Milton Hall

Milton Hall, 49, a homeless man with a documented history of mental illness, was shot and killed by six Saginaw, Michigan police officers on July 1, 2012, in a parking lot after a dispute with a convenience store clerk. Eight officers formed a semicircle around Hall, who held a small pocketknife; after a police dog was allowed to bark and snap at him, six officers opened fire, striking him 11 times out of 46 rounds fired, continuing to shoot after he had collapsed. The Saginaw County prosecutor and the Michigan Attorney General's office both declined to bring criminal charges, finding the officers had not acted with criminal intent. The Department of Justice opened its own civil rights investigation and announced in February 2014 that it too would not prosecute, citing insufficient evidence of willful misconduct. No one has ever been charged in Hall's death.

Saginaw, MI · Saginaw County County

• 2012: 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 confrontation, the police dog, and the shooting of 46 rounds by six of eight officers present, striking Hall 11 times, per Saginaw County Prosecutor Mike Thomas's public account and video obtained by CNN.
• The entire incident was captured on police dashcam video and a bystander's cellphone video, both later made public.
• After a 10-week investigation, the Saginaw County prosecutor announced in September 2012 that the six officers who fired would not face criminal charges, concluding they had not acted with criminal intent.
• The Saginaw Police Department demoted the on-site supervising officer to patrolman and disciplined two others for policy violations connected to the shooting; the six officers who fired remained on the force.
• The U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, and the FBI jointly announced in February 2014 that the evidence was insufficient to prove the officers had willfully shot Hall for an unlawful purpose, and declined federal prosecution.
• The ACLU of Michigan presented the case, including previously unreleased dashcam footage, to the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in October 2014.

• Whether Hall's movements with the pocketknife, at the distance officers maintained, presented the imminent threat officers described has been disputed by the ACLU of Michigan and outside observers reviewing the same video the prosecutor's office relied on.
• The specific individual conduct of each of the six officers who fired, versus the two who did not, has not been distinguished in public reporting beyond the aggregate shot count.
• The precise nature of the internal discipline given to the supervising officer and two others, beyond a demotion, was not detailed publicly.

• ACLU of Michigan — “Saginaw Homeless Man Dies by Police Firing Squad”
• U.S. Department of Justice — “Justice Department Announces Results of Investigation into the Death of Milton Hall”
• CNN — “Feds: No charges in Michigan police shooting of homeless man”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs