Calvin Toney

Calvin Toney, 24, was shot and killed by Baton Rouge Police Officer Darrell Carter Jr. on November 13, 2017, when Carter accompanied a state child welfare caseworker to Toney's apartment to investigate abuse allegations. Officers said Toney tried to flee, fought Carter during a struggle that lasted several minutes, and grabbed for the officer's Taser before Carter shot him once in the chest. Nearly two years later, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III cleared Carter of any charges, and the department later awarded him a Medal of Valor for the encounter. Toney's family said police seized apartment complex surveillance footage of the shooting and never shared it with them, leaving them without an independent account of what happened. No one has ever been charged in Toney's death.

Baton Rouge, LA · East Baton Rouge County

• 2017: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The child-welfare escort, the struggle, and the shooting, per East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III's October 2019 public findings and contemporaneous Louisiana State Police statements.
• A Department of Children and Family Services caseworker requested a police escort to interview Toney, whose prior record included a child abuse conviction, at the apartment he shared with his girlfriend; Toney's girlfriend had separately been arrested on child cruelty charges days earlier.
• Officer Darrell Carter Jr. said Toney tried to flee as soon as he opened the door and saw the officer; a struggle followed that District Attorney Moore described as lasting several minutes and involving Carter's Taser, which Toney allegedly grabbed for.
• Carter shot Toney once in the chest; Toney briefly fled again before being subdued and handcuffed, and died at the scene.
• Louisiana State Police investigated the shooting, as is standard protocol for Baton Rouge Police Department-involved shootings, and turned its findings over to the district attorney's office.
• District Attorney Hillar Moore III announced in October 2019, nearly two years after the shooting, that Carter would not face charges, characterizing the encounter as a chaotic struggle in which Toney reached for the officer's Taser.
• Carter was later given the Baton Rouge Police Department's Medal of Valor for his actions during the encounter.
• Toney's mother told The Appeal that apartment complex surveillance cameras had captured the shooting, but that police seized the footage and never released or shared it with the family, leaving them without any independent account of the incident a year after his death.

• Whether Toney in fact grabbed for the officer's Taser during the struggle, as the district attorney's account states, was never independently verified through the apartment complex's own surveillance footage, which police seized but the family says was never shared with them or made public.
• The specific contents of Officer Carter's body camera footage from the encounter, reviewed by the district attorney but not made broadly public in the sources reviewed for this summary, remain largely undisclosed.
• Why the charging decision took nearly two years to reach has not been fully explained beyond the general timeline of the state police investigation and district attorney review.

• The Appeal — “A Year After Police Shot Calvin Toney, His Family Still Doesn't Know What Happened”
• The Advocate (Baton Rouge) — “Baton Rouge officer won't face charges for fatally shooting man amid 2017 child abuse investigation”
• WBRZ — “District Attorney Hillar Moore clears officer involved in shooting death of Calvin Toney”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs