Sept. 1, 1964 - A New York County grand jury reported today that Police Lieut. Thomas Gilligan (pictured), who shot a 15-year-old Negro boy last July, was not criminally liable for the killing.
The slaying of the youth, James Powell, in front of a building at 215 East 76th Street, touched off rioting and looting two days later in Harlem and then in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section.
The grand jury cleared Gilligan of any wrongdoing and refused to indict him after holding 15 meetings at which 1,600 pages of testimony were given by 45 witnesses.
Much of the testimony was contradictory: whether the boy had a knife; what was said before the shooting; where the persons involved were standing; and how the boy’s body fell.
The Police Department said today that Gilligan was still on sick leave, as a result of the cutting he assertedly received from Powell, and that he would be out for several more weeks. The department declined to disclose his whereabouts.
District Attorney Frank Hogan said that the grand jurors’ conclusion of no prosecution for Gilligan was reached “on the basis of the evidence and the applicable rules of law.”
He submitted a 14-page summary of the witnesses’ stories on how the off-duty lieutenant shot Powell, a high school student, as the latter allegedly lunged at Gilligan with a knife.
“Homicide,” Hogan wrote, “is justifiable when committed by a police officer in attempting lawfully to apprehend a person for a crime actually committed, when the circumstances are such that one would have reasonable cause for believing that the crime was a felony, and that deadly force is necessary to apprehend the suspect.
“Assault with a knife, and assaulting a police officer with intent to resist lawful arrest, are felonies.”
Police Commissioner Michael Murphy had only this brief comment: “Twenty-three citizens have heard all the evidence and the testimony of all the witnesses and have made their decision.”
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