and welcome back to the civil rights lawyer Channel if you remember the recent video that I did about my client who was shot in his bed by the West Virginia State Police SWAT team 20-year-old adarius Lester was shot by members of West Virginia State Police who were executing a search warrant he was not named in the police say they knocked on the residence's door twice before they breached the door there's a huge update in that case Let me refresh your memory and then I'll tell you the big news they don't want the truth to come out they don't want the actual people who shot somebody to have to explain themselves foreign on March 10th the West Virginia State Police Special Response Team executed a search warrant in McDowell County West Virginia and shot 21-year-old Darius Lester multiple times Darius had no criminal record he was not under arrest he was not suspected of having committed any crime he was merely sleeping on the couch in a house where police were executing a search warrant completely unrelated to him Darius works as a coal truck driver he works the night shift so he had just gotten off work at around 4 AM he then went to sleep shortly after getting home then sometime just after 5 a.m the State Police SWAT team showed up and inside the house everybody was asleep including Darius so Darius had not been asleep that long and as I explained and showed in the prior video I went to the location and I took pictures myself and I showed you exactly where Darius was sleeping and the SWAT team comes into the house and encounters him and whatever happens right there there is a pool of blood right underneath his bed and he is shot multiple times by this SWAT team and so after the fact their story is is they were met by somebody attacking them with a hammer so to cover their own rear ends after that what did they do they charge him with a felony of attempting to harm police officers with a hammer after the incident Darius was given a criminal complaint that said he was facing a felony for attempting to maliciously wound an officer and after your government shoots you what did they do next well if you survive guess what they charge you with a crime to cover up their exposure to a civil lawsuit and that's exactly what they've done to Darius here they've charged him with a felony for allegedly attempting to harm this poor vulnerable SWAT team with a ball peen hammer why did they do this because any subsequent civil rights lawsuit is going to be bound by any factual findings contained in the underlying criminal case if they convict Darius of attempting to hit a police officer with a hammer in the state criminal case that fact will have to be taken as true by the federal court in a subsequent civil lawsuit so it would tie our hands as I explained in the prior video the citizens of McDowell County West Virginia should not put up with their local elected officials their local Criminal Justice System running defense for the West Virginia State Police in a civil lawsuit allowing them to get away with violating the rights of one of their citizens yes that's right citizens of McDowell County West Virginia your local criminal justice system is running defense for the State Police so they don't lose a civil lawsuit and have to compensate a poor innocent person that they shot hopefully the elected prosecutor of that County does the right thing and drops the charges and that brings us to the huge update the criminal case has now been beaten and it wasn't the local elected prosecutor who did the right thing and dropped the charges no they proceeded with the charges it was a local Magistrate Judge who heard the evidence at a hearing this week and determined that there was insufficient evidence for the charges to continue today a hearing was held to see if the court would officially charge him with this crime here we have a very unique situation in that two percent who is being called here to testify on behalf of the state has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever he is basing everything that he knows about this based on a trooper yang in Trooper Jaeger as Trooper Sadler testified to wasn't involved in what happened on that day about 20 Witnesses were presented to bolster the state's case another witness was on the premises let alone inside the home at the time of the incident after magistrate Van Dyke heard from all parties he announced that not enough evidence was presented to officially press charges against him so there we have it the State Police SWAT team comes in your house and they shoot you and then they charge you with a felony when you survive and when they have their opportunity to prosecute you for that felony they feel spectacularly they show up with a State Trooper who wasn't there who would talk to another state trooper who wasn't there meanwhile where are the members of the SWAT team that actually went in and shot another human being it's just crickets let's look back at what the state police told in a propaganda move the news media after shooting my clients one man was injured Friday during an officer involved shooting while Troopers with the West Virginia State Police were serving a search warrant at about 5 45 AM members of the West Virginia State Police SRT acting in cooperation with the FBI served the search warrant at the residence of Jeremy Lester upon entry members were confronted by Darius Lester 22 of Big Sandy who was armed and attempted to attack the members with a hammer members engaged the suspect and shots were fired stopping the threat first aid was administered on scene until EMS arrived Darius Lester was transported to Raleigh General Hospital for his injuries and that was just a press release designed to mislead the citizens of McDowell County as to what actually happened but what about the criminal complaint allegations which are actually made under oath that were used to charge my client with a felony What specifically did they allege under oath so here are the sworn allegations by Trooper Sadler who did testify at this hearing as to why this man was being charged with a felony on March 10 2023 at approximately 5 40 hours West Virginia State Police Special Response Team traveled to to this address to assist with the service of a search warrant upon arrival SRT knocked and announced their presence twice before breaching the door to the Target residents upon entry SRT members encountered a male subject later identified as Darius Lester Lester had a hammer in his hand and rushed members of the SRT with the hammer up in a striking position despite being given verbal commands to drop the weapon Lester continued towards the SRT members with a deadly weapon still in hand in a raised position an SRT member reacting to the threat presented by Lester discharged his firearm twice to stop the threat striking Lester signed under oath by Trooper K.M Sadler so then Sadler shows up at this hearing where the judge is to evaluate whether there is even probable cause to continue the charges against Darius for this felony and Sadler shows up and testifies and apparently test justifies that he doesn't know anything because he wasn't even there he had just talked to this other Trooper Trooper Jaeger who apparently also wasn't there meanwhile who is not there where is the dude who shot Darius where are the witnesses how crazy is that that your government shoots you and they send two cops who know nothing despite despite signing an affidavit that they did and meanwhile nobody knows anything you know could this be just another attempt to confuse and mislead the public or another attempt to Aid in their defense of the coming civil lawsuits they don't want the truth to come out they don't want the actual people who shot somebody to have to explain themselves I don't know but I would speculate that that probably is the reason as I've explained before I try to insulate myself as the civil rights lawyer from the criminal defense aspect of these cases so my client had a completely different lawyer who I don't really interact with at all who represented his interest in that criminal case and then once that's over with then I can go ahead and file the Civil Rights lawsuit so hopefully we're going to be able to do that at this point where where does that leave us well theoretically the the criminal charges could still come back because in West Virginia to prosecute somebody for a felony you have to indict them before a grand jury anyways now if they couldn't even come up with probable cause in this case at this level at the magistrate court level it doesn't make sense that they would later come back and try to indict this guy I think this is just a lot of shenanigans based on trying to delay a civil rights lawsuit so perhaps we will proceed hopefully we'll proceed we'll definitely proceed because there was no crime committed here by Darius anyway so they're not going to be able to avoid it I did send a foia request to State Police to try to get their investigation of what supposedly happened does that even exist at this point given what happened at that hearing I don't know so they denied that foyer request because there was still an active investigation so it still remains to be seen what their internal investigation report concluded but it will come out at the end I will find the shooters and I will subpoena them and put them under oath and I'll force them to testify as to what they say happen so make sure to subscribe both here and at the blog at the Civil Rights lawyer.com if you want to follow along to watch this case unfold and I really look forward to doing that remember freedom is scary deal with it foreign [Music]