared of criminal wrongdoing after shooting man with knife, records show
A Harrison County sheriff’s deputy has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in an Oct. 9 shooting that left a Gulfport man injured.
The grand jury issued the ruling Monday.
In its report, the Harrison County grand jury said it considered “all the facts and circumstances” leading up to the shooting to determine that the deputy’s actions had been “appropriate.”
No information about the shooting was released to the public or the media at the time it occurred.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation independently investigates all shootings involving law enforcement officers, but also did not release any public information about it.
In addition, the grand jury report did not include any other information about the events leading up to the shooting, though the Sun Herald independently obtained court records to shed more light on what happened.
According to the reports, the shooting happened after Harrison County sheriff’s deputies got a call from American Medical Response to respond to a home in the 17040 block of Northrup Cuevas Road. The call came in at 6:08 p.m. that Friday.
Once deputies got there, they learned a man had a knife and was threatening suicide.
When the responding deputies found the suspect outside his “camper” home, the reports say he already had what appeared to be a self-inflicted knife wound.
Deputies repeatedly told the suspect to drop the weapon, but he refused to follow the commands, the records say.
“A Taser was deployed but was ineffective,” the records say, and the suspect “turned around with a knife in a threatening manner.”
Deputy Wade Wildman shot and injured the man, the records say.
Harrison County deputies arrested the suspect on a charge of aggravated assault on a police officer.
On Monday, the same day the grand jury ruled the shooting was justified, the man was released from the Harrison County jail after nearly 5 months.
He had been in custody on the aggravated assault charge since Oct. 10. His bond, initially set at $100,000, had been reduced to a $50,000 bond.
A grand jury found insufficient evidence to indict him on the criminal charge, records show.
