According to 911 dispatch records calls for a “gunshot wound” and “multi-systems trauma critical” were reported at the police department’s headquarters in the 120 block of New Street on March 3 at 7:44 p.m. This news organization obtained the records Monday through a Right to Know Request.
The shooting victim, Brian P. Riling, had been taken into custody by three New Hope police officers earlier that evening after he allegedly waited for his estranged girlfriend to finish work at a New Hope restaurant. He allegedly confronted her, grabbed her throat and spit in her face, according a copy of court documents.
Riling has been released from the hospital, but he is still experiencing medical problems related to the shooting, defense attorney Richard Fink said Monday.
The identification of the person shot and the location of the shooting are the first new details confirmed in the five weeks since the incident happened.
Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub on Friday said that he anticipated releasing his determination whether the shooting was justified this week. As of 1 p.m. Monday DA spokesman James O’Malley said there was no update.
The DA’s office, whose detectives investigated the shooting, has not released basic details of the shooting that typically are released within days after a police-involved shooting. The only information made public from officials is the shooting took place during an “altercation” and an unidentified man was struck and taken to a hospital. Initial reports were that the man, now identified as Riling, was injured, but the extent is unknown and further medical updates had not been given since March 4.
Other details of the shooting including the circumstances and location of the incident, whether body camera or other video surveillance exist, and if the officer involved has been taken off duty have not been released.
Those details were not included in court documents filed March 19 in connection with the criminal charges against Riling stemming from the March 3 incident. He is charged with witness intimidation and retaliation against a witness, both felonies, and misdemeanor charges of stalking, simple assault and harassment and driving with a DUI-suspended license.
Court documents in Riling’s criminal case identified three New Hope police officers as involved in Riling’s arrest.
The woman told police Riling was waiting outside her home at 4 a.m. that day, and that he sent her more than 100 text messages throughout the day, according to court documents. Among the text messages were ones where Riling wrote that he wanted her dead, threatened suicide, and demanded that she recant prior allegations against him involving a Feb. 17 incident where New Hope police filed burglary, criminal trespassing, harassment and stalking charges against him, according to court documents.
On March 3, New Hope police found Riling in the parking lot where the woman lives and took him into custody, court documents allege.
The Riling shooting is the second involving the 11-officer New Hope police department. The first occurred in September 2012 when police went to the home of New Hope resident Steven Cabelus to serve an involuntary mental health commitment warrant.
Police claimed that Cabelus answered the door to his apartment with a gun in his hand when police arrived to serve him with an involuntary psychiatric commitment warrant. The DA’s investigation found Cabelus pointed the gun at officers, refused to drop the gun and appeared to be moving toward them, prompting an officer to shoot him. The DA also did not pursue criminal charges against Cabelus, according to a search of online court records.
In a federal suit that Cabelus filed in 2014, though, he denied the police version of the shooting, claiming he dropped the gun when he saw police officers outside his door before police shot him. He also denied officers identified themselves as police when they came to his apartment.
New Hope paid Cabelus $500,000 as part of a 2015 settlement agreement that released the police chief and four officers from the lawsuit, according to documents obtained through a Right to Know request. The chief and three of the four officers named as defendants remain on the force, according to the police department website.
New Hope Police use a seven-step progressive continuum according to its Use of Force policy. Deadly or potentially deadly force is used “only when legally justified and when the need to do so is strong and compelling, only as a last resort, and when lower levels of force have been ineffective or would be inappropriate given the threat level confronting the officer,” according to a copy of the policy, adopted in 2007, and obtained through a Right to Know request.
Since 2009, at least 12 police-involved shootings have occurred in Bucks County; after investigating, the District Attorney’s Office ruled all were justified.
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