BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Yellowstone County coroner’s jury has found that Billings police were justified in shooting and killing a 29-year-old man who was resisting arrest in October 2020.
The jury reached its decision Monday after the inquest into the shooting death of Cole Stump, of the community of Box Elder, found that he did not die by criminal means.
Jurors heard testimony from detectives, a use-of-force expert, the medical examiner, witnesses and the four officers involved, The Billings Gazette reported.
The events unfolded after officers responded on Oct. 12, 2020, to a report that someone might be siphoning gas from a vehicle outside an apartment building. Stump gave officers a fake name and officers soon learned the car he was working on had been stolen, as had its license plates, according to testimony.
Stump resisted officers’ efforts to handcuff him as they wrestled him face-down to the ground. He kept his arms underneath himself, officers said. Stump threatened to shoot officers and was unaffected by a stun gun, witnesses said.
Former officer Justin Bickford testified that another officer shouted that Stump had a gun and then he saw Stump draw a gun and begin to point it at him, leading him and another officer to open fire.
Officers fired 11 shots and the fatal rounds hit Stump in the head and aorta, said Dr. Robert Kurtzman, of the state medical examiner’s office.
Stump was probably under the influence of methamphetamine when he died, Kurtzman said.
Kurtzman declined to testify about how the methamphetamine might have affected Stump’s behavior because he did not know how much tolerance Stump had for the drug.