Rochester police officer ‘justified’ in deadly Christmas Eve shooting of Todd Novick, AG’s office says
The state Attorney General's office Tuesday reported that Todd Novick was shot twice by a Rochester police officer on Christmas Eve. (Photo: WHEC)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The New York State Attorney General’s Office has released the findings of its investigation in to the shooting death of Todd Novick in Rochester on Christmas Eve.
Novick was shot by a Rochester Police Officer after police responded to Murray Street for reports of a man with a gun. While police were talking to Novick, he started to walk away. Officers asked him to wait, and he started to run. The officers chased after him, and saw him look back at them, and draw what they believed to be a handgun.
Officers yelled for him to drop the gun, but Novick kept running with the gun in his hand — that’s when one of the officers shot him. Novick died after being rushed to the hospital.
Since then, the NYSAG’s Office has been investigating and decided a prosecuter “would not be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial that the officer’s actions were justified under New York law.”
A release from the NYSAG’s Office says in part:
“Under New York’s justification law, a police officer may use deadly physical force when the officer reasonably believes it to be necessary to defend against the use of deadly physical force by another. In this case, while the first officer was pursuing Mr. Novick, he saw Mr. Novick glance over his left shoulder at the officers and then remove what appeared to be a gun from his waistband. Under these circumstances, given the law and the evidence, a prosecutor would not be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial that the officer’s use of deadly physical force against Mr. Novick was justified, and therefore OSI determined that criminal charges should not be pursued in this matter.”
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