Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Wednesday that no criminal charges will be filed in a fatal officer-involved shooting that happened in a west Wichita neighborhood in 2022.
Starting around 1:30 a.m. on May 25th, 2022, police officers, SWAT team members and Sedgwick County deputies were involved in an 11-hour standoff at a home in the 500 block of North Milstead, east of the intersection of Central and 119th Street West. During negotiations the man threatened to shoot officers and himself. A SWAT team went into the home and exchanged shots with the man in the basement, then withdrew and officers heard more shots. The man later went upstairs and then into an attached garage, where officers could see him through the open garage door. One officer fired a shot after seeing the man with a handgun, and a short time later a deputy and another officer fired. It was determined that the shot from the deputy struck the man, who was identified as 39-year-old Gregorio Banuelos.
Citing state laws on self-defense and “stand your ground” situations, Bennett said the officer and deputy who fired the shots are immune from prosecution, and they made a reasonable determination that Banuelos posed a lethal risk.
[ photo taken from police body camera, presented with the DA report ]
