PIQUA — The Piqua Police lieutenant involved in a deadly shooting earlier this year has been cleared to return to active duty.
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Piqua Police announced on Thursday that Lt. Marcos Rodriguez had been cleared just under two months after the shooting, which happened on February 21.
>> PHOTOS: 1 dead after officer-involved shooting in Piqua neighborhood
The shooting was investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The findings were reviewed by the Miami County Prosecutor, who said Rodriguez’s actions were “justified.”
“There is no evidence to suggest that an objectively reasonable officer would have acted differently in this incident,” Miami County Prosecuting Attorney Paul M. Watkins said in a statement. “I conclude that Lt. Rodriguez was justified in all respects when he discharged his weapon ... Moreover, Lt. Rodriguez acted in a manner consistent with his training.”
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As News Center 7 previously reported, four officers responded to a domestic violence call in the 200 block of McKinley Avenue.
The complaint involved 44-year-old David West, who had been in a domestic dispute with his 65-year-old mother.
When officers got the the scene, West was in the basement of the home. He told police that he had a pistol and reportedly refused to come upstairs or show his hands after being given “several verbal commands to do so.”
News Center 7 previously spoke to West’s parents, who said their son didn’t have a pistol. Instead, they said he had a non-lethal pepper ball gun.
“I kept telling him, ‘It’s a pepper ball gun, pepper ball gun. It’s not - it will not kill you. It might sting you, but it ain’t going to kill you,” Tammy West, David’s mother, said.
The city previously said Rodriguez fired shots at West when he “became visible to the officers with a weapon pointed” at the officers.
Rodriguez could be seen firing four shots in body camera video. West’s family said David was hit three times.
West died at the scene.
No officers were injured in the shooting.
Rodriguez had been on paid administrative leave since the shooting.
The shooting marked the first deadly officer-involved shooting in Piqua since July 1988.
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