From: bressler@iftccu.boeing.com (Rick Bressler)
Newsgroups: seattle.general
Subject: Re: SWAT team kills innocent woman in No-Knock raid.
Date: 19 Aug 92 18:05:44 GMT
Organization: Boeing Commercial Airplane Group

I think a lot of the discussion generated over the recent accidental
police shooting of an innocent woman in Washington State has been due to
some misconceptions about how the law works here.  First of all, let me
state the facts as I know them.

Last year there was an armed robbery in which at least one person,
security guard type I think, was killed.  The robbers disappeared and
the investigation turned up nothing.  This was a fairly nasty hot potato
for the local police departments.

A few weeks ago a previously reliable informant gave the police the
identities of all four individuals.  I don't know the officer who got
the warrant, it wasn't Tony, but I've talked to other officers about
this and it isn't easy to get this type of warrant.  You may not have
identified the informant, but you must provide other evidence that his
story is correct.  Often this evidence takes the form of other reliable
information he has given you in the past.  "Your honor, his person has
given us this suspect .. etc in the past, and has always been accurate
in his information."  Now, I'm not saying that I personally agree with
this, but there are MANY warrants issued all over the country this way,
and there was nothing particularly unusual about this one.

Actually, it was four warrants.  All four individuals were allegedly in
different locations.  Simultaneous arrests were planned in order to
reduce the chance of them warning each other and escaping.  They were
really under pressure to apprehend these guys.

All the arrests went well, except the one.  In this case the police KNEW
that there were children in the house.  The reason that they went in
quickly was because they were worried that the 'bad guy' might try to
use the children as hostages, and it was decided that with the
information that they had been able to obtain, this was the safest path
for everybody.

Tony had just crashed through a glass door.  For some reason I'm not
real clear on, the lighting was not good.  He located the children.
Suddenly there was a commotion, and an indistinct figure came suddenly
into the room, towards the children.  Tony's mp5 discharged a single
bullet, hitting the figure in the throat, killing her.

It turned out that the 'fink' had some sort of grudge against these
people and chose that time to turn from a reliable source into an
a**hole.

A police review judged that Tony's action was not criminal.

A coroners inquest, in a split decision agreed.

Tony is restored to active duty.

My opinions:

A lot of people seem to be peeved that there wasn't some sort of
criminal trial.  Perhaps this is because they don't realize how the law
is set up in WA.  First of all, let me explain that Washington isn't
like some locations where every shooter is automatically charged with
something, police or civilian.  In fact there was one poor guy that had
to defend himself, with lethal force, twice in a two day period.  No
charges were filed, and he still had his gun.  One of the people he had
to shoot was a woman doing her best to shoot him!  At any rate, we often
don't waste money on a trial that is going to turn out to be a mere
formality.

Perhaps people don't understand what a coroners inquest means around
here.  First of all, the coroner is an elected official, not appointed
by the police department or mayor or whatever.  He has no connection
with the PD.  Secondly the panel is composed of CIVILIANS and the
procedure is open to the PUBLIC.

Personally, I don't attribute any particular magic to a group of
citizens called a JURY in lieu of a PANEL.  It is enough for me that the
police review was reviewed by a civilian body.  Had there been
significant doubt, there WOULD have been a trial.

As to what actually happened in that room, nobody really knows.  That
officer had kids.  The scene was supposed to be secured.  It is possible
his mind interpreted the sudden unexpected movement towards the kids as
a threat to them and reacted.  He may never know exactly why.  The mind
often blanks out terrible incidents to some degree, this is well
established fact for anybody that cares to spend much time investigating
these types of incidents.

There is no doubt that Tony made a mistake.  The important points to
keep in mind:  Two investigations, one by an independent civil authority
absolved him of all blame.  Secondly, from what I have been able to
determine, any of us might have reacted the same way.

Basically, most of the posts I've seen fall into one of three
categories.

1) I think there are a lot of people out there who are still sore over
the Rodney King incident and are looking for any excuse to condemn the
police anywhere.

2) There are a lot of armchair cowboys out there who think that these
things are always clear cut and that the bad guys always are well lit
and carry signs, and that any mistake in the part of the police is
criminal.

3) Civil rights folks who are outraged over a warrant being issued in
the first place.

I suppose I belong to the last group to some extent.  I don't think that
it is fair that a person can become trusted enough by the police to get
a swat type raid pulled on somebody.  In fact this quite pisses me off.
But this has nothing to do directly with Tony's actions in this
situations.  I honestly feel that people should get off of his case.

Still, you have to remember that the persons that the police thought
they were apprehending where murderers and robbers.  Not the sort of
people I'd like left running around loose longer than they have to.

I feel that this was a dreadful tragedy, but probably an unavoidable
one.  As nearly as I have been able to tell, all the officials acted in
good faith, and nobody, including Tony was negligent.  A woman is dead
who didn't deserve it.  Nobody wanted that and nobody planned it that
way.  Is arbitrarily signaling out one person to hold responsible any
fairer?

Actually parsing this has been somewhat of a problem for me.  Each step
along the way, investigation, warrant, raid, etc. seems to make pretty
good sense.  Right up until the bang.  Even that make sense in light of
the actual situation.  (I didn't say it was right, just that I could
understand it, mind you.)  Still, I have a hard time putting my finger
on any one thing.

I guess if I've learned (or in this case re-learned) anything, it is
that no real life situation can be reduced to a simple one column report
in a newspaper or a 30 second news spot.  Real life is always more
complicated than that.  Those who live their lives through 10 second
'sound bites' are doomed to go through life with very inaccurate
pictures of the real world around them.

Everybody is of course entitled to their own opinion.  You should not
however make snap judgements on what you read in the paper or see posted
in the net.  Try to get some facts first.

Rick.
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