Grand jury clears Hancock County deputy in 2022 shooting, family continues civil case
A Hancock County grand jury has cleared a Hancock County deputy involved in a shooting in December 2022.
The state Attorney General issued a statement Monday morning announcing the grand jury found that there was “no criminal conduct on behalf of the officer involved.”
The deputy has been identified in court documents as Michael Chase Blackwell.
Six months after the shooting, Blackwell resigned from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department and then signed an agreement later in the year that he would not work in law enforcement ever again.
He was able to avoid federal charges by doing this, but the state still investigated the incident, which is where the charges were dropped.
The grand jury found no criminal conduct on behalf of the deputy involved. WXXV was able to obtain court records which detail the morning of December 10th, 2022. Upon arrival, the lawmen discovered 21-year-old Isaiah Winkley holding a ‘chain fall’ and a steel fence pole. Officers told the operators Winkley was not “in his right mind.”
The deputies ordered Winkley to drop the items and put his hands up. According to the court documents, Winkley walked closer to the deputies and was tased. He then began asking the officers to ‘shoot him.’
Winkley then reached towards his waistband, at which point Blackwell shot him five times. Winkley died at the scene.
Winkley’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Hancock County that is still active. The family’s attorney, Lance Steven, tells us what is next for the family. “There’s a videotape of what happened. So, there’s no question about what happened in those 29 to 30 seconds. There are audio tapes of the 911 call as well as communication between the officers, and without question, Isaiah never threatened anybody. So, as far as we’re concerned, there is one side of the story, and that’s the truth. And that is that Isaiah, although he was clearly under some kind of stress and doing things that were uncharacteristic of him, never posed any threat to anyone. And most certainly did not pose a threat in broad daylight with his shirt off where he clearly had no weapon and had three glock-19’s pointed at him. He posed no threat to anyone.”
Blackwell filed for a motion for qualified immunity which was denied in April. He has appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
WXXV will continue to watch this case to see how this week’s ruling will affect the outcome of the wrongful death lawsuit.
WXXV has not received a comment from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department.
