POCATELLO — The Ada County Prosecutor’s Office, in reviewing reports compiled on the officer-involved shooting of Bradley Wilson in front of the Chubbuck Petco in March, determined that no charges should be filed against the Bannock County Sheriff’s sergeant who fired the fatal shot.

    “It was a necessary use of force under circumstances created entirely by Wilson that posed the threat of death or serious physical injury to the sergeant, other officers, the hostage and the general public,” wrote Roger Bourne, Ada County’s chief criminal deputy prosecutor in a letter notifying Bannock County Prosecutor Steve Herzog of his findings.

    “The officers did everything they could to talk Wilson down and give him the chance to give up and discontinue his acts of violence,” the letter continues. “He refused to do so and took a hostage at gunpoint. My view is that no charges should be filed against any of the officers involved.”

    Because the pursuit and officer-involved shooting of Wilson included officers from multiple agencies in Bannock County, an outside agency, the Blackfoot Police Department, was asked to conduct the investigation into the incident to avoid any conflicts.

    It was Lt. Paul Newbold at that agency who conducted the investigation and compiled the report, which was then sent on to the Bannock County Prosecutor’s Office. Because of the conflict involved in that office reviewing the report for potential charges, Herzog passed the report on to the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office to conduct that review.

    The circumstances that eventually led to Wilson’s death on March 14 began that afternoon when his mother contacted police, concerned for his welfare. According to Bourne’s letter, Wilson had called his mother, threatening to kill himself, even saying he was going to die by a “cop shooting.”

    The mother contacted police and a search for Wilson ensued. Officers located him at a convenience store on South Fifth Avenue at about 8 p.m., and Wilson brandished weapons at the officers before taking off. A high-speed pursuit began that reached speeds so high that protocol forced officers to discontinue pursuit at least twice.

    Eventually, Wilson wrecked his car in the area of the Petco and left the scene on foot. One officer, a sergeant with the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office, managed to spot Wilson and pursued him on foot into the Pine Ridge Apartments near the Petco. The two even had a confrontation in a hallway of one of the buildings in the complex.

    The letter notes that Wilson stopped, pointed the gun at his head, at which time the sergeant asked him to drop the weapon. Wilson turned and ran from the building, heading to the Petco.

    It was there that he took an 18-year-old male as a hostage inside the store. Several officers had arrived by this time and were outside the store. It was Wilson’s plan that he and the hostage would leave in the hostage’s car.

    Once outside, Wilson was confronted by officers who ordered him to drop the weapon. Wilson continued to threaten his own life and that of his hostage, intermittently pointing the gun at his own head, and then at the hostage.

    “The sergeant pleaded with Wilson to put the gun down, but Wilson would not do it,” Bourne wrote in his letter. “The situation was obvious to everyone that Wilson posed great danger of violence or death to the hostage. The officers had to take immediate steps to overcome the threat of death or serious physical injury to the officers or the hostage.”

    It was the sergeant who fired a single fatal shot.

    In Bourne’s letter, he also revealed another factor about the incident that the prosecutor felt pertinent enough to mention in the letter.

    “The autopsy showed that Wilson had ‘acute methamphetamine intoxication,’ at the time of his death, indicating he had been using methamphetamine earlier that day,” Bourne wrote.

    In the days following Wilson’s death, his family, including his mother, spoke to the media about the 30-year-old man.

    “He just needed help,” Jonnie Wilson, Bradley’s mother, told the Journal in March. “I wanted them to take him to jail if that would get him help.”

    Jonnie also told the Journal that she knew he would run if he were in a car when officers confronted him.

    “He was not a bad kid, he just took a couple of bad turns,” Jonnie said at that time.

    Also revealed in March was the fact that earlier on the day Wilson died, he had been in court and learned he would most likely be charged as a habitual offender in conjunction with a felony eluding charge he was facing, his second such charge.