Opinion ID: 443256
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts of case

Text: 2 The rather substantial body of facts, relevant to the many issues raised on appeal, is as follows: 3 On Sunday, February 2, 1958, Milwaukee Police Officers Thomas Grady, Jr. and Louis Krause met by chance at approximately 8:30 p.m. at the corner of North 7th Lane and West Wright Street. The officers stopped their motorcycles at the curb (both were assigned to traffic duty at the time) and each smoked a cigarette and talked. Krause claimed that Grady at this time told Krause he needed some more arrests that night, so that he was going to check some vacant homes and arrest some niggers. 1 4 Grady saw an automobile pass that did not have a tail-light. He started his motorcycle and pursued the car, Krause following close behind. Grady stopped the car east of the above intersection. Grady testified that as he approached the car, he believed that the driver fit the description of a man wanted for armed robbery listed on a Milwaukee Police Department daily bulletin. Suddenly the driver's door swung open and the driver jumped out and ran to the north curb of West Wright Street and then ran east. The runner, Daniel Bell, said nothing and held nothing in his hands. The officers pursued Bell to the intersection of West Wright and North 6th, where Bell ran north on 6th. In the course of the chase both officers yelled halt and fired several warning shots upward into the air. 5 Krause commandeered a car proceeding south on 6th Street, ordered it to turn around at the intersection, proceeded north, and picked up Grady. The driver was behind the wheel, Krause in the middle, and Grady next to the door. Both officers had their revolvers in their hands. When the car was just north of the fleeing Daniel Bell, it slowed down and Grady and Krause jumped out of the car. Grady, running ahead of Krause, mounted a snowbank and yelled at the person to stop running. Bell ran toward the house located at 2650 North 6th Street and then toward the southwest corner of the house. As Grady caught up with Bell, he still had his loaded revolver in his right hand. He extended his right hand to grab the fleeing Bell by the right shoulder and as he did so the gun discharged, shooting Bell in the upper back. 2 6 Grady holstered his revolver, took off his glove and felt the outstretched wrist of Daniel Bell and said I think he's dead. Krause took off his glove and reached with his right hand to the jugular vein on the neck, felt no pulse, and said, I guess you're right. He's dead. Krause testified at trial that Grady then said, He's just a damn nigger kid anyhow. Grady denied making the statement. 7 At this time a citizen witness, William Hochstaetter, who lived directly across the street and heard the shot, went outside and across the street to where Bell lay on the service walk in the presence of the two Milwaukee police officers. According to his testimony at the coroner's inquest subsequent to the shooting, Hochstaetter looked at the body and observed no knife in Bell's hands. Hochstaetter, after being told by the officers to move on, watched from his window, but his view of Bell's body was obstructed by the two officers leaning over Bell. 3 8 Grady pulled out a small knife from his pocket, but Krause told him that knife isn't big enough, Tom. Grady closed the knife, placed it back in his jacket pocket, and produced a larger pocket knife. Krause approached the nearby house in order to call the district station. As Krause was waiting at the front door of the house for someone to answer his knock, he saw Grady place the knife in Bell's right hand and close the hand around the knife. Krause was then let into the house, where he used the telephone to call the district station and to report that someone was shot. 9 After Krause returned, he and Grady had a conversation which dealt with the story they would tell people in charge, officials, on what happened. 4 They decided to say the fleeing person yelled when he jumped out of the automobile, You won't catch me, I'm a holdup man!, and that he was armed with a knife. 5 10 Police officers and detectives began to arrive within minutes after the shooting. Among those arriving at the scene were defendant Detective Sergeant Edwin Shaffer and uniformed police officers Detectives Russell Vorpagel and Howard Hughes. Shaffer asked Krause what happened and Krause responded Sarge, we shot a guy. Shaffer told Krause to go sit in Shaffer's car. Uniformed officers outlined the body in the snow with chalk and the body was removed by a police ambulance crew. Detectives Vorpagel and Hughes talked to Grady, dispatched officers to canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, took measurements, and made a diagram at the scene. The officers recorded the names and addresses of several persons in the area, but no one interviewed that evening saw or heard anything. (William Hochstaetter was not located until later.) 11 Krause testified that when Shaffer got into the car Shaffer said, Louis, I want to know the truth. I want to know exactly what happened here tonight. Krause then told him in a general fashion that Grady spotted a car without a taillight and pursued it, a man jumped out of the car and they caught up with him and Grady had shot him. Plaintiffs claim Krause told Shaffer the knife had been planted, but this claim is not supported by Krause's testimony. 6 Shaffer testified that at no time did Krause tell him Grady had planted the knife; had Krause done so, Shaffer stated he would have taken Grady into custody. 12 Vorpagel testified that at the scene he asked Krause and Grady what had happened, and that Grady responded that he observed a car with a burned-out taillight, he stopped it, a man jumped out of the car and ran away, Krause commandeered a car and picked Grady up, they drove around the block and again saw Bell. When they jumped out of the car and called for Bell to stop, Grady explained that Bell said you won't catch me, I'm a holdup man. Grady stated that Bell fit the description of a man wanted for armed robbery as listed on a police daily bulletin, and that Grady shot him as a fleeing felon. 7 13 Vorpagel asked Grady how far he was from Bell when he shot him. Vorpagel stated Grady showed him the spot from which he had fired and Vorpagel marked it with a piece of ice. Vorpagel and Hughes then measured the distance from the piece of ice to the spot where the body was outlined and noted the distance to be 23'-9'. 14 At the police safety building Grady and Krause talked to various police officials and each was told to write a report which, when later typed, was entitled Report of Homicide. Krause was kept separate from Grady as they wrote the reports. Both incorporated in their respective reports the falsification that Daniel Bell emerged from his vehicle with a knife in his right hand, shouting, You son of a bitches won't get me, I'm a holdup man. 8 Krause's report specified that when Grady fired the fatal shot he was about 10' to 15' away from the suspect (Exhs. 12, 13). Grady's report did not specify the approximate distance; Vorpagel and Hughes, as noted, had measured the distance based on Grady's account as 23'-9'. 15 Detectives Vorpagel and Hughes opened a homicide offense file, completing several reports which reflected Grady's explanation of the incident. Other police officers supplemented the file with reports. Supervisory officers then released the Grady-Krause story to the newspaper reporters. 9 16 Sylvia White Bell, Daniel's sister, heard the news of her brother's death on the 10:00 p.m. television news, 10 which announced Daniel Bell had wielded a knife, showing the knife. Daniel Bell's knife was sitting in the bathroom in her house. (Daniel resided with his sister at the time.) Sylvia called her brother Patrick, who along with other brothers went to the police safety building. They were brought to an office in the presence of several officers, where a uniformed officer explained the incident and presented the knife. Sylvia responded, no, sir he did not have a knife. Here's my brother's knife right here. Sylvia testified the officer demanded she give him the knife, but she refused, exclaiming, I am not going to give you anything because my brother didn't have a knife in his hand. And he's left-handed anyway (Tr. 3245-3252). 11 Sylvia testified further that Patrick Bell queried that if Daniel held a knife when he jumped from his car, why didn't Grady shoot him at that point? The officer allegedly responded, You can't tell you niggers nothing. Get out of here or I will throw you in jail. Patrick and the others then left the building. 17 Plaintiffs seek to attribute the above comments to defendant Detective Sergeant Shaffer. Though Shaffer testified he was not positive if he spoke with the Bells that evening, Detective Hughes testified that Shaffer probably did speak with them, but all he overheard was one of the Bell male voices saying,  'Oh, you think it's open season, like on rabbits. We are going to start shooting a few of you cops.' And Sergeant Shaffer was trying to answer their questions (Tr. 3544-3545). Hughes also stated that as a detective sergeant, Shaffer wore civilian clothes and not a uniform. 18 The morning after the shooting the initial story authored by Grady and Krause began to unravel in the internal investigation. Detective Vorpagel returned to the detective bureau and the office of Inspector of Detectives Glaser, deceased at the time of this action. Inside his office Glaser was meeting with Captain of Detectives Woelfel, also deceased, Shaffer, and Grady. Krause had also arrived, and both Vorpagel and Krause were called in as Shaffer told Grady to sit outside the office. Glaser, reading the various reports said something to the effect that the reports were not consistent, and that the reports would be reviewed upstairs in District Attorney McCauley's office. (William McCauley is also now deceased.) 19 According to his testimony, Vorpagel, on his way to McCauley's office, ran into Chief of Police Johnson outside Johnson's office and told Johnson at this time that Grady had told him the prior night he shot Bell at a distance measured at 23'-9'. Vorpagel showed Johnson the diagram drawn by Detective Hughes, showing that Grady shot Bell at that distance, then left Johnson and proceeded to McCauley's office. 20 Grady then joined Johnson in his office before the meeting in McCauley's office. According to Johnson's testimony, he declared, I can't understand how you could shoot a man from some distance away as was in Vorpagel's report (Tr. 2823). Grady answered, No, we were fighting. It was an accident. He was as close as you to me [a foot or two apart]. What's going to happen to me? Johnson answered, I don't know. There probably will be an inquest into this thing (Tr. 2823-2824). 12 21 Grady then joined McCauley, Inspector of Detectives Glaser, Captain of Detectives Woelfel, Vorpagel, Shaffer, and Krause in McCauley's office. As Vorpagel testified, Grady told McCauley that Bell had slashed at him with a knife and he shot Bell at a distance of approximately six feet. Vorpagel told McCauley that Grady told him the night before that he shot Bell at a distance that was measured to be 23'-9', and that Grady never mentioned being slashed at with a knife. And Krause's report the night of the shooting estimated the distance at ten to fifteen feet. McCauley read over the reports and talked to Woelfel. Woelfel gave Vorpagel the reports and said, Your reports are not consistent. Woelfel told Vorpagel that he should change the reports to include the fact that Grady had been slashed at with a knife. Woelfel also told Vorpagel that his diagram was incorrect, but Vorpagel refused to change it. Woelfel told Vorpagel that he would have to talk to Glaser about it. Glaser told him he should change his report, but Vorpagel refused, since it conflicted with his understanding based on conversations with Grady and Krause the prior night. McCauley reviewed all the reports for approximately 20 minutes and then said, These damn reports have to be consistent. I can't do anything with the case like this. McCauley then threw the reports down and handed Vorpagel's report back to him stating, I want these reports to be consistent. 13 Vorpagel refused to change his report and the diagram and left the meeting to attend the autopsy of Daniel Bell. 14 22 After Vorpagel left, Woelfel and Glaser left soon thereafter, apparently taking with them the police reports. Grady, Krause, and Shaffer remained with McCauley, and newspaper reporters were allowed into McCauley's office. The interview lasted 35 minutes and was reported the next day, February 4, in the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel. The articles reflect the modified version Grady proffered at the just prior meeting, i.e., that Bell slashed at him with the knife and Grady shot Bell at a distance of approximately six feet. The Sentinel article quotes Grady as stating, We were about six feet apart when he turned and lunged at me again with the knife. I stepped back and he turned and started to run again. Then I shot. McCauley allegedly told reporters, Under the circumstances, I see no reason at present for a coroner's inquest. In my opinion, the officer had a right to shoot. 15 These statements were also reported in the Journal article, in which McCauley was reported as saying, Grady was in imminent danger of his life or serious injury due to the knife slashing of that man. The Journal article extensively reports the conversation in the interview: 23 Grady told McCauley that when he stopped Bell's car for a broken taillight, Bell slashed at him with what he believed was a knife. Krause, who was approaching the car, said he saw the glint of something which he took to be a knife. Just before Bell started running, Grady said, he yelled: You --- won't get me! I'm a holdup man! 24 Did you really think this man a holdup man? McCauley asked Krause. 25 Yes, sir, he replied. From his description, from his running, his telling us, I thought he was. 26