Grand jury clears Harrison County sheriff’s deputy in fatal Biloxi courthouse shooting
A Harrison County grand jury has cleared a sheriff’s deputy of any criminal wrongdoing in the Jan. 15 shooting death of a Reginald “RJ” Johnson outside the Biloxi courthouse.
The deputy who shot and killed Johnson, 48, is not identified in the grand jury report. The grand jury reached the decision Monday.
The Sun Herald filed a public records request for police body camera footage and other information in the case early on. It was unclear as of Monday whether the footage will now be released.
The grand jury’s ruling amounts to a couple of paragraphs that do not shed any new light on the events leading up the shooting:
“After full and deliberate consideration of all the facts and circumstances leading up to the Jan. 15, 2021, shooting of Reginald Michael Johnson, and the circumstances as they existed at the time of the shooting, the Grand Jury finds no criminal conduct on behalf of the deputy involved from the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department. Therefore, we find that no further action is warranted by this body.”
Since Johnson’s death, his family and friends have rallied for transparency from authorities and demanded the release of camera footage of the shooting.
The Sun Herald learned through public records requests that the shooting happened shortly after Biloxi police got a report of someone, later identified as Johnson, spitting on vehicles in the parking lot of the courthouse on Lameuse Street.
The complaint came in at 3:47 p.m. Jan. 15.
Within minutes, a Harrison County deputy shot and killed Johnson in the parking lot on the west side of the courthouse.
The Sun Herald had also filed a public records request with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department to obtain its report on the shooting. County Attorney Tim Holleman said at the time that the report had not been completed because the deputy who fired the fatal shots was at home recovering from stab wounds.
The Sun Herald did not receive that report.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation handled the independent investigation and said in a release that the shooting happened after Johnson “displayed a knife and began to advance on the deputy.”
Mississippi’s public record laws allows law enforcement to withhold almost all information relating to a the investigation of a case, other than incident reports, which may be heavily redacted.
However, the law gives an agency the discretion to make public the investigative files and video footage public.
While other U.S. cities and states release the names of officers involved in high-profile shootings and other details, Mississippi agencies typically do not.
This story was originally published June 14, 2021 at 3:51 PM.
