No charges filed against London police in Harless shooting. What comes next?
Members of a southeastern Kentucky town outraged by the 2024 police shooting of a man whose address cops appear to have mistaken are shifting their attention to civil litigation and concealed records now that the criminal investigation has closed.
A Laurel County grand jury declined to indict the London police officers involved in the early-morning raid that left Douglas “Doug” Harless, 63, dead at his home on Vanzant Road south of town two days before Christmas in 2024.
For more than a year since the shooting, police have denied records requests by members of the public, media and attorneys for Harless’ family, citing an ongoing investigation. But the special prosecutor appointed by the Kentucky attorney general’s office to oversee that case told the Herald-Leader Friday his office has presented the grand jury with “everything we know.”
Russell and Wayne counties commonwealth’s attorney Matthew Leveridge said the criminal investigation into the matter has effectively closed, barring any additional evidence in the case.
That decision by the grand jury Feb. 20 not to indict could pave the way for a civil lawsuit against the city and London Police Department to proceed and may prompt the release of documents explaining why officers were at Harless’ door the night he died.
“We want to know how this happened,” said Kelly Gibson, a former London resident who regularly attends monthly vigils to honor Harless’ life and demand accountability. “We deserve to know.”
Twelve Laurel County officials penned a letter Monday calling for a federal civil rights probe into the shooting.
The Herald-Leader has refiled an open records request to the Kentucky State Police for the original warrant and other information in its investigative file. The police department said in a statement Friday it, too, is awaiting the KSP’s investigative file in order to launch an internal investigation into its officers’ conduct.
Search warrant has been withheld
Harless was shot five times in his doublewide mobile home at 511 Vanzant Road in rural Laurel County shortly before midnight Dec. 23, 2024, after police say he pointed a gun at them while they were conducting a search for stolen lawn equipment.
The original warrant, which has not yet been made public, reportedly lists 489 Vanzant Road, which is where Harless’ house appears on local county property valuation maps.
City officials have said they used those maps and the county’s 911 system to confirm the location, but house numbers at Harless’ unit clearly read “511” and an officer visited the address targeted in the warrant the same day police conducted their raid.
Law enforcement records may be concealed under Kentucky law when disclosure “could pose an articulable risk of harm to the agency or its investigation” by identifying key witnesses or informants. But those records must become public “after enforcement action is completed or a decision is made to take no action.”
“Now that the grand jury has concluded, apparently, that there was no crime committed, then the reason for them withholding that warrant is no longer valid,” said Howard Mann, an attorney representing one of Harless’ daughters in the civil wrongful death suit.
Civil litigation moves forward
The September lawsuit Harless’ daughters filed against the city, police department and officers believed to be there the night their father died accuses the defendants of knowingly or recklessly raiding the wrong home, ignoring obvious signs they were at the wrong address and acting outside their jurisdiction confined to the London city limits.
Attorneys for the city removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in October because the complaint involves a federal question related to Harless’ Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.
The city, police department and its officers have filed motions to dismiss the case, alleging, in part, the plaintiffs failed to state sufficient facts. That lack of information has been a theme in their pursuit of justice, Mann said.
“Any perceived defect in the Complaint is due both to the Defendants’ concealment of the officers’ identities and to the fact that key records, such as the search warrant and investigative report, still have not been released, even though the statute of limitations for the Estate’s claims runs in less than two months,” the plaintiffs said in a response brief filed in November.
The officers who fired on Harless, and any others there that night, have never been officially identified by the city. One detective, Joshua Morgan, was identified last week as part of the grand jury’s proceedings, though it remains unclear what Morgan’s role was in the raid.
Mann said his clients were forced to file their lawsuit in Kentucky because the state’s statute of limitations for claims against government officials acting in their official capacity expires after a year.
The daughters waited as long as they could, he said, because they were waiting for more information to be released.
“Now, finally, hopefully, we can better understand what took place that night,” he said.
This story was originally published February 24, 2026 at 5:15 AM.
