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Dwight Allen

Other Baltimore City Cases with Official Misconduct
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On October 29, 1999, Baltimore police officer Stuart Parker, who was driving his personal car and wearing civilian clothes, cut in front of another vehicle driven by 28-year-old Dwight Allen in Baltimore, Maryland.

Allen yelled at Parker and both men pulled over to the side of a street in North Baltimore to confront each other. Parker later said that Allen got out of his vehicle and came toward him in a threatening manner and that when Allen refused to halt, Parker pulled out a handgun and shot Allen in the leg.

Allen was charged with assaulting Parker, who was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal police investigation.

Allen went to trial in Baltimore City Circuit Court. Parker testified that he shot Allen because Allen refused to halt and because he feared that Allen might try to wrest his gun away. On July 5, 2000, Allen was convicted by a jury of second-degree assault and sentenced to two years of probation.

Not long after he was convicted, Allen retained new lawyers to investigate the possibility of filing a lawsuit against Parker for excessive use of force. During that investigation, Allen’s lawyer got the internal police investigation files. Among the files were interviews with three eyewitnesses who said that Allen did not charge at Parker and in fact had both hands in the air when Parker shot him.

In January 2002, Allen’s lawyers filed a motion for a new trial claiming that the police and prosecution had failed to disclose the witness interviews before Allen’s trial. In April 2002, the trial judge granted the motion and vacated Allen’s conviction. On June 6, 2003, the prosecution dismissed the charge.

Allen filed a lawsuit against the city of Baltimore and the Baltimore police department. The lawsuit was settled for $204,900 in July 2003.

– Maurice Possley

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Posting Date: 10/26/2016
State:Maryland
County:Baltimore City
Most Serious Crime:Assault
Additional Convictions:
Reported Crime Date:1999
Convicted:2000
Exonerated:2003
Sentence:Probation
Race/Ethnicity:Black
Sex:Male
Age at the date of reported crime:28
Contributing Factors:Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct
Did DNA evidence contribute to the exoneration?:No