This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Prosecutors Thursday declined to charge four Barstow police officers who fatally shot a black man while he was at the wheel of a car, finding that they reasonably used deadly force to protect their lives when the vehicle clipped one of them.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office has declined to charge four Barstow police officers who fatally shot Diante Yarber, above, on April 5. (Credit: S. Lee Merritt/Los Angeles Times)
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office has declined to charge four Barstow police officers who fatally shot Diante Yarber, above, on April 5. (Credit: S. Lee Merritt/Los Angeles Times)

Diante Yarber, 26, was driving the black Ford Mustang in a Walmart parking lot when officers fired 30 rounds into the vehicle on April 5. His death received widespread publicity and sparked large protests in front of Barstow City Hall and police headquarters. The incident came a month after the high-profile killing of another African American young man, Stephon Clark, by police in Sacramento.

Yarber was wanted in connection with a stolen vehicle, and officers believed he was likely at the wheel because the car was registered to a relative, a report by the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office said.

“The officers were aware Yarber was a gang member known to carry guns and run from law enforcement,” the report said.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.