Joseph Magnano, a former Hartford police officer, faces a manslaughter charge in connection with the Feb. 27 fatal shooting of Steven Jones, a Black man who was in mental distress and holding a knife as he cut himself. The Connecticut Inspector General filed the charge after its investigation found that Magnano did not de-escalate the confrontation, according to the arrest warrant.
Hartford Police Department fired Magnano after the shooting, and Connecticut said Monday that Magnano turned himself in and was charged by the Inspector General, as Hartford Police Union President James Rutkauski described. Information about Magnano’s attorney was not immediately available.
The arrest warrant laid out the investigators’ conclusions about the officer’s actions. It said Magnano “did not engage in de-escalation measures (and) he failed to make reasonable attempts to use non-lethal force.” The warrant also stated that Steven Jones “did not pose an imminent threat to bystanders,” and that Magnano had “ample space” to back away.
The warrant further described what it said was the availability of safer options. It said that, “To the extent Magnano subjectively believed that Jones posed a risk of serious physical injuries to bystanders in the area, Magnano made no effort to move bystanders out of any perceived harm’s way.” In addition, the warrant indicated Jones’ condition and threat level did not rise to the level of an imminent danger to people nearby.
In a sworn incident report, Magnano wrote that he was “fearful of Jones making a sudden lunge towards either an officer or citizen.” Rutkauski, the police union president, challenged the state’s timeline and characterization, accusing the Inspector General’s office of rushing its findings. At a news conference Monday, Rutkauski said Magnano was “defending his fellow officers, the community, himself.”
Body camera footage referenced in the investigation described the scene before Magnano’s shots. The footage showed Magnano arriving as three other officers were in the process of trying to calm Jones, who had used the knife to cut himself and was described in a 911 call made by his sister as suicidal. Investigators said the officers kept their distance and spoke to Jones softly, while Magnano immediately began shouting at him to drop the knife.
The same account described how quickly the shooting occurred once Magnano left his vehicle. According to the description in the warrant narrative, Magnano fired nine shots at Jones less than a minute after leaving his vehicle. In court charging language, the Inspector General’s investigation portrayed the response as failing to employ de-escalation and non-lethal options even though investigators said there was room to distance himself from the confrontation.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing Jones’ family, criticized the shooting and welcomed the charge as a step toward accountability. Crump said in a statement that “Stevie was in the middle of a mental health crisis, and instead of receiving the care he needed, he was shot nine times,” and he added, “This charge reflects what the family has known all along, that what happened to Stevie was not justified.”
The case adds to longstanding scrutiny of how police handle calls involving mental health crises and people armed with knives, and it follows Hartford’s decision to fire Magnano after the Feb. 27 shooting, which MSI previously reported as the department’s response to the incident.