Lehigh County District Attorney James B. Martin announced Sept. 3 that charges have been filed against a Pennsylvania constable and a man who was shot by the constable in a 20l4 Whitehall Township case.

Kevin McCullers, 39, has been charged with resisting arrest, a second-degree misdemeanor, and Constable Howard Altemos, 57, has been charged with aggravated assault, a first-degree felony, and recklessly endangering another person, a second-degree misdemeanor.

Martin said a second constable, who was with Altemos when they tried to arrest McCullers on several bench warrants because of his failure to appear on multiple traffic violations, was not charged.

Although Lehigh County’s Seventh Investigating Grand Jury recommended that a criminal complaint be filed against Constable Carlos Bemardi, 55, Martin said that he did not approve a charge of recklessly endangering another person against Bemardi.

“I do not believe the case could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” Martin said. “The evidence showed that Bemardi only shot at a tire of Mr. McCullers’ vehicle, which he hit, in an attempt to disable the vehicle.”

The Grand Jury heard testimony from more than 15 witnesses, including McCullers and Whitehall Detective Andrew Millen, and reviewed 30 exhibits, including documents, photographs, crime scene diagrams, forensic and firearms reports, and video and audio recordings presented by Chief Deputy District Attorney Charles F. Gallagher III, supervising attorney of the Grand Jury, before handing up its presentment on July 24.

The presentment was reviewed by Lehigh County Judge Maria L. Dantos, the supervising judge of the Grand Jury. Martin approved the charges against Altemos and McCullers based on the presentment.

The Grand Jury investigated the shooting of McCullers that occurred on July 17, 2014, at 3449 Portland Drive, Whitehall Township.

The presentment alleges the following:

At 7:27 a.m., July 17, 2014, Whitehall Township police responded to reports of a shooting by Pennsylvania constables at 3449 Portland Drive. Officers found McCullers in the driver’s seat of a vehicle. McCullers had a gunshot wound to his back left shoulder. The vehicle was perpendicular to the driveway, and part of the vehicle was on the driveway, sidewalk and grass. The vehicle was in reverse with the back-up lights on.

Two constables were at the scene. They said they had attempted to arrest McCullers for 13 bench warrants because of his failure to appear before a magisterial district judge for traffic violations. Altemos said that after Bemardi told McCullers about the warrants, McCullers tried to back out of the garage with the driver’s door open, pinning the constables against the wall of the garage. Altemos said he fired his weapon at that time. Bemardi said he shot into the front left tire of McCullers’ vehicle as it was backing down the driveway.

McCullers was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital, Salisbury Township. A physician said that the bullet that Altemos fired entered his shoulder and then his spine, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Whitehall Township police and Pennsylvania State Police took photographs of the scene, recovered shell casings, took measurements and examined McCullers’ vehicle, the garage and the driveway. Investigators seized the constables’ firearms, which later were examined by Kurt J. Tempinski, a county detective and head of the firearms and tool mark (ballistics) laboratory located in the Lehigh County/Cetronia Ambulance Center in South Whitehall Township.

Interviews with the constables were videotaped. Bemardi, who was appointed as a constable in 2007 and was certified in 2008, told investigators that McCullers was in his vehicle in his garage when Bemardi approached him and told him that he had several warrants for him. Bemardi said that Altemos pulled his vehicle in front of the driveway, blocking it. Altemos walked to where Bemardi was in the garage.

Bemardi said McCullers started his vehicle and put it in reverse. Bemardi said he opened the driver’s side door and that the vehicle was moving him and Altemos into the comer of the garage and pinning them against the wall. Bemardi said he heard a shot being fired and that he fired a single shot at the front tire to disable the vehicle.

Altemos was a constable for more than 10 years, was certified in 2003 and was recertified in firearms use in June 2014.

Altemos said that when he was next to Bemardi in the garage, McCullers put the vehicle in reverse and that the open driver’s door hit him and was pushing them into a corner. Altemos said he feared serious bodily injuries and fired his gun.

McCullers said he had pulled his vehicle out of the garage and that his door was not open. He said he heard someone say something and that he was then shot.

The Grand Jury reviewed photographs of McCullers’ position in the vehicle, the driver’s side door, the location of the vehicle, the garage door and marks on the garage frame and driver’s side door that indicated that the marks were created by the vehicle pulling out of the garage with the car door opened.

Tempinski’s examination of casings that were found outside the garage on the front yard away from the driveway indicated that the constables were out of the garage and either in the driveway or the yard when Altemos shot McCullers.

In addition, a doctor who treated McCullers said that McCullers became paralyzed as soon as the bullet lodged in his spine and that he would not have been able to move his legs. The vehicle would have stopped at that time. The Grand Jury determined that Altemos shot McCullers almost immediately before the vehicle stopped moving near the end of the driveway and away from the garage and that the shooting did not occur in the garage.

The Grand Jury concluded that McCullers was attempting to flee from the constables but that Altemos was in no danger of serious bodily injury or death when he shot McCullers and, therefore, was not justified in using deadly force.