Marshals task force in April Charlotte shootout wasn’t using body cameras, lawyer says

Federal marshals say they’ve been phasing in body-worn cameras to increase transparency. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have a policy that requires their use. Despite that, a CMPD lawyer revealed that not a single member of a marshals task force that came under fire April 29 in east Charlotte was recording video of the arrest attempt that led to a deadly shootout.

The lack of police video of the initial attempt to arrest Terry Clark Hughes Jr. was disclosed earlier this month in court.

The Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task force of the U.S. Marshals Service does not have recordings of the moments before gunshots overtook the lawn on Galway Drive. That task force includes Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers, state corrections officers and other local agencies.

The first videos of the encounter start as local officers arrive to help after Hughes opened fire on task force members, bullets already zipping through the air. CMPD lead counsel Jessica Battle revealed the detail when arguing in court June 4 in a case related to whether police video should be made public.

There’s no police video footage of Hughes disappearing inside the home after officers approached him, and there are no police recordings of officers’ attempts to speak through a megaphone to persuade him to come out before he opened fire.

Especially in 2024, when body cameras are widespread, it’s surprising that there wouldn’t be any law enforcement footage of the task force approaching Hughes, said one criminal justice expert.

“It’s like entering a black hole,” University of Miami Professor Alexis Piquero said.

There’s upkeep, cloud space and other logistics to account for with body cameras, he noted. But by now, it’s expected that law enforcement will wear cameras for a “high profile” event, he said.

Footage might not have stopped what happened April 29, but it could have given answers later, he said.

“We’re in a ‘don’t know what you don’t know’ thing, and that’s real unfortunate for all parties,” Piquero said.

April 29 — and its aftermath — was otherwise well-documented: eight officers down, four dead. The task force and fleets of supporting police, while trying to serve a warrant on Hughes for felony charges of fleeing from officers and possessing a firearm, faced a single man firing more than 100 bullets from an AR-15.

Battle, in the June 4 hearing, said there was no compelling interest for the public to ever see the graphic videos in a case where law enforcement officers Sam Poloche, William “Alden” Elliott, Joshua Eyer and Thomas Weeks Jr. were killed.

“Even if your honor was to find that there were to be a compelling public interest in this matter, I believe that would relate to the initial approach and the initiation of this encounter, which I will note to this court is not captured on camera. The initial incident is not captured, and cameras do not turn on until later as additional officers arrive on scene to assist with what was already happening,” she told Mecklenburg Superior Court Judge David Strickland.

Presumably, that means no member of the marshals fugitive task force was using a body camera.

CMPD policy violation?

In 2021, a United States deputy attorney general announced that the Marshals Service and three other federal agencies would be required to use body cameras for “transparency and accountability” following scrutiny over the number of shootings marshals were involved in. Marshals also have allowed local officers on task forces to wear body cameras.

Those nationally phased-in policies were scheduled to take hold in North Carolina between April and June of this year, but apparently were not in place on April 29.

CMPD’s current body camera policy has been in place since 2015.

While marshals in North Carolina apparently aren’t yet required to wear body cameras, according to policies on the Marshals Service’s website, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers, by policy, do.

“While on duty, BWCs shall be turned on and activated to record responses to calls for service and interactions with citizens,” according to CMPD policy.

The policy mandates that “recording shall occur prior to or in anticipation of” arrests, forced entry search warrants, suspicious vehicles or persons, voluntary investigative contact and uses of force.

CMPD Police Chief Johnny Jennings previously said one of his sergeants who was part of the task force immediately radioed for help when the shooting began.

CMPD confirmed officers serving on task forces follow CMPD’s body worn camera policy, but said the sergeant on the task force didn’t violate CMPD body camera policy. Sandy D’Elousa, a CMPD spokesperson, declined to elaborate on how that could be.

Gaston County and Statesville police were also at the scene with the task force.

Gaston County Police Capt. Jason Isenhour said by email Monday that Gaston Police personnel working on the marshals task force are not considered by the department to be working in a uniformed capacity and are not required to adhere to a Gaston County policy body camera policy.

“The Gaston County Police Department does not assign body worn cameras to personnel that do not work in a uniformed capacity due to the nature, and scope of their work,” he said.

The Justice Department in 2016 granted Statesville police more than $17,000 for body-worn cameras, and in March, Congress granted the city $410,000. Chief of Police David Onley said in March it will be used to add 90 body-worn camera systems and 55 in-car camera systems, according to the city’s website.

Statesville police did not respond to inquiries for this story about whether their department requires body cameras when working with marshals task forces.

U.S. Marshals in NC don’t wear bodycams — yet

The U.S. Marshals Service, a federal agency with task forces that increasingly serve local warrants, has recently come under scrutiny because of how many task force operations result in shootings and deaths.

Marshals task forces dispersed throughout the country arrested nearly 73,000 suspects last year, according to the Marshals Service.

About two-thirds of the agency’s arrests since 2014 were of people wanted on local warrants, not federal ones, according to an analysis of federal data by The Marshall Project. And an average of 22 people a year were killed in encounters with Marshals Service task forces from 2015 to September 2020, according to the nonprofit newsroom that focuses on the criminal justice system.

Task force officers with body cameras have to wear and activate them when arresting fugitives, an interim policy says.

Marshals spokesperson Barry Lane declined to answer questions from The Charlotte Observer about the agency’s policy on body cameras and when task force members in Charlotte and North Carolina are supposed to start using them, or if they already have. He added that the April 29 shooting is still under investigation.

New details in media hearing

Strickland, the judge hearing the June 4 case, on Thursday rejected two requests by news media for all the police videos in the April 29 shootout, arguing that public release could endanger the families of the officers who were killed and damage the mental health of the victims.

Two widows of officers killed and about 200 officers attended that hearing to oppose release. In a hearing that lasted over two hours, CMPD attorney Battle made arguments against release and outlined new details about what happened.

She said Hughes was living with his girlfriend, the lease-holder at the Galway Drive house, and that the marshals task force had been doing surveillance on the home.

The girlfriend’s father lived in a large tent in the backyard. Members of the task force saw the father leave in a vehicle.

Task force members decided to approach the home while Hughes was outside. After seeing police, he went in a back door of the house and task force members heard him tell people inside to get down or get out, Battle said. (Police later learned Hughes’ girlfriend and her minor daughter were hiding inside during the shootout.)

Task force members then used a megaphone to call for Hughes to come out and surrender, and he later began firing from an upper window on the back of the house, Battle said. That led to about 17 minutes of a gun battle before Hughes was fatally shot by three law-enforcement officers after he jumped out of a front window holding both the AR-15 and a pistol, she said.

The case remains under investigation by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Jennings, the chief, said shortly afterward that investigators were making progress in trying to determine how Hughes — who could not legally own firearms — got the guns based on where they were purchased.

Ronald Davis, the Marshals Service director, has said the marshals would work closely with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to find answers.

Jennings and police commanders have also refuted initial reports that there may have been two shooters inside.

After Hughes was shot, an officer saw a curtain move in the home in one of the same windows Hughes had been standing in when he fired, Battle said. The officer fired at the window, believing there might be a second shooter who could injure officers as they evacuated the wounded.

Another officer on the other side of the home heard the round fired by the officer at the curtain, and about 10 seconds later used suppression fire, and more than one officer fired suppression rounds at the house, believing there was a second shooter, Battle said.

No officers were shot after Hughes was killed, and officers were able to get his girlfriend and her daughter out of the house safely.

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