In the pre-dawn hours of March 12, 2020, 21-year-old Duncan Socrates Lemp, a white male software developer, was fatally shot in his Potomac, Maryland home by a SWAT officer from the Montgomery County Police Department. The tactical unit was executing a 'no-knock' search warrant at the residence Lemp shared with his parents and younger brother. The warrant was obtained based on an anonymous tip that Lemp was in possession of firearms, which he was prohibited from owning due to a criminal record
as a juvenile.
The moments leading to the fatal shooting are a matter of dispute. According to the police account, officers announced themselves and gave commands for Lemp to show his hands. They state that Lemp refused to comply and instead armed himself with a rifle, prompting an officer to fire in what was described as self-defense. A prosecutor's report later concluded that Lemp ignored commands to 'don't move' or 'don't do it' while pointing a weapon at an officer outside his bedroom window. Investigators reported recovering three rifles and two handguns from the home. They also found what they described as a booby trap on the exterior door of Lemp's bedroom, designed to fire a shotgun shell at anyone entering from the outside.
Lemp's family and their attorney present a starkly different narrative, based on the account of his girlfriend who was in the room with him. They maintain that Lemp was asleep in his bed when police opened fire from outside the house, without any warning or prior contact. An eyewitness stated that police did not make any verbal commands until after Lemp had been shot and was lying on the floor. The family's attorneys have argued that the search warrant did not mention any imminent threat to law enforcement and that no one in the home at the time had a criminal record as an adult. His girlfriend was reportedly injured during the incident.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the Howard County State's Attorney's Office conducted an investigation, a standard procedure for officer-involved shootings in Montgomery County. In December 2020, prosecutors announced that no criminal charges would be filed against the officer who shot Lemp, concluding that the use of deadly force was justified under the circumstances. The investigation noted the absence of body camera footage capturing the shooting itself. The Lemp family has since filed a federal civil lawsuit alleging excessive force and defects in the warrant.
