Falls Church, Virginia

From the July 19, 2005 Washington Post:

A man who fatally shot a 23-year-old Falls Church man last month during a scuffle did not commit a crime, a Fairfax County grand jury found yesterday in declining to file charges.

Friends and relatives of victim Jack "Steve" Cornejo said the former high school soccer star was not a violent man and would never start a fight. But the grand jury decided otherwise, according to Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr., who presented the case to the panel and received no indictment for only the third time in his 38 years as prosecutor.

...

Steve Cornejo and a young woman had attended an apartment party early June 25 in the 12000 block of Pender Creek Circle, just off West Ox Road in Fair Oaks. About 4:30 a.m., police said, Cornejo and the woman were arguing loudly in a hallway outside the party, awakening neighbors. The two moved down to the apartment building's entryway, where one of the neighbors then intervened "to prevent an assault that was going on on a young woman," Horan said.

The neighbor apparently was armed with a concealed handgun. After the neighbor determined the conflict between Cornejo and the woman was over, Horan said, "every bit of evidence we had was he [the neighbor] was trying to leave, he had broken it off and was going back to his apartment when the victim [Cornejo] attacked him."

Horan added: "There is no question that the evidence indicated that Cornejo struck him from behind and knocked him over a hedge. In fact, the police found his glasses the next day next to the hedge."

The prosecutor said he thought police had uncovered all the evidence in the case. "And the evidence was that the aggressor throughout was the victim, and the evidence was he was not just a little drunk, he was very, very drunk," Horan said. Toxicology reports showed Cornejo's blood alcohol level to be .20, more than twice the legal limit in Virginia, Horan said.

Witnesses told police that Cornejo and the man fought. "In the course of that, the gun went off and the victim was shot," Horan said.

The neighbor, whose name and age have not been released, was never taken into custody and will face no criminal charges. Cornejo's family is considering a civil lawsuit.