VILLAGE OF MONTICELLO, NY — A Sullivan County sheriff’s deputy wounded a fleeing suspect in an exchange of gunfire by Monticello’s Evergreen apartment complex, in an incident that took place around 3:05 p.m. on Thursday, April 10, according to the New York State Police. The suspect, identified by state police as Monticello resident Markell D. Jarette, 29, was treated at Garnet Health Medical Center in the Town of Wallkill. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. 

State police report that an employee at the Dollar General in Monticello contacted the Village of Monticello Police Department regarding a person shoplifting at the store. 

Deputies responding to a shoplifting call from the village police encountered Jarette, who fit the description of the shoplifting suspect. 

As the deputies approached Jarette, he began to remove articles of clothing and flee on foot. 

During the foot pursuit, Jarrette produced a firearm and discharged it in the direction of a sheriff’s deputy. One deputy returned fire, striking Jarette.

Jarette continued to flee a short distance before surrendering and being taken into custody by a state trooper and the sheriff’s deputies. A firearm was recovered at the scene.

He is in custody at the Sullivan County Jail, with bail set at $500,000 cash or $1 million bond.

A 2022 court filing shows an application for a temporary extreme risk protection order in Orange County against Jarrette. The facts and circumstances in the filing allege that Jarrette had a handgun and was threatening fatal violence.

Body cameras

While investigators might commonly analyze body camera footage in incidents that involve extreme uses of force, in this police shooting, none exists. 

The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office does not have body-worn cameras for its officers; the cameras have become widely used over the past decade by law enforcement agencies. They have become especially common in New York State, which passed a law in 2020 requiring all New York State Police troopers to wear them. 

Neighboring counties have adopted body-worn cameras as well. 

In 2024, the Orange County government received nearly $2 million in federal public safety funds and used a portion of them to acquire body-worn cameras for the officers in the county jail. 

The issue of body-worn cameras was also discussed in a recent exchange between former NY State Police Commander Reva Navarro and current Sullivan County Undersheriff Eric Chaboty through opinion letters published in the River Reporter. The opinion pieces were fueled by election-year discussions concerning incumbent Sheriff Mike Schiff and challenger Tim Dymond, who are running against each other in the upcoming June Republican primary for Sullivan County sheriff.  

While body cameras are “costly,” wrote Navarro, “they provide transparency to the public and a real-time view of incidents as they are happening. When the next major incident occurs, the community will want to see the camera footage, and right now, you won’t have any to immediately defend the department’s actions.”

Chaboty responded, writing,  “Like everything else, all it takes is money. Even though body cameras are NOT required by law, we have had preliminary talks with the county manager and legislators as to how we will fund them. The storage of video is the expensive part, not necessarily the camera.” See both letters to the editor here and here.

According to research conducted in 2022 by the National Institute of Justice, current evidence is mixed regarding the effectiveness of body-worn cameras in improving officer safety, increasing evidence quality, reducing civilian complaints, and reducing agency liability. Some studies show benefits, and others show no impacts or possible negative effects. See the full report at https://bit.ly/RR-2025-body-cam-research.

Attorney General Letitia James has looked into deaths caused by police officers or peace officers, including corrections officers, through the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). James issued a directive to release certain video materials to the public. This is footage from body-worn and dashboard cameras obtained in the course of an OSI investigation into a matter over which OSI has jurisdiction, according to the website of the NYS Attorney General.

Research conducted in 2022 by the Washington Post and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program on non-fatal police shootings, which surveyed 156 law enforcement departments throughout the country, found that in addition to the 2,137 people killed in fatal police shootings, officers in those departments shot and wounded 1,609 more. In other words, for every five people shot and killed by police in these departments, four others were shot and survived. See the full article at https://wapo.st/4jx7N4E.