Jury acquits Portsmouth officer who shot fleeing burglary suspect in 2017

PORTSMOUTH — A jury on Thursday found a Portsmouth police officer not guilty of unlawfully wounding a burglary suspect in 2017 when he shot the man in the back as he fled.

The verdict came after three hours of deliberations in Portsmouth Circuit Court. Jeremy Durocher sighed with relief and shook hands with his attorneys after the verdict was read, then cried as he hugged each of the approximately 20 plain clothes police officers who came to court to support him.

The verdict is the second in the last five months in which a jury denied Portsmouth prosecutors’ efforts to convict a city police officer. The last case was in July and involved an officer charged with manslaughter for allegedly intentionally failing to render aid to a man who’d been shot by another officer.

The same day that Vincent McClean was found not guilty in that case, prosecutors successfully obtained another indictment against him, that time charging him in the death of a pregnant woman who died in police custody.

Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales defended her office’s decision to prosecute Durocher in a statement issued after Thursday’s verdict. Morales attended closing arguments in the case, and sat beside the burglary suspect who’d been shot by Durocher.

“Despite, the jury’s decision today our team stands proudly by our victim and at all times stands in opposition to the excessive use of force by those sworn to serve and protect the members of our community,” the statement said.

The incident involving Durocher happened Oct. 29, 2017 at a home on Tatem Avenue.

Durocher had just dropped a stray dog off at an animal shelter when he heard a call about a burglary in progress not far from the shelter and rushed over. He had his body camera turned on and it captured the incident. The video was played multiple times throughout his four-day trial by both prosecutors and the defense, and occasionally zoomed in to try to decipher if the burglar had a gun.

Durocher testified he first saw Deontrace Ward when he went into the home’s backyard. He said Ward pointed a gun at him, then began to run towards a fence.

Durocher ordered Ward to stop, but he kept running. Durocher said he fired two shots because he feared for his own safety, and the safety of other officers who’d responded to the scene. After Ward jumped a fence into another yard, Durocher fired two more shots and Ward fell to the ground.

Ward, then 18, was struck in the back, shoulder and arm and had to undergo surgery. Officers found a semiautomatic handgun at the bottom of his pants leg. He later pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including armed burglary, and was sentenced to six years in prison. He has since been released and was among the witnesses who testified this week.

Ward denied pointing a gun at the officer, and said he was just trying to get away.

Durocher was cleared of wrongdoing by Portsmouth police officials, was awarded a medal of valor and is still employed by the department. A year after the incident, however, a grand jury indicted him on multiple charges, including aggravated malicious wounding, which is punishable by up to life in prison.

Circuit Judge William H. Shaw III — a retired Gloucester judge asked to preside over the case after Portsmouth’s judges recused themselves — dismissed the aggravated malicious wounding charge at the end of the prosecution’s case, then struck a malicious wounding charge at the conclusion of the defense’s case, ruling that the evidence presented didn’t support them. The charges required prosecutors to prove that Durocher acted with malice.

That left only an unlawful wounding and assault and battery charge for the jury to decide. Unlawful wounding is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Haille Hogfeldt argued the shooting was unjustified, and that the video and Ward’s testimony proved Ward never pointed a gun at Durocher.

“He was not justified in shooting Deontrace Ward in the back as he ran away from him with nothing in his hands,” Hogfeldt said. “Yeah, (Ward) was doing something he should not have been doing but he almost paid for that with his life.”

Defense attorney Nicholas Renninger argued Ward had the gun in his hands initially, and that the video evidence and Durocher’s statements immediately after the incident and in court supported that. Durocher had just seconds to make decisions on what to do, and acted in accordance with his training and department policy, he said.

Renninger suggested that Ward stuffed the weapon into his waistband, which was hanging well below his waist, before he jumped the fence, and that it fell to the bottom of his jeans, which had narrow ankles, as he was running.

“We can all sit here and say ‘what if,'” Renninger said to the jury. “But when you look at this as a whole, it is justified.”

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com