Jorge Ramirez Sr., 58, speaks as Xavier Gonzalez, 13, and Nicole Ramirez, 30,
look on in Los Angeles. The three are family members of Jorge Ramirez, an
unarmed police informant who was killed by police in Bakersfield, Calif., when
a wanted man he was with opened fire on officers. (photo: Patrick T.
Fallon/Washington Post)
For 55
Officers in Fatal Shootings This Year, It Wasn't Their First Time
By Keith L. Alexander, Amy
Brittain, Wesley Lowery, and Sandhya Somashekhar, The Washington Post
23 December 15
More
than 50 police officers involved in fatal shootings this year had previously
fired their guns in deadly on-duty shootings, according to a Washington Post
investigation.
For a
handful of officers, it was their third fatal shooting. For one officer, it was
his fourth.
The
findings concerned many law enforcement experts, who said that most officers
never fire their weapons on the job. The analysis also exposed another gap in
the federal government’s oversight of fatal police shootings nationwide: the
absence of a system for tracking multiple shootings by individual officers.
The 55
officers were identified as part of a Post project tracking all fatal shootings
by police in the line of duty in 2015. It is the first nationwide attempt to
determine whether fatal police shootings are isolated events in an officer’s
career or whether some officers repeatedly fire their weapons in deadly
encounters.
The
Post also found that an additional 45 officers had previously been involved in
non-fatal shootings.
“It’s
a national embarrassment. We don’t even know how many times cops pull their
triggers,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina.
In
most cases, the person killed was armed and the shootings were found to be
justified by authorities or were still under investigation. The shootings cut
across departments of all sizes, involved officers on a variety of assignments
and grew out of circumstances such as routine patrols, undercover police
operations and standoffs with SWAT teams that spanned hours.
In
Broward County, Fla., a sheriff’s deputy on a SWAT team was involved in three
fatal shootings from 2009 to 2011. His fourth came in June when officers shot
and killed a suspected bank robber.
In San
Bernardino, Calif., five officers opened fire in February, killing a man who
led police on a high-speed chase and then tried to ram their cars. For two of
the officers, it was their third fatal shooting with the department; and for
another, his second.
And in
New Mexico, five state police officers who were involved in fatal shootings in
2015 also fired their weapons in earlier encounters in which police killed
someone. One of those officers took part in two fatal shootings this year — six
weeks apart. Both involved standoffs with armed individuals.
Many
departments withheld officers’ names from the public or released only vague
details, making it impossible to precisely determine how many officers have
been involved in multiple shootings.
Policing
experts said the phenomenon has not been deeply studied nationwide, and a
deeper review of the cases could root out officers who resort too often to
deadly force and help officials develop strategies for officers to defuse — or
avoid — volatile situations.
The
Post requested information on 743 deadly police shootings it tracked from
January through September. Agencies provided information on officers in about
half the cases, or 367 shootings.
Of
those, 1 in 8 shootings involved at least one officer who had taken part in a
previous deadly shooting. Many fatal shootings by police involve multiple
officers. It is often unclear who fired the fatal shot or shots.
“If
someone is involved in multiple shootings, it doesn’t mean that it was a bad
shooting,” said Jonathan Smith, a former chief of the special litigation
section in the Justice Department’s civil rights division who studied the issue
in Miami. “But it does mean that you should be asking a lot of questions.”
One
March morning in Bakersfield, Calif., Adrian Hernandez raped a woman and set
her house on fire, police said. Hours later, after a manhunt, officers spotted
his car and gave chase.
Hernandez
exited the vehicle and pointed a weapon, later determined to be a BB gun, at
police, Bakersfield authorities said. Five officers opened fire, killing him.
For
three of those officers, it was their second deadly shooting.
A year
earlier, one fired at an unarmed man who appeared to be reaching for a gun.
In
2013, another officer shot at a woman who pointed a pellet gun at police.
And in
the same year, a third officer opened fire on two men. One was wanted for
violating parole on an assault charge, the other was a police informant.
In
that incident, police were following the wanted man’s car as the informant,
34-year-old Jorge Ramirez, a passenger in the car, was texting a contact in the
department. The wanted man stopped in a hotel parking lot and fired at
officers, police said, wounding one. Police fired back, killing the suspect and
Ramirez.
Police
shootings in Bakersfield, a department with fewer than 400 officers, show the
broad range of situations that officers encounter that can quickly turn
volatile. This year, police there have shot and killed six people.
Bakersfield
police spokesman Gary Carruesco, who previously worked as an investigator in
the department’s internal affairs unit, declined to comment on the shootings
other than to say that each was found by police to be justified.
“That
speaks volumes on the training we receive as officers,” Carruesco said. “I’m
sure any department would love it if they never had a fatal shooting, the
negative attention it draws to the department, and the emotional stress it
probably brings to the officer.”
Jorge
Ramirez Sr., who has filed a lawsuit on behalf of his son against the
department, questions how a department the size of Bakersfield could have so
many fatal shootings.
“This
isn’t Los Angeles or New York. Something is wrong here,” Ramirez said.
Los
Angeles police have had 20 deadly shootings this year; New York City police
have had eight.
There
are many and complex reasons an officer might be involved in multiple
shootings, experts said. The officer’s assignment matters — for example, an
officer on a gang or drug squad in a crime-heavy area might be more likely to
end up in a gunfight than an officer who patrols a quiet suburb.
When
the Justice Department investigated the Miami Police Department in 2011 after a
spate of officer-involved shootings, the federal agency found that “a small
number of officers were involved in a disproportionate number of shootings.”
Seven
officers accounted for more than one-third of the department’s 33 total
shootings, both fatal and non-fatal incidents, from 2008 to 2011. One officer
shot and killed two people in the span of two weeks, the report said.
“This
is a problem across the country,” said Smith, the former chief of the special
litigation section of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. “It was
not unique to Miami.”
In
many cases, Miami officers returned to patrolling the streets long before any
investigations had been completed, Smith said. The report raised questions
about potential corrective actions that could have, or should have, been put
into place.
Miami
Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes said the department has made changes, including
using a state agency to review police shootings. The department, which has
1,258 officers, has had two fatal shootings this year.
Tactical
changes also may have led to fewer shootings, Llanes said. The department has
reduced the number of “jump-out squads,” the undercover units known for
breaking up drug deals and going after violent offenders, he said.
“When
you discharge a firearm, you shouldn’t automatically feel like you did
something wrong,” Llanes said. “But you did take someone’s life. It’s a matter
of being accountable to the community. It’s serious. It’s a big deal. It’s not
the normal course of business.”
Patrol
officers account for the majority of the repeat shooters identified by The
Post. They are often the first to respond to tense situations including
domestic disputes and calls to help someone with mental illness.
Shortly
before 11 p.m. one August evening, police in Kerrville, Tex., got a call
from a woman pleading for help. She said her husband had become violent, and
she and her children had fled their home. She warned that he had a gun.
Minutes
later, Sgt. Jonathan Lamb, a patrol officer, and three colleagues pulled up. As
the officers approached the house, police said, the man rushed out of his front
door and began shooting. Lamb and the other officers returned fire.
Lamb’s
first deadly shooting had occurred six years earlier.
In
2009, he and others killed a hit-and-run suspect who police said lunged at
officers with a knife as they tried to arrest him.
“I
feel I had no other choice in both circumstances,” Lamb, a 14-year veteran with
the department, said in an interview with The Post.
Three
other times in his career as a police officer, Lamb said, he pulled out his
weapon — in the first two, he was responding to domestic violence calls and the
suspect advanced toward him with a knife. In the third, a fugitive who was
taller and nearly 100 pounds heavier than Lamb charged him in an attempt to
evade arrest.
Each
of those times, the suspect stopped advancing as the officer drew his firearm,
and he was able to make an arrest without firing a shot.
“I
think a lot of people, quite honestly, don’t know what they don’t know about
use of force,” Lamb said. “In the aftermath of some of these high-profile
shootings that have made headlines, the public sometimes has an unrealistic
expectation of what law enforcement should be capable of. Use of force is never
pretty.”
LaMaurice
Gardner, a police psychologist who advises the National Tactical Officers
Association, said officers often develop anxiety and depression and avoid
situations that remind them of the shooting. For officers with multiple
shootings, the effect can be cumulative.
“I’ve
had officers literally say, ‘Is death chasing me?’ ” said Gardner, who also
works as a reserve lieutenant for the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department in
Pontiac, Mich. “They don’t want to risk getting labeled as a RoboCop or a
killer. It borders on paranoia.”
After
shootings, some officers have taken nearly a year to return to full duty, while
others have returned much sooner, he said. In his 20 years of work, he said,
about eight officers he treated who had been involved in shootings left their
jobs because of post-traumatic stress disorder. He said that one officer who
had been involved in 10 shootings recently retired because the mental burden
was too much to bear.
Not
all officers experience long-lasting effects after a shooting, however, experts
said. Lamb said neither the fatal shooting this year nor the one in 2009 left
him with anxiety or second thoughts.
“In
both cases, I felt that I was protecting my own life and the lives of the other
officers on the scene,” Lamb said, “although neither was the outcome that we
would have preferred.”
Many
of the officers involved in multiple fatal shootings were assigned to
specialized police units, including SWAT and narcotics teams, The Post found.
Of eight officers who opened fire in three or more fatal shootings, six were on
specialized units.
In
January, Sgt. Jesus Deanda with the Chandler police and two other officers were
on assignment as part of a special fugitive task force in Arizona. Police said
a burglary suspect led the officers on a car chase and began shooting. Deanda
and the officers returned fire, killing the man.
It was
Deanda’s third fatal shooting.
In
2013, he was among six officers on a U.S. Marshals task force who were trying
to arrest a man wanted for assaulting a police officer and drug possession,
according to police.
Police
said the suspect, sitting in a pickup truck, reached for a gun. Deanda and the
other officers opened fire, killing him.
A
decade earlier, Deanda was involved in another fatal shooting. He and his
then-partner Antonio Frias killed a suspected drug dealer they were chasing
while working on an undercover narcotics unit.
Deanda
yelled, “He’s got a gun!” Frias told The Post.
As the
man climbed a fence, Frias pulled him to the ground. The two wrestled, and the
man pointed the gun and fired at Frias.
The
bullet creased the top of Frias’s skull. “It sounded like an M-80 firecracker
go off at the head,” Frias told The Post.
Both
officers returned fire.
Frias
said that he retired in 2012 after being diagnosed with PTSD because of the
shooting.
Deanda
declined comment through a police spokesman, who said the shootings were all
justified. He remains assigned to a special task force with the Chandler
police, a department of 345 officers.
“Sgt.
Deanda is a decorated professional police officer who continues to perform at
the highest level and has continued on with his career in an exemplary manner,”
said spokesman Joseph Favazzo.
One
officer who has killed twice in the line of duty now faces criminal charges for
the most recent fatal shooting. He is one of the few officers nationwide to be
prosecuted for an on-duty shooting in 2015.
On the
morning of April 22, Portsmouth, Va., police officer Stephen D. Rankin
responded to a call for a shoplifting at a local Walmart. There he encountered
18-year-old William L. Chapman II in the parking lot. About a minute later,
Rankin fatally shot the unarmed man in his face and chest, according to police
records.
Multiple
witnesses said that there was a physical struggle between Rankin and Chapman in
the moments prior to the shooting, according to statements obtained by The
Post.
In
September, a grand jury indicted Rankin on a charge of first-degree murder.
Rankin, 36, was fired from his job. The interim Portsmouth police chief
declined an interview request.
Rankin’s
defense attorney, Nicole Belote, said the facts did not support a charge of
first-degree murder and that she would prepare to “zealously defend” Rankin at
trial.
Attorney
Jon Babineau, who represents Chapman’s family, said he was a “soft-spoken” man
with learning disabilities. Walking through Walmart was part of his daily
routine, Babineau said.
Four
years earlier, Rankin fatally shot another unarmed man, 26-year-old Kirill
Denyakin, an immigrant from Kazakhstan.
On the
evening of April 23, 2011, Denyakin was drunk and pounding on the glass door of
an apartment building, according to court records. A neighbor called 911 to
report a burglary. Rankin said that when he arrived he told Denyakin to stop,
according to a statement the officer gave investigators. Denyakin then turned
around, dug into his waistband and ran toward the officer with a “steely-eyed
look in his eyes,” Rankin stated.
Rankin
said Denyakin reached into his waistband and ran toward him. Rankin shot him 11
times. “I believed he was charging at me with a weapon,” he told the jury in a
civil trial.
The
jury found Rankin not liable for Denyakin’s death.
Rankin
spent three years on administrative duty while the case was investigated by the
Justice Department, police spokeswoman Misty Holley said. No charges were
filed, and Rankin returned to his patrol job in 2014. A year later, Rankin shot
Chapman in the Walmart parking lot.
Rankin
is scheduled for trial in February.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
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