Attorney: No Criminal Charges Will Be Filed In Archer Amorosi Shooting Death
CHANHASSEN, Minn. (WCCO) – The Carver County Attorney's Office has declined to file criminal charges against the officers who fatally shot 16-year-old Archer Amorosi in July.
It all started the morning of July 13 with a 911 call from Amorosi's mother.
She said her 16-year-old son was being violent and destructive, and that he wouldn't let her leave.
According to court documents, she made the call from the garage where her son had locked her inside.
She told the 911 operator that Amorosi had a baseball bat and knives.
When asked if she thought her son would hurt the officers, she said, "Yes, I do. He wants them to shoot him."
As stated in a report released by the Carver County Attorney's Office, Carver County Sheriff's Deputy Travis Larson was first on scene. In recalling the incident, Larson said he saw a man -- later identified as Amorosi -- pointing a gun at him through a window.
"They get her out to safety, they try to de-escalate the situation, they pepper spray him in there, they try to taser him through the window in the house -- it misses -- and then Archer decided to run out of the front door," Carver County Attorney Mark Metz said.
Amorosi came out of the house with a gun and a hatchet. The gun recovered near Amorosi's body was a Daisy Powerline BB gun.
By that time, several other officers were on scene, including Carver County Sherriff's Cpl. Jake Hodge.
According to investigators, bodycam video shows deputies yelling at Amorosi several times to drop the hatchet and put the gun down.
Larson said Amorosi ran toward Deputy Hodge at a full-sprint with the BB gun and the hatchet, which is when both officers fired simultaneously.
"So it happened very quickly – instantaneously -- in a critical decision-making moment of, 'My life's in danger, I need to protect my partner, I need to protect myself," Metz said.
Under Minnesota law, the use of deadly force was justified in the officer-involved shooting, the report states.
