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Pull the trigger or not? Officers face tough test
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Pull the trigger or not? Officers face tough testBY LISA DONOVAN Pioneer Press No amount of police academy training and street experience could prepare a cop for what St. Paul officer Michael Lee would face after confronting two men struggling over a gun last Monday morning. Standing against a Dumpster at the end of an alley in St. Paul's Summit-University neighborhood, Charles Craighead gripped a handgun and Carlos Scott struggled to grab it. In the chaos, Lee went from barking "Drop your weapon" several times to firing a single shot from his department-issued shotgun, believing he was about to be shot himself, police say. The 41-year-old officer's split- second decision has been followed by days of intense second-guessing that probably began with his own self-doubt and quickly spread to the public, the news media and the dead man's family -- especially because the "good guy" was killed by police fire. Shortly before he was shot, Craighead had wrenched a gun away from would-be carjacker Carlos Scott, police say. The silver semiautomatic pistol Craighead grabbed to save his life may very well have been the death of the 46-year-old house painter. St. Paul Police Sgt. Joe Younghans said he thinks some of the second-guessing obscures what he said was the "real problem" Monday. "Someone can always come up with a scenario that (the officer) should have done something differently," said Younghans, a homicide detective and a lead investigator in the shooting. "The real problem here, in all of this, is Carlos Scott. He is the catalyst for this; he is the one that put this all in motion." That is a point that Joyce McDougle, Craighead's fiancee and a witness to the shooting, can agree on. Yet McDougle is critical of the police and has said publicly that Lee fired the shot without demanding repeatedly, "Drop the weapon." What has emerged from the events of 10:20 a.m. Dec. 3 are a series of questions: Why did the officer shoot when seconds before a dispatcher relayed a 911 call that said the "good guy" had the gun? Why did the officer use a shotgun rather than the pistol holstered on his hip? And why didn't Craighead drop the gun when police say they ordered him to? Officers who have found themselves in Lee's situation say it's tough to navigate through the questions in the days and weeks that follow. For the officer, there is guilt, nightmares and a lot of what-ifs. Then there is the police investigation and a probable civil proceeding. And there's the media attention -- snapshots of the event that leave the officer's neighbors, fellow congregation members or even their child's teachers raising eyebrows. It was in the early morning in May 1985 when Lakeville police officer Dave Bellows and his partner were chasing a man dressed only in a mask and combat boots through a mobile home park. Suddenly, 30-year-old Jack Tom McNamara turned around and pointed what appeared to be a German Luger handgun at the officers. Bellows crouched and lined up his .357 Magnum; his partner fell belly-down on the ground. "I thought he had been shot," Bellows said. His reaction was reflexive. "I had shot the first round before I consciously said, "I've got to return fire,'" said Bellows, who fired all six rounds in his revolver. The events unfolded in a matter of seconds, but to Bellows everything was in slow motion. He focused almost exclusively on the threat. The sound of his own gun firing -- normally so piercing he had to wear earplugs at the shooting range -- was muffled. Lying next to a dying McNamara was the toy gun he had pointed at officers. "Your mind is racing a million miles an hour; you're thinking: My God, what have I done? I had no way of knowing it was a toy gun. What's going to happen to me? Is my career over?" Bellows said. Sixteen years later, Bellows, now Dakota County chief sheriff's deputy, said he has left behind the guilty feelings, and even the anger he and so many officers feel toward the person who was killed. "You wonder, "Why didn't they drop their weapon? Why did they make me do that?'" National experts say upward of 80 percent of all officers who use lethal force in the line of duty leave their jobs in five years. Using state laws and court decisions as their guide, the St. Paul police apply the same standards as most law enforcement agencies. Essentially, officers may use deadly force if theirs or someone else's life is in danger. In the police academy and on the streets, officers learn a harsh but important lesson: This is not about a fair fight. It is about stopping a threat. "A lot times what we do, how we handle a threat depends very much on the behavior of the bad guy," said St. Paul Police Sgt. Steve Fraser, the department training instructor who teaches about use of force. Use-of-orce experts and police explain that when faced with a life-and-death situation, an officer must decide what "tool" will stop the threat. Very often, that means using something more powerful than what the "bad guy" has, police say. "An officer has lots of discretion and lots of tools at their disposal, and they have to have the skill to best apply that range of tools -- from their voice to a firearm," said St. Paul police spokesman Michael Jordan. Police were not talking last week about Officer Lee's choice to use a shotgun over his handgun when confronting Craighead and Scott, but authorities said that will be part of the police probe in to the shooting. Authorities say they can provide police officers training on how to recognize a threat and the proper response, but dealing with the aftermath of fatal police shooting is difficult. "We talk about it, we let people know there's a lot of baggage that goes along with it and that your life changes for good -- and that's generally not for the better," said Fraser, with St. Paul's training unit. In the past 20 years, 88 people have been killed by police fire in Minnesota, mostly in the Twin Cities, according to Larry Brubaker, a retired FBI agent who has documented fatal police shootings for two decades. As painful as it may be, all officer-involved shootings need to be reviewed, say experts -- law enforcement experts included. Lee -- a 13-year veteran who has been awarded a department medal of commendation for dousing a fire in a condominium lobby and whose disciplinary record lists several minor infractions -- will be the subject of a homicide probe and an internal affairs inquiry. The weapon he used in the shooting was taken away, and he was tested for chemical use, both standard procedures in such cases. He was also given counseling and put on paid administrative leave. "The family is going through hell and the cop's going through hell right now. The last thing he wants to do is shoot and kill an innocent bystander or someone like this," said Geoffrey Alpert, professor and director of research at the College of Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina. "Now, did the officer do something wrong? I don't know. But that's why a thorough and critical investigation is so important." Lisa Donovan can be reached at ldonovan@pioneerpress.com or at (651) 228-5591. Staff researcher Erin Pfeiffer contributed to this report. MONDAY MORNING'S CHAIN OF EVENTS Carlos Scott, a convicted felon, started the chain of events that led to Monday morning's deadly police shooting, St. Paul authorities say: Scott, 26, had just shot a man in the 1000 block of Iglehart Avenue and was fleeing the area when he pulled a gun on a motorist and ordered him to drive him from the area. The motorist, Charles Craighead, 46, refused, and the two began struggling near Oxford Street and Marshall Avenue. By the time officers arrived, Craighead had snatched the gun away from Scott, according to police accounts. Officer Michael Lee, 41, ordered Craighead to drop the gun. When the command went unheeded and it appeared the handgun was aimed at the officer, Lee fired his shotgun once. The pellets sprayed, injuring Scott and killing Craighead. http://www.pioneerplanet.com/yhoo/mtc_docs/202882.htm
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