New York Attorney General Letitia James’ Office of Special Investigation released its report on the 2024 death of David Clements in Massapequa, concluding that it would not seek charges against the police officer who killed a 19-year-old in Massapequa in 2024.
“OSI will not seek charges against Officer [Michael] Graham because it would not be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that his use of deadly force against Mr. [David] Clements was justified under New York law,” the 11-page report said in a report released April 3.
Graham shot and killed Clements on the night of Feb. 2, 2024.
The report that Clements left his home, walked to a neighbor’s house and told a witness that he wanted to kill himself before lifting his sweatshirt to show the handle of a gun tucked into his waistband. Clements then ran home and called his aunt and mother and said he had a gun and was going to shoot himself, according to the report.
OSI said several NCPD cars responded to Clements’s house on Stone Boulevard in Massapequa. Officers surrounded the house and retreated to the street when one officer heard what he believed was someone racking a firearm in the house.
Clements came out of the house and started pointing two pistol-like objects toward the officers and against his head, the report said. Clements briefly went back inside before coming back out with a third pistol-like object and then came out with a third object, again pointing it at officers, the report said.
Clements pointed the object at officers, did not follow their commands to drop it and walked down the driveway toward three officers who were taking cover behind a parked police car, the report said.
Graham then shot Clements three times when he reached the end of the driveway. Clements was declared dead at the scene, according to the report.
Police recovered three BB guns along with ammunition and magazines from the scene, which are all pictured in the report.
OSI spoke to multiple witnesses and examined body-camera footage from multiple officers on the scene. Graham was not wearing his body camera during the incident, telling investigators that he had left it in the car when swapping vests.
NCPD Officer Robert Shutowich’s body camera footage shows him saying that the weapon may be a BB gun, which Graham said during his interview with OSI that he did not hear.
The report listed state laws and former cases that proved Graham’s actions as legal.
“OSI concludes that a prosecutor would not be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Graham’s use of deadly physical force was justified under the law,” it said.
The report added that when Clements pointed what appeared to be firearms at the officers, they had reasonable cause to believe he was committing a crime.
The report said that Clements was on family court probation for a 2020 arrest regarding a stolen vehicle. It said In 2021, his mother called the police when she found a BB gun in his room, which she believed was a real gun.
A family court case worker met with Clements to discuss the incident and the dangers of having a realistic-looking BB gun in public and that he was diagnosed with certain mental health issues for which he was prescribed unidentified medication.
