GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Kent County Prosecutor says he won’t be filing charges against a Grand Rapids police officer who put his gun to the head of a suspect during an arrest in August.
Officer Kevin Penn resigned from the department last month after the department began disciplinary procedures that would have led to his firing. The department forwarded the case to the prosecutor for review of possible charges.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker says that while Penn’s actions were “completely inappropriate, offensive, and against any training protocol put out by the Grand Rapids Police Department or any other department in Kent County,” a crime wasn’t committed.
Becker said that Penn and other officers who had their guns drawn were justified in doing so because they believed the suspect may have been armed and he was not complying with officers. Becker says that the law does not put a “distance test” on officers covering each other.
Becker says while Penn’s actions were not something he was supposed to do, it was not a criminal offense.
