ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich. — There will be no charges in the shooting death of 22-year-old Joseph Nagle back in June, Allegan County Prosecutor Myrene Koch announced.
Koch said the "evidence proves the actions were justified under the extreme circumstances," in a release Monday.
Tom Siver, an attorney representing the Nagle family, says they are requesting the Michigan Attorney General review the investigation done by Michigan State Police.
Police say the fatal shooting happened on June 16 just after 10 p.m. on 26th Street in Salem Township.
According to a report from the prosecutor's office, an Allegan County Sheriff's deputy pulled over a silver Chevy Impala after he said the car stopped at an intersection without a stop sign, drove under the speed limit and swerved erratically.
The deputy told Nagle he could smell marijuana inside the car. Nagle repeatedly told the officer he worked for a delivery service and did not do drugs.
As the officer conducted field sobriety tests, Nagle became more agitated, grabbing his head and angrily questioning why he was being tested, the report details. The deputy called for backup and said he was arresting Nagle for resisting an officer.
Nagle laid on the hood of his vehicle, but as the deputy grabbed his hands to put them in cuffs, he turned towards the officer, the narrative in the report reads.
When they were face-to-face, the deputy told Nagle “don’t do this” and let go of one of Nagle’s hands to call in the situation over the radio.
The deputy then repeated, “please don’t do this.”
The deputy told investigators that Nagle said, “Don’t do what? Shoot me? That’s your goal, isn’t it? To shoot and kill me?”
The deputy responded by saying, “I don’t want to shoot you” and to “stop fighting.”
Nagle then began punching and headbutting the deputy while yelling, “Why are you trying to kill me?” and “I am going to kill you," the deputy detailed.
The deputy said that Nagle hit him 15 to 20 times before he began to lose consciousness. The deputy told investigators he feared Nagle would kill him if he passed out.
The deputy shot Nagle one time in the chest. Documents say Nagle "backed up, smiled, and chuckled before falling backward onto the ground."
The deputy began CPR on Nagle and asked for help over the radio again. Nagle died on the scene.
The deputy was taken to a nearby hospital where doctors say he suffered from a traumatic head injury, facial swelling, contusions, temporal mandibular joint dysfunction and a bad bruise on his scalp.
The patrol car and deputy were not equipped with cameras and there is no known video or audio of the incident.
The Allegan County Sheriff's Office says the department has never had dashcam or body-worn cameras until this year when the department was approved to begin purchasing cameras for deputies.
The sheriff's office says they've begun phasing in body-worn cameras and dash cameras to about 25% of its road patrol deputies.
A working taser was found on the deputy after the incident but was not used. Investigators say if the taser was used at the distance of 6 to 18 inches apart, which is how far the deputy and Nagle stood from each other, it would not have been effective.
A toxicology report by the Western Michigan University Home Stryker School of Medicine says there was cocaine and cannabinoids found in Nagle's system. Officials said the cocaine was metabolized, meaning it could've been taken the night before the shooting.
Officers say there were two marijuana cigarettes found in Nagle's car.
Robert S. Womack, Kent County Commissioner and community advocate, has been in contact with the family this summer since the incident.
"It's sad that there were no body cams, no dash cams. So the public is left to listen to the officer statement," Womack says. "Within a minute after that call, Joey is shot. So everything the deputy is saying has to happen within that final minute."
Nagle's uncle Jaime previously shared with 13 ON YOUR SIDE that brief reports from the police do not make sense to the family.
"If you knew my nephew, he was a good boy. He was never in trouble, never anything. That's why this really makes it very questionable on how it came to this. We don't understand that. We'd like to know that way we can come to grips with [it]," he says. "I had never seen this boy angry, upset, mad, never in a fight."
Some of his family noted an "extremely concerning" change in his behavior before the shooting. His mother said she believed this was due to drugs of some kind.
A friend also said Nagle offered to sell them cocaine at a bar, and became more aggressive and nonsensical the more he was turned down.
His coworkers said he could appear jittery, nervously chucking and mumbling to himself. Some female employees reported he asked them to lift their shirts and "show me your titties." A woman to who he delivered a package to reported the same behavior.
Womack says this is the first time he's seen so much hearsay brought against a victim.
"This isn't to say that we don't believe anything that the deputy saying. But we need more than just the deputy's word before we can truly have a conclusion on what happened to Joey Nagle," he says.
You can read the full investigative report here:
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