Del. Attorney General responds to special prosecutor demands

The Delaware NAACP wants a special prosecutor from outside of Delaware to investigate last week’s police shooting in Dover. It’s not likely to happen.

A Dover Police officer shot 21-year-old Terrence Fletcher Friday afternoon during a foot chase. The chase started after police got a tip around 1 p.m. that Fletcher had a handgun in the downtown Dover area. Dover Police say the officer shot Fletcher after seeing him with a gun in his hand. Fletcher was wounded in the thigh and was taken to the hospital in good condition.

On Monday, members of the Delaware NAACP called for Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn to appoint a special prosecutor outside of the state to investigate the shooting, according to the News Journal. Fletcher is black while the unidentified officer is white. 

Denn told WHYY on Tuesday that the incident will be investigated by the Office of Civil Rights and Public Trust which he created after taking office in January. “They’ll make a determination about whether there’s been compliance with Delaware law and will issue a report,” Denn said.

The office was set up to investigate such police involved shootings and Denn said the attorneys and investigators in the office don’t have daily interaction with the prosecutors who work with police agencies to solve cases. “We set it up that way purposefully so that there would be an internal and objective way to investigate these kinds of cases.”

Denn said the office has investigated three or four police involved shootings so far this year, and he’s been pleased with the results. “I think that the investigations and reports have been very thorough,” he said.