This image taken from police body camera video shows Aries Clark, 16, raising a black BB gun that looked like a handgun at officers before he was shot in Marion, Ark. July 25. (District Prosecuting Attorney's Office)
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Two eastern Arkansas police officers won't face charges in the fatal shooting of a black teenager outside an emergency youth shelter, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Aries Clark, 16, was holding a black BB gun that looked like a handgun and raised it at officers before he was shot on July 25 in Marion, Prosecutor Scott Ellington said.
The prosecutor noted that body camera footage shows Clark raised what appeared to be a pistol toward the officers outside East Arkansas Youth Services. Ellington said the two officers involved -- Brannon Hinkle and Wesley Smith -- were justified in using lethal force.
Audio from the footage indicates officers "ordered, encouraged and begged" Clark to drop his weapon, Ellington wrote in a letter to the head of the Arkansas State Police, which investigated the shooting.
Another frame taken from police body camera footage. (District Prosecuting Attorney's Office)
"Clark's actions that day brought about the circumstances that threatened the lives of at least four law enforcement officers had the gun he brandished been a firearm, as was perceived by the responding officers, and I cannot find that the officers acted criminally," Ellington wrote. "Therefore, I find the officers were justified under these circumstances and no criminal charges will be filed in the matter."
The prosecutor also released body camera footage and a cellphone video, one of which appears to show Clark holding a pistol and raising it before he was shot. Police recovered a 1911 BB pistol from the location where Clark fell after he was shot.
Clark and Hinkle both fired shots, but only Smith's shots hit the teen, according to Ellington's letter. Hinkle was on the southwest side of the building, while Smith was behind a tree on the building's northwest side.
The shelter contracts with the state to provide services to children in foster care or who have been involved in the juvenile justice system. Ellington said Clark had been placed at the facility by court order, but had left and was trying to gain entry.
An attorney reported as representing the family of Aries Clark didn't immediately respond to a message Wednesday afternoon.
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