Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty on Wednesday cleared a Longmont officer who shot an unarmed man who wanted to die by suicide in August of any criminal charges.

On Thursday a Black advocacy group said critical questions remain unanswered and asked the attorney Colorado general and governor to step in.

Longmont police Officer Joshua Barry will not be charged with a crime in the fatal shooting of Dariss Yearby, 20, according to the decision letter Dougherty wrote to Longmont Police Chief David Moore. Before the killing, Yearby told the 18-year-old woman he held hostage Aug. 10 that he would try to use officers to die by suicide if he faced jail ever again, according to a district attorney’s news release.

Barry shot and killed Yearby in a home on Bluebird Drive after Yearby took the woman hostage and repeatedly told police he had a gun. The woman’s mother first reported the situation about 2:27 p.m. that day, telling police that Yearby strangled her daughter and was threatening to kill her, body-camera video and the 911 call audio show.

Police found after Yearby was killed that he never had a gun.

Barry acted as any reasonable officer would have, Dougherty’s decision letter says. The officer believed the 18-year-old or the officers were in fatal danger, and he killed Yearby in accordance with state law, Dougherty wrote.

Barry told investigators he had “to take what (Yearby’s) saying as one hundred percent the truth” given that Yearby said he had a gun and held a woman in a headlock, the letter says. The officer completed hostage rescue training one week before the shooting, according to the letter.

A review of the body-camera video showed that the first officer on the scene — 10 minutes before Barry set foot in the home — already knew Yearby was suicidal. The report does not say whether Barry knew that before running into the house, telling the three other officers, “If it’s hostage, we’ve got to push,” and shooting Yearby, all in 28 seconds.

The woman he held hostage told investigators Yearby was her boyfriend of two years and that he was staying at her home for at least two days while her mother was away. About 10 minutes before police got to the house, Yearby tried to kill himself, the woman told investigators. Then, when police arrived, Yearby told the woman he would “hold her like a hostage so police would shoot him and kill him,” the letter says.

The 18-year-old told investigators that she didn’t mean to call her mother that day. Her mother called police because of what she heard on the accidental phone call, the letter states.

The Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership, a group that seeks to uplift Black voices and power, asked Attorney General Phil Weiser to review the killing the day after the officer was cleared of any criminal charges. The group asserts that Dougherty’s letter clearing the officer left critical questions unanswered, according to a Thursday morning news release.

The group points out that two officers put away their guns and took out Tasers in the moments leading up to Barry’s decision to shoot Yearby.

“When multiple officers are responding to the same encounter, and officers with greater opportunity to observe the unfolding circumstances elect to pursue less-lethal intervention, their decisions become relevant evidence in evaluating the necessity, proportionality, and objective reasonableness of another officer’s use of deadly force,” the group wrote in a report analyzing the shooting and the district attorney’s determination.

All of the officers believed Yearby could kill somebody that day, and they knew little about Yearby’s suicidal motives until after he was killed, district attorney’s spokesperson Shannon Carbone wrote in a response. The two officers who holstered their guns did so because they didn’t have a clear shot anymore, and so pulled out Tasers, Carbone wrote.

The fact that Yearby was suicidal didn’t justify his death, the advocacy group argues in a 17-page review of the shooting and the district attorney’s investigation.

“ ‘Suicide by cop’ is a dangerous narrative that risks absolving law enforcement of accountability,” the group’s founder, MiDian Shofner, wrote in the release.

That’s why Weiser should step in to review the shooting and determine whether a full review is warranted, the group says. If he can’t do that, then Gov. Jared Polis should order Weiser to do so, the group’s report outlines.

The district attorney’s letter clearing Barry of criminal charges for killing Yearby should not end the institutional review or the public conversation about what happened, the Epitome of Black Excellence says. Longmont should review its policies and training and review whether Barry followed them properly, the group wrote.

Yearby’s family also has called for Longmont to conduct its own independent review. On Oct. 6, about 50 of his family members asked the City Council to seek a review of police training and use-of-force policies, and responses to mental health crises.