Prosecutor: Iowa City officer-involved shooting justified

An Iowa City police officer was legally justified earlier this summer in shooting and injuring an armed man who was threatening suicide but refused more than a dozen orders to drop his gun, Johnson County Attorney Rachel Zimmermann Smith determined in a report released Friday.

The incident began when Iowa City police were called at 8:40 a.m. July 15 to the man’s house for reports he was threatening suicide and a woman was yelling for help. The married couple was fighting in their backyard when police arrived.

The man was holding a gun and the woman was grabbing him and yelling, “Stop it!” the County Attorney’s report states. She yelled at officers when they arrived to alert them that her husband had a gun.

The Gazette is not naming the couple because of mental health issues, a concern raised by the County Attorney’ Office.

Officers began talking with the man and soon were joined by a trained negotiator. The man, who was holding a semiautomatic 9 mm handgun, with an extended magazine, didn’t fully join the conversation but did tell the officers he didn’t want to live. His finger was inside the gun’s trigger guard during the entire interaction, according to the report.

Officers told the man at least 13 times to drop the gun, and shot him with two less-lethal projectiles in an attempt to disarm him.

After one of those times, Officer Alirio Arcenas told the man to drop the gun but he replied, “I can’t,” and Arcenas asked him to lie down instead. But the man started to raise his gun, and Arcenas shot him twice — in the leg and abdomen — with a rifle. Officers immediately attended to the man’s injuries, and he was taken to a hospital by an emergency crew that was waiting at the scene, the report said.

The County Attorney’s report concluded that Arcenas’ decision to fire was legally justified, stating that “despite the tense and dangerous situation, Officer Arcenas calmly tried do everything he could to avoid using force by expressing care and concern for (the man) and his wife and trying to engage (the man) in dialogue. …

“His decision to fire shots at the point when he observed that (the man) appeared to be lifting the weapon in a manner consistent with firing the weapon, was reasonable under the circumstances.”

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