Article Author:
Associated Press
Jim Mustian
Crystal Springs, Mississippi (AP) — U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Harold Duane Poole was waiting with a semi-automatic service rifle. — and an explanation — then on a warm spring night last year, a deputy arrived at his sprawling wooded property and found a body riddled with bullets near the driveway.
Poole, a DEA military-style commando veteran on his team, had a psychopathic neighbor shortly after calling law enforcement to report that the man was trespassing on his property. I admit that I shot him. He 'and he threatened him with a rock.
"I'll kill you" Poole fired eight powerful rounds at the man's chest, intestines and hips after Chase Brewer screamed. I remembered
Sheriff's agents were skeptical of Poole's self-defence claims from the beginning, the report shows. Mainly because he said in a call for help that the intruder had already left. I didn't see anything that looked like rocks. And the shooting occurred near the edge of his property, which he was 200 yards from Poole's home, causing his attorneys to decide that Mississippi's "Castle His Doctrine" did not apply.
Now, a little over a year after Poole was arrested on suspicion of murder in the April 27, 2021 shooting, he drove north and he was about 30 minutes away. Quietly back to work as a director in one of his DEA offices. After a grand jury this spring, Jackson declined to press charges.
What happened among the farms and pastures of Mississippi left the murdered man's family bewildered and frustrated. That's something that local prosecutors, the DEA, or Poole itself won't discuss. But interviews and hundreds of law enforcement records obtained by the Associated Press have revealed the legitimacy of the shootings, how Poole avoided a trial, and how DEA executives have been accused of misconduct in a spate of agency misconduct cases. raises new questions about whether you've gone too far to protect one of your own.
"This guy has not had a single citizen walk away doing what the DEA agents did," said a use of force expert who reviewed the investigative case file at the AP's request. he is W. Lloyd Grafton said.
A former DEA supervisor who investigated the AP incident noted that even though the shooting was unrelated to federal law enforcement and the pool was off duty feeding chickens, a significant first He questioned the agency's crude involvement in the hours. He found the intruder first.
Multiple of her DEA agents responded to a crowded crime scene, with one supervisor declaring herself "in charge" and leading state and local investigators to Officers blocked Poole from interviewing her for at least 48 hours. Law enforcement records show. Later that night, his DEA executive in New Orleans called the local sheriff after deputies decided to arrest Poole. By then, however, federal law enforcement officers had already left the scene and were seeking medical attention for being "shaky."
"They tried everything they could to keep us from prosecuting him," according to a transcript of a private conversation obtained by the AP. Sheriff Swilly tells family of dead man
"I got calls from all over Virginia because this guy is an agent," he added, referring to DEA headquarters.
In any event, the deputies filed charges against Poole, the sheriff explained. It was clear that investigators did not wait for law enforcement to arrive and that he had "taken the law into his own hands."
"When you're wrong, you're wrong," added Swilly. "You take someone's life for a rock."
Hours after the shooting, the U.S. Department of Justice said Poole was on duty. and the DEA made an internal decision that it should be referred to local authorities.
A former senior DEA official said the DEA nevertheless had an interest in and influence over the case.
"You just sabotaged and sabotaged the DEA's local investigation," said a former DEA special agent who also served as the agency's deputy chief inspector. He is KarlC. said Colder.
The DEA did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment.
The Poole shootings followed a string of misconduct scandals that have plagued the DEA for years.
Just a few weeks ago, another off-duty DEA executive snapped a photo of himself flashing his DEA badge and firearm outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots. Agent Mark Ibrahim has responded to another dispute. Ibrahim is awaiting trial in four federal courts.
And just months before that incident, his once-prominent DEA agent admitted to laundering money in collusion with Colombian drug cartels. Jose Irizarry joins a growing list of former agents behind bars when he was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison.
Poole, 48, has been with the DEA for more than 20 years. Acts as her supervisor for the firm's group. in Mississippi.
Since 2013, Poole has traveled the world with the DEA's Overseas Deployment Advisory Support Team, a military-style special forces unit that fought drug traffickers in Afghanistan and Latin America. The so-called FAST team disbanded in 2017 after coming under fire for a series of deadly shootings in Honduras that preceded Poole's overseas assignment.
Poole documented his adventures on Facebook, sharing pictures of himself in his combat uniform. One showed him firing an assault rifle somewhere in South America. "This has definitely been the most rewarding period of my 21-year career," he wrote in a late 2016 post before returning to his family in Mississippi. increase.
Poole and his neighbor Brewer, or "the man across the street" as the agent once described him, have known each other for years and believe that Poole I had such a good relationship that I invited Brewer to his cooking.
But by the time of the shooting, months of bad blood had accumulated. According to the indictment, Brewer repeatedly trespassed on Poole's nine-acre property and tried to break into the house through his bedroom window in September 2020, prompting Poole to draw a pistol.
Brewer rammed incoherently until he emerged from the creek armed with a pistol and his two pockets his knife and was arrested by lawmakers.
An avid outdoorsman and trailer-living truck mechanic, his diminutive 47-year-old Brewer is considered a miracle of modern medicine by those close to him. I was. In 1996, he underwent five organ transplants at the University of Pittsburgh to replace his stomach, duodenum, pancreas, intestines and liver after suffering from intestinal failure due to a genetic defect.
But Brewer had a stroke in his 2019 and started to get worse, said his mother Andrea Breedlove. He was hearing voices, and his drug use expanded from marijuana to meth. Months before Brewer died, his mother tried to rape him, but was told there weren't enough beds in state facilities.
"Chase was a quiet, good neighbor for years, but she changed after that," Breedlove said in an interview at her home. "He would sometimes hallucinate and talk to people who weren't there. He needed help."
Meanwhile, Poole became increasingly concerned about his family's safety. , was frustrated that the petitions to local law enforcement were being ignored. In October 2020, a month after his attempted break-in, his attorney's wife told her that Brewer had a habit of sneaking onto the property when Poole was away after yet another burglary incident. I spoke to an agent. Brewer, who was evicted by the pool dog in this instance, falsely told the deputies holding him that he was a "non-arrestable" law enforcement officer, according to sheriff records.
So, on that fateful night in April 2021, it didn't take long for Poole to realize Brewer was walking down the driveway. Emergency line for reporting trespassing and requesting representation.
"Mr. Sheriff's report said Poole went in, got the rifle, and when he returned Chase Brewer had left.
Investigation The officer ordered Brewer to follow him down the driveway adjacent to the pasture, flash his badge and knock him to the ground Instead, Poole told his deputies Brewer hurled a rock and said, I'm going to kill you,' he said. That's when Poole raised his AR-15 style rifle and fired.
Three minutes after he first called, Poole called the sheriff's office again to report that he had shot Brewer for indicting him.
``Mr. Poole said Chase Brewer was insane and was shooting guns in his trailer all the time. A meth was detected, the drug he was also in possession of when he died.
Even after arresting Poole, the agent did not provide a full statement. , deputies admitted they were unaware of the full extent of the encounter.
Some members of state law enforcement also speculated Poole's arrest reluctantly.The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Investigator Dennis Weaver told the judge at a preliminary hearing that he did not agree with the sheriff's decision to arrest Poole. It is unclear why the murder case was dismissed.Despite the sheriff's promise to seek "true justice" for the Brewer family.
District Attorney Daniela Shorter refused to discuss her handling of the case, neither her office nor the sheriff released body camera footage, citing an investigation into the case by the Justice Department. . of the director general.
"Releasing it to the public would go against their efforts in a federal prosecution," said her Elise Munn, Copia County prosecutor. The Office of the Inspector General declined to comment.
For Brewer's family, the loss of his loved one is compounded by the inability to find answers. At the very least, they hope Poole will apologize or offer condolences for her neighbor's death. But the agents, like the DEA, have remained silent.
"He wanted Chase dead. That's it," said Brewer's mother, Breedlove. "This was not David vs. Goliath. What was he going to do with the rock?
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