JOHNSTOWN -- The state Attorney General's Office has deemed the 2023 fatal shooting of a 28-year-old Bleecker man by a Johnstown police officer to be justified following a protracted investigation.
The agency's Office of Special Investigation released a report late Tuesday, stating that justifiable force was used against Nathan Wood on the morning of Sept. 17, 2023, after he failed to obey orders to drop a hammer and subsequently struck a police officer with the tool.
No prosecutor will be able to prove his death wasn't justified and "therefore OSI determined that criminal charges would not be pursued in this matter," the OSI stated in its report.
Police were first called to the scene before 8 a.m. after Wood had walked into a multi-unit building on Washington Street and allegedly attacked a man with a hammer after being instructed to leave. A woman had "struggled" with Wood as a second officer arrived, according to the report.
Wood allegedly smashed a window with the weapon and shouted that he was going to kill his "buddy" before ascending a flight of stairs. Moments preceding the shooting, officer Ryan Wilmot followed Wood upstairs and told him to drop his weapon.
Wilmot fully recovered after allegedly being struck in the head by Wood. The Bleecker man, struck by bullets, later died of his injuries at Nathan Littauer Hospital.
No bodycam footage was recoded at the time of the incident, as a shipment of the city's first bodycams was delivered a day after the shooting, as authorized by the Common Council about a month prior. The video program didn't go into effect until later that year.
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Going forward, Johnstown Mayor Amy Praught said, the cameras will help protect both police officers and the public.
"In the future, we are going to have that aspect to always be there as reassurance that things go right, but I believe they got it right," Praught said. "I believe they did a good job in investigating it. It took a long time for this to come out, but I believe you have to do the due diligence and do what's right."
Home security footage, witness interviews and legal analysis helped prove that Wood's killing was justified under state law, which allows officers to defend themselves with deadly force when determined necessary, according to the Attorney General's office.
Under a four-year-old state law, all cases involving unarmed civilians shot by police are investigated by the Attorney General's Office in conjunction with state police. This marked the first time that the COVID-19 era law had been put into effect in Johnstown.
"The Johnstown Police Department officers involved in this tragic shooting appreciate the Attorney General's Office's careful review of the evidence, which depicts an unfortunate instance in which the use of force was necessary and justified," said Paul DerOhannesian, attorney for multiple police officers involved in the case.
Before the Wood incident, Johnstown officers hadn't discharged a weapon on the scene since 2004.
Praught described the death of Wood, a former Greater Johnstown School District student, as unfortunate but necessary as a means of self-defense.
"There is somebody that passed away, and that's unfortunate," Praught said. "But I do support my police officers in protecting and serving our community and protecting themselves."
READ THE FULL REPORT:
NYS AG's Office of Special Investigation report on Nathan Wood's death