CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A lawsuit filed against the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, Officer Wende Kerl, and the City of Charlotte regarding the 2019 shooting death of Danquirs Franklin was dismissed Friday by a United States district judge.
The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by the family of Franklin, who was fatally shot by CMPD Officer Wende Kerl outside the Burger King on Beatties Ford road in 2019.
"The Court concludes in the qualified immunity analysis that Officer Kerl’s use of force was reasonable, and not excessive," U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen wrote in his filing Friday.
Over time, Kerl's actions have been controversial and disputed by different reviewing agencies.
In Feb. 2020, the Charlotte's Citizen Review Board voted unanimously CMPD should not have deemed the deadly shooting of Danquirs Franklin 'justified.'
"A preponderance of the evidence in the case demonstrated that CMPD clearly erred in finding the fatal shooting of Danquirs Franklin justified during their review," Julian Wright, counsel to the Charlotte Citizen Review Board (CRB), wrote at the time.
But the Charlotte's Citizen Review Board can only advise and has no legal authority to overrule decisions.
The matter was reviewed by both CMPD and the Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, the latter of whom wrote in August of 2019 his office "could not prove to a jury that Officer Kerl's perception that the presence, motion, and position of the gun posed an imminent threat to her, Officer Deal, and T.G. was unreasonable beyond a reasonable doubt."
Despite the district attorney's findings, that same month it was announced CMPD would no longer conduct criminal investigations into its own officers. Since then, the policy has been that the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations would conduct those inquiries.
Friday's decision by Judge Mullen to dismiss the lawsuit brought additional perspective on the actions of Kerl.
"Given the gift of hindsight, it seems likely that Officer Kerl made a mistake in shooting Danquirs Franklin," he wrote in his order to dismiss the lawsuit. "Franklin appeared to be complying with the CMPD officers’ orders to 'drop the gun' when he took the pistol out of his jacket pocket. Video shows that he was holding the slide of the pistol, not the grip. And Franklin’s incredulous last words—'You told me to'—seem to confirm his intentions nearly beyond doubt. But because a court must not judge with the “20/20 vision of hindsight,” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, the question is whether Officer Kerl’s mistake in shooting Franklin was reasonable. The answer is yes."
In December of 2020, CMPD released over 200-plus videos from that day. The videos were taken from multiple sources, including the body camera worn by Kerl along with other officers. It also showed footage recorded by restaurant security cameras.
The shooting death of Danquirs Franklin
Continuing coverage timeline
MARCH 25, 2019: Armed suspect dies after being shot by CMPD officer at north Charlotte Burger King, police say
APRIL 24, 2019: GRAPHIC WARNING: Full body camera video of deadly police shooting outside north Charlotte Burger King