Maurice Beall felt surprisingly OK after being shot in the stomach and arm by an Ansonia police officer on the Maple Street bridge in February 2014.
As an ambulance carried him toward Yale-New Haven Hospital, he asked paramedics treating him to pull over. He tried to stand up.
He said, ‘I don’t need this, I’m good,’” an EMT told police.
Beall told the EMTs he knew more than most people about gunshot wounds — because he had been shot nine times before.
He also knew he would probably be in trouble for the incident that prompted Ansonia Police Officer Joseph “Action” Jackson to shoot him.
“I’ve seen CSI and I know a cop can shoot at you when you try to run him over,” he said.
The details come from a 20-month investigation by state police into the incident which concluded with a prosecutor deciding Beall’s subsequent allegation of excessive force against Jackson couldn’t be corroborated.
Beall took a plea deal in the case in January and was sentenced to four and a half years behind bars.
Beall’s lawyer said the shooting was Jackson’s fault, though he conceded it’s unlikely a jury would agree.
Investigation Released
State police released the investigation to the Valley Indy six months after a Freedom of Information request.
State police initially ignored the request, a state trooper said at an FOI hearing in May, because their Microsoft Outlook wasn’t working.
The investigation totals more than 500 pages of interviews, witness statements, as well as diagrams, reports, photos, drawings, and other documents connected to the case.
‘Don’t Do Me Dirty, Joe’
Witnesses told police that Beall was trying to evade a minor car accident on the Maple Street bridge in February 2014 when he was stopped by Jackson near the intersection with Olson Drive.
Beall, who was on probation at the time and didn’t have a license to drive, told investigators he had just had a pint of vodka with a friend in front of Banana Market.
Medical records subpoenaed by state police determined Beall’s blood alcohol level was 0.229, nearly three times the legal limit.
He said he asked Jackson to go easy on him.
“Don’t do me dirty, Joe,” he said.
But he said Jackson replied “Yo man, you going to jail.”
So he got back into the vehicle he was driving — a Cadillac Escalade owned by his girlfriend — and tried to drive away.
Jackson got in front of the vehicle, putting his leg against the front grille.
Beall revved the engine, inching the SUV forward, and pushing Jackson back.
Jackson drew his gun and warned Beall to stop.
But he didn’t.
Jackson fired three shots, hitting Beall twice, in the stomach and forearm.
Beall sped away, eventually driving to Derby, where an acquaintance lived on East Ninth Street.
He stumbled out of the car before collapsing on a set of basement doors at the rear of a home.
Police believe Beall tried to run over Jackson because he had a gun in the car. Beall, a convicted felon, cannot possess firearms legally.
A gun covered with Beall’s blood was found in the backyard next to the East Ninth Street house he drove to after being shot.
Beall said claimed he simply found the gun on the ground, as he stumbled to the back of the house and — while bleeding from two gunshot wounds — decided to pick it up and throw it over the fence.
Cops didn’t buy that explanation, especially after a police dispatcher reported overhearing a conversation between Beall and another prisoner in the cell block at the police station once he had been treated at the hospital and been brought back to Ansonia.
The dispatcher told investigators he “overheard the prisoners talking to each other about how not to get caught with a weapon by saying it was found and then picking the weapon up.”
Witnesses from the scene corroborated Jackson’s account of the shooting.
Beall showed contrition at the hospital afterward, according to one of the police reports in the case.
“Beall referred to Officer Jackson as ‘Joe’ and stated that he had known Joe since he was a little kid and he was surprised Joe shot him,” the report said. “Beall stated that he ‘felt bad’ and knew he shouldn’t have ‘taken off like that.’”
Despite those regrets, Beall and his lawyer said Jackson used excessive force in the shooting.
But Kevin Lawlor, the top prosecutor in the Ansonia-Milford Judicial District, did not come to that conclusion.
In October 2015 state police and Lawlor reviewed the details of the case, after which Lawlor decided Beall’s allegation of excessive force against Jackson couldn’t be corroborated by other evidence.
Article continues after document.
Lawyer Responds
Beall’s lawyer, Gregory Cerritelli, a former police officer and Derby Police Commissioner, said that Jackson shouldn’t have put himself in harm’s way.
“When I was a cop I never would have stood in front of a vehicle. The fact that he did it suggests to me that obviously it was based on his relationship with Maurice,” Cerritelli said.
He pointed to the fact that Beall slowly inched the vehicle forward as Jackson had his leg against its grille.
“He knew this guy wasn’t going to do anything to intentionally harm him,” Cerritelli said. “Why else would he place himself in danger?”
But didn’t Beall essentially admit it was his fault?
“Obviously, he should not have taken off like that,” Cerritelli said. “But the mere fact that someone attempts to evade the police does not justify the use of deadly force against the person.”
He said Jackson should have let Beall drive away and then tried to get a warrant to arrest him.
But he conceded it’d be hard to convince a jury of that, citing the statements from many witnesses in the case who told investigators Jackson had no choice but to shoot.
“They see a guy lunging toward a police officer in a vehicle,” the lawyer said. “I think everyone’s reaction is ‘The cop had to defend himself and discharge his weapon.’”
