St. Joseph County Prosecutor Ken Cotter has determined that a South Bend police officer was legally justified in fatally shooting a homeless man downtown earlier this month.
Cotter recounted what happened at a press conference Thursday. On the morning of June 11, South Bend officers Joseph Carey and Randall McMurray responded to the area of Colfax Avenue and the East Race. A 911 caller had said two city workers had confronted 70-year-old John Neiswender for urinating in public, and Neiswender had chased them to their vehicle with a knife, stabbing it in the hood before running off.
Carey and McMurray found Neiswender near a Dumpster and started negotiating his surrender. Neiswender had a pocket knife and was coming toward the officers. McMurray tried to tase him three times but it had no effect because Neiswender was wearing six layers of clothing.
Carey then fired six shots, hitting Neiswender three times. A reporter asked Cotter whether it should matter that Neiswender was elderly, outnumbered and had only a pocket knife.
"Have you ever had somebody come at you with a knife?" Cotter said. "If you haven't, I would recommend that you talk to somebody who has. I don't want to take that chance. If somebody has got a knife that can easily kill me, he's said four times he was going to kill them, and they've begged him not to pick up that knife. I would say that deadly force is deadly force, whether it's a gun or a knife."
