Federal prosecutors in Washington have closed the book on a 2025 in-custody death, announcing they will not file federal or D.C. charges against two Metropolitan Police Department officers. The move follows the July arrest and hospitalization of a 56-year-old man who later died after being taken to a hospital. The U.S. Attorney's Office says its review is finished and no prosecution is coming.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the incident began on July 22, 2025, when two officers arrested 56-year-old Darrell Cox inside a convenience store in the 2900 block of Martin Luther King Avenue SE. An ambulance that had already been summoned took Cox to Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center, where he became unconscious and physicians were unable to revive him. A later autopsy ruled the death accidental and attributed it to a combination of cocaine and phencyclidine (PCP) that Cox ingested.
Prosecutors' findings
In a March 9, 2026 press release, the U.S. Attorney's Office said its independent review, which drew on civilian and law-enforcement accounts, body-worn camera footage, radio communications, and forensic reports, turned up "insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer willfully violated the civilian's rights." In the careful language of federal prosecutors, that means no federal civil-rights charges and no District of Columbia charges will be filed in the case. The announcement wraps up the federal part of the review.
What investigators reviewed
Federal prosecutors worked with the MPD Internal Affairs Division to examine body-worn camera video, physical evidence collected at the scene, recorded radio traffic, and autopsy and toxicology findings. Taken together, that material did not, in their view, show the kind of intentional misconduct required for a criminal case.
Legal context
To bring a federal civil-rights case against an officer, prosecutors must show willfulness, meaning an official intentionally deprived someone of their constitutional rights. It is a high legal bar that often narrows what can be charged. The statute used in those prosecutions is 18 U.S.C. § 242, as summarized by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.
Broader custody concerns in D.C.
The decision lands amid ongoing concern over deaths in custody across the District. A D.C. Auditor report covered by FOX 5 DC has pointed to overdoses as a leading cause of deaths in local detention facilities, raising alarms about contraband and preventable fatalities.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says it remains committed to fully investigating police-involved fatalities and will continue to review allegations of excessive force when the evidence supports it. While this announcement closes the federal review of Darrell Cox's death, it leaves D.C. still grappling with how medical emergencies and suspected drug use are handled when people are in custody.
