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A federal jury on Monday found St. Paul police officer Nathaniel Younce civilly liable for the fatal shooting of Cordale Handy in 2017, but in a mixed decision, jurors determined that a second officer involved in the incident, Mikko Norman, should not be held liable.
Norman and Younce killed Cordale Handy, 29, on March 15, 2017 after responding to a domestic violence call in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood.
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said later that the officers’ use of deadly force was justified and they would not face criminal charges.
Handy’s mother Kim Handy Jones sued the city nearly a month after the incident but later dropped her case. She refiled her lawsuit in 2020.
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In it, Handy Jones alleged that the officers shouted conflicting commands at her son and shot him seconds after he tossed his gun away.
Handy Jones said her son was experiencing a mental health crisis and acknowledged that he had earlier fired 16 shots inside his apartment because he thought someone was “trying to hurt or kill him.”
Younce testified in court last week that he opened fire when Handy pointed his gun toward Norman and said Handy posed an “active deadly threat … If he did not point the gun at my partner, I would not have shot him.”
Younce fired four of the seven shots that struck Handy; Norman fired the other three.
The incident happened about six months before the St. Paul Police Department began deploying body cameras. Security cameras in the area captured some video related to the incident, but not the shooting itself.
Valerie Overton of Waukegan, Ill., aunt of 29-year-old Cordale Handy, wears a shirt with his likeness during a community meeting at Progressive Baptist Church in St. Paul on April 20.
Richard Marshall for MPR News | 2017
A forensic pathologist who testified as an expert witness for the plaintiffs had cast doubt on the officers’ testimony, saying abrasions on Handy’s right hand indicate that it was “highly unlikely” that Handy was holding the gun when he fell.
Handy’s gun was later determined to have been unloaded. The medical examiner found that Handy had drugs in his system including N-Ethylpentylone. The drug, commonly known as “bath salts,” can result in agitation and erratic behavior, according to the autopsy report.
While civil suits alleging excessive force and wrongful death are common, it’s extremely rare for them to go to trial. Handy was Black and the officers are white. The jury of seven men and five women included several people of color, but none appeared to be African-American.
“I knew this day would come,” Handy Jones said after leaving the courtroom. “It doesn’t bring back my baby, but hopefully this will open up doors for other mothers who look like me, who suffered the same thing as me.”
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