SAN JOSE, Calif. -- No criminal charges will be filed against two San Jose police officers who shot and killed an auto-theft suspect who rammed officers at the end of a chase last year, prosecutors said Friday.
Officers Ian Cooley and Adam Jenkins lawfully shot and killed Ronald Aduddell, 28, after he got out of a Ford Contour with his hands near his waistband following a 20-minute chase that began when he rammed a patrol car head-on, authorities said.
Aduddell had a gun during the chase but had tossed it out of his car and wasn't armed when he was shot eight times by the officers near Blossom and Calero avenues, said Brian Welch, a Santa Clara County supervising deputy district attorney.
Aduddell was high on methamphetamine when he died, authorities said.
"Officers Cooley and Jenkins found themselves in an uncertain, tense and rapidly evolving situation with a suspect in close proximity, whose actions indicated an intent to attack, which required the officers to make split-second judgments about the use of force necessary," Welch wrote in a 53-page report clearing the two of criminal liability.
Cooley, a 17-year department veteran, has been involved in other incidents in which he used force on suspects.
In 2012, Cooley fired at -- but didn't hit -- a suspect in a family disturbance who fired a gun at police. In 2005, the death of a man in police custody was partly linked by the Santa Clara County medical examiner to the use of pepper spray and Taser shock weapons by Cooley and another officer.
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