OFFICE OF

DANIEL J. KOLACIA
County Attorney

BOONE COUNTY ATTORNEY

COURTHOUSE
201 STATE STREET

BOONE, IOWA 50036-3990

Telephone: 515-433-0542
FAX: 515-433-0552

MATTHEW SPEERS
Assistant County Attorney
RICHARD J. EARLY
Assistant County Attorney

PRESS RELEASE
July 25, 2016
The Boone County Attorneys Office has completed its review of the June 27, 2016, law enforcement shooting of
Michael Disbrowe in Boone County, Iowa. The State of Iowas Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) provided
an investigative report regarding the matter, which included interviews of law enforcement officers involved,
witness interviews, crime scene analysis, and video and audio recordings made at the time of the shooting. The
Iowa Department of Public Health also provided this office with the Report of Autopsy and Toxicology Reports on
Michael Disbrowe.
The legal standard for this review is set forth in the Code of Iowa. Under Sections 704.1 and 704.3, one can use
reasonable force if that force and no more which a reasonable person, in like circumstances, would judge to be
necessary to prevent an injury or loss and can include deadly force if it is reasonable to believe that such force is
necessary to avoid injury or risk to ones life or safety or the life or safety of another, or it is reasonable to believe
that such force is necessary to resist a like force or threat. A person is justified in the use of reasonable force when
the person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to defend oneself or another from any imminent use of
unlawful force.
After a review of the DCI investigative report, police reports, video and audio recordings, and the Report of
Autopsy, the Boone County Attorneys Office has concluded that Boone Police Officers Joseph Slight and Nathan
Kester were justified under the law in firing their weapons at Michael Disbrowe because they reasonably believed
such force was necessary to defend them from an imminent use of unlawful force. At 10:18 pm on June 27, 2016,
Boone County Dispatch received a call from a male that there is a man with a gun threatening people in the trailer
park at 332 West 2nd Street. Police Officers arrived at the scene to find Michael Disbrowe holding a handgun.
Officers Kester and Slight pleaded with Michael Disbrowe to drop the handgun. The evidence establishes that
Michael Disbrowe pointed a handgun at them in a threatening manner as he advanced at law enforcement. Even
though the handgun later was revealed to be an airsoft pistol, the weapon had the realistic look of a handgun and
before Mr. Disbrowe charged at law enforcement Michael Disbrowe made a hand motion of chambering a round in
the pistol making officers believe it was a real handgun. Evidence also shows that Mr. Disbrowe had ingested
alcohol and drugs and appeared to witnesses to be depressed on the day of the shooting.
The force used was reasonable force in that it was reasonable for all officers involved, given the circumstances as
they were known and appeared to them at that time, to believe that such force was necessary to avoid injury or risk
to ones life or safety or the life or safety of another.

DANIEL KOLACIA
Boone County Attorney