Twenty-three days after a 19-year-old Michigan man was killed in Peterborough, the state Attorney General’s Office has not confirmed the identify of the officer who fired the fatal shot.
Greenfield police Chief Brian Giammarino was placed on paid leave for an indefinite period of time soon after the incident on Route 136. Greenfield officials have said publicly that Giammarino was the officer who shot and killed Lane Lesko of Ann Arbor, Mich., on the morning of June 21, after a brief police chase.
But as of this week, Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin said the investigation, although nearing its conclusion, is ongoing, and that therefore he could not name the officer.
The attorney general’s office has released scant information in the weeks since the June 21 incident, but that lack of disclosure is common in New Hampshire when a homicide is still being actively investigated. The authorities are under no official time frame to identify police officers who’ve used deadly force, and therefore the speed with which they’ve released that information has varied from a couple of weeks to a few months.
While the U.S. Department of Justice recently recommended that authorities release information within 72 hours on what they called “critical incidents,” officials did not include in their reports whether officers’ names should be released, and, if so, when. The recommendation followed reviews of fatal shootings by Philadelphia police and the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.
The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing released a report in May 2015, recommending that “agencies should communicate with citizens and the media swiftly, openly, and neutrally, respecting areas where the law requires confidentiality.” The task force, composed of leaders in the country’s law enforcement and criminal justice communities, cited public mistrust based on a lack of transparency.
The Washington Post found in a nationwide investigation published in March that police shot and killed 990 people in 2015. In 210 of those cases, the officers involved had not been identified at the time of the report.
The process for releasing information on officer-involved shootings varies greatly from state to state, and that’s in part because the agencies responsible for leading the investigations differ.
In New Hampshire, all eyes turn to the attorney general, who decides whether a shooting is justified or if the officer will be criminally charged.
Since 2005, 32 civilians have been shot by police and at least 10 police officers have been shot in both fatal and nonfatal encounters. Those incidents were recently cataloged by the Monitor in a new online database.
All but three of the officer-involved shootings were deemed justified. The other three went undetermined.
While fatal shootings are the most common example, the practice of withholding the names of officers does extend to non-fatal incidents. For example, troopers from New Hampshire and Massachusetts were relieved of duty following the videotaped beating of a driver after a high-speed chase ended in Nashua on May 11.
When asked to confirm the name of the New Hampshire trooper who had been suspended without pay after the incident, state police Col. Robert Quinn said: “As stated, the trooper who was involved in the incident in Nashua was relieved from duty without pay. Where this is a personnel matter I am unable to identify the trooper or any specifics.”
Lesko’s mother, Patricia Lesko, told the Associated Press in the days after the shooting that she was struggling to understand how her son was killed, and why. She said she learned from the Attorney General’s Office that her son had brandished a BB gun, although Strelzin maintains he never used the word brandished.
Lane Lesko had a criminal record and a history of mental health issues, according to published reports.
The phone number listed for his mother was no longer in service Thursday.
In her interview with the Associated Press, she said state police informed her the day after the shooting that her son had been killed. “My first question was who murdered my son? Who shot my son?” she said.
The attorney general’s office has so far answered with silence, but Strelzin said when the investigation is complete the public will have access to a “thorough report.”
“There’s a significant amount of transparency,” Strelzin said of the attorney general’s cases. “I think what it comes down to is the timing. . . . It’s understandable that everyone wants to know as much as possible as soon as they can because it’s the internet age. The most important thing is to get it right.”
Strelzin said that regardless of whether the shooter is a public official or not, his office has an ethical obligation to protect the rights of any potential defendant. That means not naming the person until the investigation is complete and, if appropriate, when charges are filed.
When asked about the published reports in which Greenfield town officials have named Giammarino as the officer who killed Lesko, Strelzin did not comment. Instead, he noted that the challenges of an investigation increase when more people are involved.
“It’s not a perfect system, but we ask people to respect it,” he said, noting that the attorney general’s office is the agency designated to release all information.
On July 7, Greenfield selectmen met for the first time since Giammarino had been placed on what board members called “mutually agreed-upon leave.” During that meeting, Hancock police Chief Andrew Wood, who is leading the Greenfield Police Department in Giammarino’s absence, spoke openly about the chief’s leave after the shooting, according to a report in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.
Wood did not return messages from the Monitor.
The attorney general’s office does not require an officer to be placed on administrative leave; rather, that decision is made by the municipality, Strelzin said. However, the process is almost always the same.
“That officer is immediately placed on paid administrative leave, and they don’t come back to full-time duty until the investigation is complete and the final report issued,” he said.
He noted that other officers who witnessed the shooting could also be placed on leave depending on the case.
Authorities try to speak with all witnesses as soon as possible, but the time frame for doing that can vary depending on a number of circumstances.
“You may have a witness that’s so traumatized by what they saw that they may need some time. Some may need a day or a week. If that person has been physically injured that can also complicate things,” Strelzin said.
“We want the information as quickly as possible, too, but at the same time we know not everyone is capable of doing that, and we want to get it right.”