The Anesson Joseph Police-Involved Shooting Case

     On February 4, 2014 at eight-thirty in the evening, Douglas Kozlik, a 66-year-old retired New York City police officer on a stroll in Delray Beach, Florida, saw something that caused him great concern. A six-foot-three, 250-pound young man with a crazed look and obvious bad intentions charged toward him. The fact this physically imposing stranger was also naked told the ex-cop he was in imminent danger of being attacked.

     Mr. Kozlik's assessment of the bizarre situation turned out to be correct. Within a matter of seconds he found himself on the ground with the large maniac on top of him throwing punches. A 10-year-old boy not far from the unprovoked assault ran for his life.

     After leaving Mr. Kozlik on the ground badly beaten, the naked menace moved on. At the main entrance of the Colony, a gated neighborhood in Delray Beach, the wild man--later identified as a West Palm Beach 28-year-old named Anesson Joseph--came upon 16-year-old Tania Grein who was taking trash out of her family's house. Tania's 18-year-old brother Tony, who happened to be working in the yard with  his father, tackled Joseph as he grabbed Tania by the hair. The five-foot-six, 150-pound Boynton High School senior began stabbing the nude attacker in the face with a box cutter. The boy's father, Mario Grein, tried to help his children by punching the crazy man in the head.

     Unfazed by the box cutter wounds and the punches to his face, the frenzied man, grunting like an animal, started biting the teenage boy on the cheek and ear. Tony Grein was saved when the automatic security gate closed, knocking the crazy man to the ground. The attacker got to his feet and ran off with the teenager pinned beneath the gate.

     Responding to 911 calls placed by witnesses to Anesson Joseph's rampage, five deputies with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office encountered him not far from the entrance to the Colony. The subject crouched into a fighting stance then charged the officers. Unable to get the subject off his feet and onto the ground, a deputy shot him several times with a taser gun. When that technique failed to subdue Mr. Joseph, a sergeant pulled his gun and shot the subject three times in the torso.

    Fire and rescue personnel rolled up to the scene but were unable to treat the wounded man who was incapacitated but still combative. A few hours later Anesson Joseph died at the Delray Medical Center.

     Mr. Kozlik and Tony Grein were also treated at the hospital for their injuries. The 18-year-old who saved his sister from the zombie-like attacker ended up with teeth marks on his face. The 10-year-old boy had hurt himself when he tried to escape by crawling under a fence. One of the deputy sheriff's also required medical attention.

     According to Anesson Joseph's Facebook page, he worked for a West Palm Beach entertainment company called Nightlife University Parties and Events. Prior to that he had been employed at a local Starbucks. Joseph had attended Forest Hill Community High School and had no criminal record in Florida.

     The Joseph case is reminiscent of a police-involved shooting in Miami that occurred in May 2012. In that assault, a 31-year-old naked man named Rudy Eugene was shot on MacArthur Causeway as he chewed off most of a homeless man's face.

     Investigators believed that Anesson Joseph removed his striped polo shirt, dark shorts and a pair of flip flops not far from the Kozlik attack. There was speculation that he had been under the influence of some kind of mind altering drug. Toxicological tests later confirmed this suspicion.

Victor White's Police Custody Death

     Victor White III grew up as part of a large family (8 siblings) in Alexandria, Louisiana. He played the drums and sang in the choir of the local Baptist Church where his father served as pastor. In late 2013 Victor White moved two hours south of Alexandria to New Iberia where the 22-year-old had a job at a Waffle House restaurant. According to his girlfriend he was saving money so he could afford an apartment for himself, her and their one-year-old son.

     On his day off on March 2, 2014 Mr. White and his friend Isaiah Lewis walked to the Hop-In gas station and convenience store to buy cigarillos. While they were in the store a fight broke out in the parking lot. Someone called 911.

     A deputy with the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office, in responding to the 911 public disturbance call, spotted White and Lewis walking along the street about six blocks from the scene of the fight, a melee involving young black men. Since Victor White and his friend were black the deputy sheriff pulled over and confronted them.

     The officer, pursuant to the street inquiry, patted down Victor White to determine if he was armed. In so doing the deputy felt a bag in White's pocket that contained marijuana. At this point the officer placed him under arrest, handcuffed him behind his back and gave him his Miranda rights. A more thorough body search uncovered a small packet of cocaine. The officer placed the arrested man into the back of the police car and drove to the sheriff's office.

     At the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office, according to the police version of what happened, Victor White refused to exit the vehicle. The deputy summoned help. That's when officers heard a gun go off from inside the patrol car. Deputies found Mr. White slumped over in the back seat.

     Shortly after being rushed to a nearby hospital Victor White died from a single bullet wound in his chest. Following the shooting death of a handcuffed man in police custody, the Iberia County sheriff called in the Louisiana State Police to conduct an investigation of the incident.

     According to early news accounts of the case Victor White committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a gun the deputy sheriff missed in his frisk and full body search.

    In August 2014 Iberia County Coroner Carl Ditch provided the White family with a copy of the autopsy report. The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy determined the fatal bullet entered the right side of White's chest, perforated his lung and heart then exited near his left armpit.

     According to the autopsy report the entrance wound was not surrounded by gunpowder stains usually found in cases of close range shots associated with self-inflicted shootings. The forensic pathologist noted abrasions around White's left eye. According to the toxicology report the dead man had alcohol and marijuana in his system.

     In a news release Coroner Carl Ditch announced the manner of Victor White's death as suicide. The coroner said he reached this conclusion after "every other manner of death in the case was ruled out." Obviously aware that questions would be raised regarding how, under the circumstances of this case, Mr. White could have shot himself in the chest, the coroner noted that because of the dead man's physique he would have been able to manipulate the gun to a position consistent with the entrance wound. The forensic pathology did not explain what it was about Victor White's body that allowed him to pull off that feat.

     In early September 2014 a spokesperson with the Louisiana State Police said the results of that agency's investigation had been turned over to the Iberia Parish District Attorney's Office. When reporters asked District Attorney Phil Haney if he was charging anyone in connection with White's death, the prosecutor said he was not.

     The White family was not satisfied with the coroner's manner of death ruling. Moreover, there was deep distrust of the state police investigation. The family added attorney Benjamin Crump of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown fame to the family's legal team.

     In October 2017, United States Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna ruled out criminal wrongdoing in Victor White's Death. Victor White's family in March 2018 settled their federal lawsuit against the sheriff's office for $325,000.

The Jason Hendrix "Good Boy" Murder Case

     Kevin Hendrix and his wife Sarah lived in a middle class neighborhood in Corbin, Kentucky with their 16-year-old son Jason and 12-year-old daughter Grace. Mr. Hendrix, a beekeeper, sold honey at a farmer's market in the small, southeastern Kentucky town. His wife, Dr. Sarah Hendrix, worked as a professor at Union College in nearby Barbourville.

     In December 2014, Jason Hendrix was baptized at the Forward Community Church where he and his family were active members. The church, founded in 2012, held its services in a local movie theater. Besides being involved in church activities, Jason Hendrix participated in his high school ROTC program.

     Late Wednesday afternoon February 11, 2015, two days after Jason's parents disciplined their son by taking away his computer privileges, the boy, in a most cold-blooded way, murdered his family.

     The 16-year-old shot his father twice in the head the moment he came home from work. The young killer ambushed his mother with two bullets to the face when she entered the kitchen after parking her car in the garage following her day at work. His 12-year-old sister Grace lay dead in the house from two shots to her head. She had also been shot in the arm. In the close-range shootings, Jason fired through pillows to muffle the sound, and shield himself from the victim's blood spatter.

     A few hours after executing his parents and his sister, Jason met up with some friends at his church. There was nothing in his demeanor that suggested he had just massacred his family.

     The day after the triple murder, Jason, armed with four handguns and a backpack full of ammunition, drove out of town in one of the family cars, a green Honda Pilot.

     Late Saturday morning, February 14, 2015, a Maryland state trooper tried to pull Jason Hendrix over for speeding in Harford County 500 miles from the still undiscovered bodies in his house back in Kentucky. Jason, having no intention of being pulled over by a cop, led the officer and others on a car chase that took them into Baltimore County where police officers in that jurisdiction joined in the pursuit.

     The high-speed chase came to an abrupt end when the teenager crashed his SUV into another vehicle. When six officers with the Baltimore County Police Department approached the green Honda, Jason Hendrix shot at the officers, striking one of them. All six of the officers returned fire, killing the boy at the scene.

     The wounded officer received treatment at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and was discharged the next morning. All of the officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

     That Saturday, a Baltimore County detective called the authorities in Corbin, Kentucky and requested a check of the address on the Honda's registration. If the occupants of the house were related to the boy they needed to be informed of his death.

     At five o'clock that afternoon, officers with the Corbin Police Department entered the Hendrix house on Forest Circle. Inside they found the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Hendrix and their daughter. Following a cursory investigation the authorities in Corbin concluded that the boy killed by the police in Maryland had murdered his family.

     Friends and relatives of the family as well as residents of the community were stunned by the news of these violent deaths. As is often the case in "good boy" murder cases, no one saw the bloodshed coming.

The Darrien Hunt Police-Involved Shooting Case

     Darrien Hunt lived in Saratoga Springs Utah, a tight knit mountain community in the Provo-Orem metropolitan area in the north-central part of the state. The biracial 22-year-old and his white mother were active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Darrien, an outdoorsman, enjoyed mountain climbing, white water rafting, biking and hiking. His only scrape with the law came in January 2014 when police officers arrested him in connection with a fight he had with a sibling. The Utah County prosecutor charged him with assault and public intoxication. The prosecutor offered Hunt a deal: if he pleaded guilty the arrest would be dropped from his record. He took the deal.

     On Wednesday morning September 10, 2014 someone called 911 to report a "suspicious man" carrying a samurai-type sword outside the closed Panda Express restaurant situated in an outdoor Saratoga Springs shopping mall.

     Corporal Matthew Schauerhamer and rookie officer Nicholas Judson confronted Darrien Hunt outside of the restaurant. According to the police department's account of what happened that morning Mr. Hunt brandished his three-foot sword and lunged toward them. The officers reacted by shooting the charging man several times, killing him on the spot.

     The chief of police placed the Saratoga Springs officers on paid administrative leave pending the results of an investigation by the Utah county attorney's office. A forensic pathologist with the state medical examiner's office performed the autopsy.

     When the medical examiner refused to make the autopsy results available to Randall Edwards, the Hunt family attorney, the lawyer arranged to have an independent forensic pathologist perform an autopsy on Mr. Hunt's remains. (Attorney Edwards did not reveal the identify of this forensic pathologist.)

     Shortly after the second autopsy, attorney Edwards announced that the officers had shot Darrien Hunt six times in the back. According to the lawyer the autopsy findings confirmed the accounts of eyewitnesses who reported that when he was shot Mr. Hunt was running away from the officers.

     Saratoga Springs Chief of Police Andrew Burton, on the department's Facebook page, wrote this about the Darrien Hunt shooting death: "There is more to this story than meets the eye. Many of the details cannot be shared due to the ongoing investigation."

     On September 20, 2014 at a news conference, attorney Randall Edwards said that when the officers shot Darrien Hunt the young man was wearing a Japanese character anime costume (a Japanese film production featuring animated characters) and carrying a fake samurai sword he had purchased at an Asian gift shop. The attorney said Mr. Hunt was role-playing and that the sword was a fake.

     According to attorney Edwards, officers Schauerhamer and Judson were not interviewed by investigators with the Utah County attorney's office until more than a week after the shooting. 

     In July 2017 Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman ruled that the two officers had been justified in using deadly force in this case. As a result no criminal charges were filed against the officers in connection with Darrien Hunt's death.

     Darrien Hunt's family sued Saratoga Springs which ended up settling the civil case for $900,000.  

The Police Killing of David Hooks

     David Hooks, a respected and successful businessman lived with Teresa his wife of 25 years in an upper-middle class neighborhood in East Dublin, Georgia. Hooks' construction company did a lot of work on area military bases such as Hunter Army Airfield and Fort Stewart. This meant that he passed background investigations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security and the ATF.

     On September 22, 2014 a meth-addled burglar named Rodney Garrett broke into Mr. Hooks' pickup truck. The burglar then stole the family's Lincoln Aviator SUV. The next day Mr. Garrett surrendered to deputies with the Laurens County Sheriff's Office.

     Perhaps to curry favor with the police, Rodney Garrett told deputies that in Mr. Hooks' pickup he came across a bag that he opened hoping to find cash. Instead he found 20 grams of methamphetamine and a digital scale. Before searching Mr. Hooks' house for drugs officers knew they would need more than the word of a meth-addicted burglar and car thief to get a judge to sign off on a warrant. In an effort to bolster this unreliable evidence a deputy sheriff told the issuing magistrate that in 2009 another snitch said he supplied David Hooks with meth and that Mr. Hooks had resold it.

     The local magistrate, based on the word of a meth-using thief in trouble with the law, and the six-year-old word of another snitch in another case that had gone nowhere, issued a warrant to search 

David Hooks' residence for methamphetamine. By no stretch of the imagination was this warrant based upon sufficient probable cause.

     To execute the Hooks drug warrant the sheriff, in an enforcement overkill, deployed eight members of a SRT (Special Response Team) to raid the dwelling with officers armed with assault weapons and dressed in SWAT-like combat boots, helmets and flack-jackets.

     At eleven in the morning of September 24, 2014, just two days after Rodney Garrett broke into Mr. Hooks' pickup truck and stole his SUV, Teresa Hooks, while on the second-floor of her house heard vehicles coming up the driveway. She looked out the window and saw several masked men with rifles advancing on the residence.

     Teresa Hooks ran downstairs into a first-floor bedroom where her husband was sleeping. She shook him awake and screamed, "the burglars are back!" Mr. Hooks jumped out of bed, grabbed his shotgun and walked out of the bedroom as members of the raiding party broke down his back door and stormed into the house. In the course of the home intrusion officers fired eighteen shots. Mr. Hooks did not discharge his weapon. At some point in the raid he was shot twice and died on the spot.

     According to the official police version of the fatal shooting of a man in his own home, Mr. Hooks came to the door armed with a shotgun. Officers reported they broke into the dwelling after knocking and announcing their presence. When Mr. Hooks refused to lower his weapon the officers had no choice but to shoot him dead. 

     A 44-hour search of the Hooks residence by deputy sheriffs and officers with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation failed to produce drugs or any other evidence of crime.

     On October 2, 2014 the Hooks family attorney, Mitch Shook, told reporters that the police had forced their way into the house without knocking or announcing themselves to execute a search warrant based upon bogus informant information. The attorney said Mr. David Hooks had been a respected businessman who had never used or sold drugs. The police, according to Mr. Shook, had no business raiding this house and killing this decent man.

     Attorney Shook on December 11, 2014 made a startling announcement: When the police shot Mr. Hooks in the back and in the back of the head he was lying face-down on the floor. The attorney said he asked the FBI to launch an investigation into the case.

     In July 2015 a Laurens County grand jury declined to indict any officers in the David Hooks killing. According to a crime lab toxicology report David Hooks at the time of his death had methamphetamine in his system.

     The FBI decided not to launch an investigation into this SWAT related shooting death.  

Eric Lee Ramsey: Releasing a Violent Criminal From Prison

     In 2007, after being convicted of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, an Isabella County judge in central Michigan sentenced Eric Lee Ramsey to five to fifteen years behind bars. The 25-year-old felon from Mount Pleasant, a town 120 miles northwest of Detroit, had previous felony convictions for destruction of police property, resisting arrest and assault with a dangerous weapon. Eric Ramsey had proven himself to be a violent, lawless person unfit for life outside of prison.

     In the summer of 2012 a Michigan parole board set this violent man free after he served his minimum sentence of five years. During his relatively short prison stretch Mr. Ramsey was cited for inmate misconduct six times. Putting this prisoner back into society turned out to be a stupid disastrous decision by so-called experts in the corrections field.

     At nine-thirty on the night of January 16, 2013 Eric Ramsey drove his pickup onto the campus of Central Michigan University. He arrived on campus with the intent of abducting, raping and murdering the first vulnerable woman who crossed his path. Outside the Student Activity Center he approached a senior from Grand Rapids as she walked toward her car. He stuck a BB handgun into the victim's face, opened the door to her 2003 Ford Escape and ordered her into the vehicle. Ramsey climbed in behind the wheel and drove the abductee to his house in Mount Pleasant where he bound her with tape and raped her.

     Later that night Eric Ramsey forced the terrified college student back into her car. He also placed  two cans of gasoline in the vehicle and drove north out of Mount Pleasant. When they reached nearby Lincoln Township Ramsey informed his victim that he was going to kill her. (I presume he intended to use the gasoline to torch the Ford Escape with her in it.) Moments after Ramsey announced his plan to murder his captive she opened her back passenger seat door and rolled out of the moving vehicle.

     The young woman, not seriously injured from her vehicular escape, jumped to her feet and ran to the closest house where she pounded on the door and screamed for help. A 14-year-old boy, at home with his 11-year-old sister and a younger brother who was two, let the frantic woman into their dwelling. As the victim used the teenager's cellphone to call 911, the teen armed himself with a hunting knife.

     Eric Ramsey climbed out of the Ford Escape, grabbed the two cans of gasoline and walked up to the house occupied by the victim and the boy who had taken her in. Using the gasoline as an accelerant he set fire to the place, climbed back into the victim's car and drove off. Shortly after Ramsey torched the house the occupants' father arrive home, and using an extinguisher doused the small blaze.

     Just after midnight a Michigan State Police officer spotted Eric Ramsey and the Ford Escape in Gaylord, an Otsego County town north of Mount Pleasant. Ramsey intentionally drove his victim's car into the state patrol vehicle, veered off onto a field, jumped out of the damaged vehicle and ran. In Gaylord, Ramsey stole a Ford F-350 sanitation truck, rammed another state police car and continued north into Crawford County. Near the town of Fredric about 70 miles north of Mount Pleasant he plowed the city garbage truck into a police car driven by a Crawford County sheriff's deputy. Just before climbing out of the sanitation vehicle Ramsey posted the following message on his Facebook page: "Well folks, I'm about to be shot." 

      Eric Ramsey correctly predicted his fate. The Crawford County Deputy whose car Ramsey had disabled shot him dead.

     Eric Lee Ramsey was not some drug-addled mental case who flipped-out and embarked on a criminal rampage. He carried out a planned kidnapping and rape of a total stranger. Had this young woman not escaped he would have murdered her and set her body on fire. If this wasn't bad enough, the 30-year-old felon had set fire to an occupied dwelling and tried to kill three police officers.

     Members of the parole board who let this dangerous man out of prison ten years early were responsible for the college student's abduction and rape. It's a miracle she wasn't killed, and that held true for the three police officers Ramsey crashed into. Under the circumstances it's not a bad thing that Mr. Ramsey is dead. That's what he wanted, that's what he deserved, and that's what he got. 

A Bad Day For David Sturdivant

     David Sturdivant, a 64-year-old ex-Marine (Purple Heart/Vietnam) was doing okay in Atlanta, Georgia. He lived alone in a two-story house and worked in his own engine repair shop attached to his dwelling. Mr. Sturdivant had recently been the victim of neighborhood burglars who had broken into his shop and stole his HAM radio, various electronic items, a couple of riding mowers and his tools. Thieves had also stolen his two antique Thunderbirds.

     After awakening from a nap at one o'clock in the afternoon on April 8, 2011 Mr. Sturdivant looked out his second-story window and saw a pickup owned by Dennis Alexander. With its tailgate open, the vehicle was parked near a riding mower in Mr. Sturdivant's shop for repair. To Mr. Sturdivant it looked like Mr. Alexander, a man with a criminal history of burglary and theft, was about to steal the mower. David Sturdivant stepped out onto his balcony and yelled, "Get off my property and stop stealing my stuff!" When Denish Alexander mocked the property owner Mr. Sturdivant entered his house and returned with a commercial grade M-14 rifle. From the balcony he fired one bullet into the ground to frighten Mr. Alexander off the property.

      Atlanta police officers in the neighborhood working with a television crew filming a segment for the reality TV show "Bait Car" heard the shot. In less than two minutes they were on the scene shouting at Mr. Sturdivant to drop his rifle. Without taking the time to fully comprehend the situation, three officers fired fourteen shots at Mr. Sturdivant. One of the bullets tore into his stomach. Mr. Sturdivant had not shot at the officers and had not pointed his rifle at them.

     A week after the shooting Mr. Sturdivant was discharged from the hospital. He had lost a kidney and was missing several inches of his colon. Police officers immediately took him into custody and hauled him to the Fulton County Jail in his wheelchair. The district attorney charged David Sturdivant with four counts of aggravated assault for pointing his gun at the police officers. He also stood accused of aggravated assault for shooting at the suspected thief and for possession of a weapon in the commission of a crime. If convicted of all charges Mr. Sturdivant faced up to 105 years in prison.

     While Mr. Sturdivant recovered from his bullet wound in the jail's hospital, looters cleaned out his house and business then burned the dwelling and shop to the ground.

     At a preliminary hearing on October 27, 2011 the suspect turned down the district attorney's offer of a probated sentence in return for a misdemeanor plea. Claiming total innocence Mr. Sturdivant rejected the plea bargain.

     On November 11, 2011 a judge tossed out the prosecutor's case against Mr. Sturdivant. After serving seven months in the county jail Mr. Sturdivant was free. But he had nowhere to go except to the local VA hospital. Mr. Sturdivant lost his freedom, his house, his business, his household belongings, his antique cars, his tools, his kidney and a piece of his colon. He was the victim of criminals and the police.

The Isiah Murrietta-Golding Police-Involved Shooting Case

     On April 14, 2017 in Fresno, California, 19-year-old Eugenio Ybarra, his 17-year-old brother and three of their friends got into an argument in a pizza shop parking lot with 16-year-old Isiah Murrietta-Golding and his 17-year-old brother. When Ybarra and his four passengers drove off they were followed by the Murrietta-Golding brothers. As the vehicles approached the Ybarra residence one of the Murrietta-Golding brothers in the vehicle behind them fired a shot into their car. No one was hit but the shot caused the driver of the car to smash into a tree, killing Eugenio Ybarra. Isiah Murrietta-Golding and his brother drove away from the scene of the crash.

     On Saturday, the day after Eugenio Ybarra's death, police officers while surveilling the Murrietta-Golding house spotted a car pass by with Isiah Murrietta-Golding in the front passenger's seat. Police officers pulled the vehicle over in a nearby shopping plaza parking lot. One of the officers, his gun pulled, ordered the car's occupants, Murrietta-Golding and two other teens to get out of the vehicle with their hands over their heads. The suspects were told to walk backwards toward the police officer. Two of the teens complied, Isiah Murrietta-Golding fled.

     With Sergeant Ray Villalvazo in pursuit, Murrietta-Golding climbed a picket fence and landed on the other side which was the property of a closed daycare center. Officer Villalvazo, from a distance of about 35 feet fired a single shot at the fleeing 16-year-old. The bullet struck the teen in the back of the head causing him to collapse unconscious to the ground.

     The officer approached the fallen suspect and with his gun out searched for but did not find a weapon on him. Officer Villalvazo rolled the boy onto his stomach, pulled back his arms and placed him into handcuffs.

     When medics arrived at the scene one of them requested that the handcuffs be taken off the dying suspect. Officer Villalvazo informed the medics that the cuffs would be removed at the hospital.

     The shooting of Isiah Murrietta-Golding on the daycare center property was captured on the school's surveillance camera.

     Isiah Murrietta-Golding died shortly after arriving at a nearby hospital.

     Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer ordered an internal investigation of the fatal police-involved shooting. When questioned by police department investigators looking into the case, Sergeant Villalvazo said he had feared for his life when the fleeing murder suspect reached into his waistband several times in what the officer interpreted as reaching for a weapon.

     That April a prosecutor charged Isiah Murrietta-Golding's 17-year-old brother with one count of murder and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the death of Eugenio Ybarra the day before Isiah was shot to death by officer Villalvazo.

     In March 2018, police chief Jerry Dyer announced that the internal police inquiry into the fatal police-involved shooting of Isiah Murrietta-Golding cleared officer Ray Villalvazo of any wrongdoing. According to the chief, the officer acted within the department's use of deadly force policy. The police department did not, however, make the daycare center surveillance video available to the public.

     Stuart Chandler, the attorney representing Isiah Murrietta-Golding's father, filed a wrongful death suit against the city of Fresno and the police department. The attorney had viewed the daycare center surveillance video, evidence he intended to introduce at the civil trial scheduled for sometime in 2020.

     Attorney Chandler, informed by what he had seen on the video, said this to reporters: "There absolutely is no way the officer's life was in danger. He [the suspect] was running away and he was trying to hold up his pants."

     In April 2018, Isiah Murrietta-Golding's 17-year-old brother, in connection with Eugenio Ybarra's death, pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. At the juvenile's sentencing hearing he told the court that it was his brother Isiah who fired into the car that crashed into the tree killing the 19-year-old Ybarra.

     In October 2019, attorney Stuart Chandler released the daycare center video of the fatal police-involved shooting. Regarding officer Villalvazo's putting handcuffs on the downed suspect, the attorney said: "He's unconscious and in the process of dying. What is the threat? They just saw him as an animal who had to be shot."

     Following the release of the surveillance video depicting the shooting, a video that could be seen on social media, the new Fresno chief of police, Andrew Hall, defended officer Villalvazo's use of deadly force on the grounds that Isiah Murrietta-Golding was a murder suspect known to be armed.

The Krystal Marie Barrows Police-Involved-Shooting Case

     Eleven people were inside a mobile home near Chillicothe, Ohio when, at 10:30 PM on December 11, 2013, a dozen or so members of a local drug task force unit rolled up to the dwelling with a no-knock warrant to search for guns and drugs. One of the occupants of the trailer house was a teenage girl.

     Just before breaking into the home one of the heavily armed U.S. 23 Task Force officers tossed a flash bang grenade through a window. At the moment the device detonated officers forced their way into the house.

     Following the initial chaos created by the SWAT-like raid, officers found Krystal Marie Barrows slumped on the living room couch. The 35-year-old mother of three had been shot in the head. She died shortly after being flown by helicopter to the Wexner Medical Center in Columblus.

     The raiding police officers arrested two women and four men for illegally possessing pistols, assault rifles and heroin. The task force cops also recovered stolen goods and a significant amount of cash. During the raid none of the mobile home occupants pulled a gun or fired a shot. This meant that Krystal Barrows had been shot by one of the task force officers.

     According to the results of a preliminary police inquiry into Barrows' death, she had been shot by Ross County sergeant Brett McKnight. The eleven-year veteran of the Ross County Sheriff's Office had accidentally discharged his sidearm outside the trailer when the flash bang grenade went off. The bullet pierced the trailer home's exterior wall and hit Barrows in the head.

      Other than a misdemeanor drunk and disorderly conviction, Krystal Barrows did not have a criminal record. Her sons were aged 19, 14 and 9. Detectives with the Ohio Bureau of Investigation looked into the case to determine if Sergeant McKnight had fired his gun recklessly.

     In March 2015, after a Ross County grand jury declined to indict Office McKnight for criminal homicide or lesser charges, the officer returned to work without any disciplinary action.

     Two years after the grand jury refused to indict the officer, the Ross County Sheriff's Office and other wrongful death defendants settled a lawsuit filed by Krystal Barrows' family for $156,000.

Randall Price: The Cost Of Hiring a Loose Cannon Cop

     Along a dirt road in Cottageville, South Carolina on May 16, 2011, Officer Randall Price of the Cottageville Police Department shot and killed Bert Reeves, a local construction company owner and the town's former mayor. They were both 40-years-old, had an antagonistic history between them, and, at the time of the shooting were engaged in physical combat. The backgrounds of both men involved conflict and trouble. Reeves, shot in the chest, died from his wounds at a local hospital. The chief of the six-man police department, consisting of only two full-time patrol officers, placed Officer Price on paid administrative leave pending the investigation of the shooting by detectives with the state.

     Mayor Reeves, in 2004, scolded a town officer for not writing enough speeding tickets to pay for his job. ( With 10,000 vehicles passing through town every day on a major route between Charleston and Waterboro, Cottageville was a notorious speed trap.) In March 2006 a sheriff's deputy arrested the mayor for driving 103 mph in a 55 mph zone. Three months later another deputy warned Mayor Reeves for driving 71 in a 55 mph area. In July 2006 Mr. Reeves suffered a serious brain injury after flipping his pickup. That November the mayor reported his wife and children missing. He said they had been taken against their will by unidentified people angry at him over some business deal "turned ugly." As it turned out the wife and kids left on their own volition to get away from Mr. Reeves. A month later, after the state revealed that Bert Reeves had traces of marijuana in his blood when he wrecked his truck he resigned from office. About a month before the fatal shooting Mr. Reeves complained about Officer Price's arrest of one of his relatives on an alcohol related charge.

     Officer Randall Price, before joining the Cottageville force in May 2008 had, two years earlier, been fired from the Blockville Police Department over a claim of excessive force. In 2001 he was fired from the Aiken County Sheriff's Office for criminal domestic violence, and in 1999 from the McCormick County Sheriff's Office for unsafe driving. During an eleven year period Mr. Price held jobs with eight different law enforcement agencies. He was the quintessential small town gypsy cop.

     In September 2011 Cottageville Mayor Margaret Steen laid off Officer Price. The police department, she said, couldn't afford to keep him on paid administrative leave pending the completion of the shooting investigation.

     In September 2012 Bert Reeves' ex-wife Ashley, on behalf of their two children, filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the town of Cottageville and other defendants. According to her attorney, Mullins McLeod, on the day in question officer Price drove out to Nut Hatch Lane where he blocked the former mayor in with his patrol car before shooting him in the chest. The plaintiff accused the defendant town of negligently hiring a cop with a history of police brutality. According to the lawsuit, because town officials knew that Officer Price was out to get Mr. Reeves they were negligent in not firing him.

     In August 2013 Lake Summers, the attorney representing the town, released civil suit documents that portrayed Bert Reeves, in the years before his death, as a mentally unstable and dangerous man. One of these documents included Mayor Margaret Steen's deposition transcript. Steen, the dead man's aunt, testified that shortly before the shooting, while she was at work in the town's municipal building he pulled his car up behind Officer Price's cruiser and started blowing his horn. The mayor, in an effort to defuse the situation told the officer to ignore Reeves and go about his business. After Officer Price drove off Mr. Reeves informed the major he had been "this close to getting" Officer Price.

     According to Mayor Steen, Reeves looked as though he was under the influence of drugs that day. She testified that he was "acting wild and crazy." The mayor advised her nephew to take his complaints about Officer Price to the chief of police. Bert Reeves did not take her advice. In recalling that moment the mayor said, "and he [Reeves] got this look on his face and he pointed and said, 'I'm going to get him now' and took off like a bat."

     The mayor, worried that there would be a dangerous confrontation involving her nephew and the police officer, immediately notified chief of police John Craddock of the situation. A short time later Chief Craddock informed the mayor that Officer Price had killed Bert Reeves.

      Bert Reeves' brother, Mercer Reeves, in his civil suit deposition revealed that his brother, in November 2006 was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility after he threatened to harm members of his family. According the brother, Bert Reeves threatened to kill his cousin and talked about harming a police officer.

     Ashley Reeves, in responding to attorney Summer's deposition transcripts admitted that her ex-husband had gone through a rough period before and immediately after their June 2007 divorce. In 2006 he threatened to burn down their house. The family court judge granted the divorce on grounds of Bert's adultery. Although the children remained with her, the judge granted her ex-husband visitation rights. "He was a really good father to his children," Ashley said. The plaintiff further asserted that her husband's difficulties with mental illness had nothing to do with his being wrongfully shot to death by Officer Price.

     According to a state toxicology report Bert Reeves, at the time of his death, was not under the influence of illicit drugs. However, he did have in his system, at "therapeutic levels," three prescription drugs designed to treat anxiety.

     There was no third party witness to this police-involved shooting. Moreover, the event was not caught on videotape. As a result all investigators had to go on was Randall Price's version of the incident. This and the fact Bert Reeves was mentally disturbed and angry in the hours before his death resulted in no criminal charges against the former police officer.

     On October 2, 2014 testimony in Ashley Reeves' wrongful death suit against Randall Price, the town and its police department got underway in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina. Throughout the trial plaintiff's attorney McLoad painted Randall Price as a loose cannon cop who had been frequently disciplined and fired for his on-duty bad behavior with several law enforcement agencies.

     The federal jury on October 15, 2014, finding that the village of Cottageville had been negligent in hiring Randall Price, awarded the Reeves family $97.5 million. This award, punitive in nature, was a staggering financial blow to the community.

     In March 2015, to avoid an appeal that could take years, the plaintiffs agreed to accept $10 million in damages.

The John Paul Quintero Police-Involved Shooting Case

     On Saturday January 3, 2015, 23-year-old John Paul Quintero and his father were visiting the home of a 21-year-old women in Wichita, Kansas. An argument broke out between John Paul and the homeowner that turned violent when he grabbed the victim and placed a knife at her throat. The knife-wielding man's father, who had also been threatened by him, left the house, climbed into his SUV and called 911.

     Two police officers rolled up to the scene a few minutes before seven that evening. The officers parked the patrol car down the block and walked toward the dwelling. When they arrived at the house they found the father and his son John Paul sitting in the SUV parked in the residence's driveway.

     The officers ordered the two men out of the vehicle and told them to keep their hands where they could see them. The father complied immediately, but his son, when he exited the passenger's side became belligerent and threatening. As the uncooperative suspect moved toward one of the officers he was again ordered to show his hands. Instead, the younger Quintero threatened the police officer who attempted to subdue him with a Taser. The device had no effect on the advancing suspect.

     When John Paul Quintero reached for his waistband the threatened female officer shot him twice.

     EMS personnel rendered first aid at the scene then placed Mr. Quintero into an ambulance. After undergoing emergency surgery at Wichita's Wesley Medical Center he died from his bullet wounds.

     At the time he was shot John Paul Quintero was not in possession of the knife. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation along with the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office took charge of the investigation. The officer who shot the unarmed man was placed on administrative leave pending the results of the police  inquiry into the shooting.

     In April 2016, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett announced that no criminal charges would be filed against the Wichita police officer. According to the prosecutor, the officer reasonably believed she was in danger of serious bodily injury or death.

The Matthew Hoffman Suicide-By-Cop Case

     If you threaten a police officer with a fake gun you will get shot by a real one.

     Around noon on Sunday January 4, 2015 Matthew Hoffman approached several police officers at San Francisco's Mission District police station with questions about the kinds of firearms and ammunition they carried. The 32-year-old was friendly and unthreatening.

     At five-fifteen that evening three police sergeants came upon Mr. Hoffman standing in an employee-only area of the police station parking lot. The officers informed the intruder he didn't belong there and asked him to leave.

     Upon being told he was trespassing Mr. Hoffman, without turning from the officers, backed away with his hands in his sweater pockets. The officers told Hoffman to show his hands. Instead of complying with the police command he lifted his sweater revealing, above his waistband, the handle of a firearm.

    When Mr. Hoffman reached for his weapon the officers opened fire, hitting him three times. Shortly after the shooting the sergeants discovered that the man had been in possession of an Airsoft pellet gun that was not equipped with an orange-tipped muzzle.

     The seriously wounded man underwent emergency surgery at San Francisco General Hospital but died later that night. The officers who shot him were placed on paid administrative leave pending the results of an internal investigation.

     On Matthew Hoffman's cellphone investigators discovered a message to the police that read: "Dear Officers: I provoked you. I threatened your life as well as the lives of others around me. You did nothing wrong. You ended the life of a man who was too much of a coward to do it himself. You were completely within your legal rights to do what you did. God made a mistake with me. Please take solace in knowing that the situation was out of your control. You had no other choice."

     In the typical suicide-by-cop case investigators, after the fact, have to infer the shooting victim's motive through his mental history and provocative behavior toward the officer. In this case Matthew Hoffman left nothing to the imagination. Mr. Hoffman on his cellphone described himself as "lonely" and "hopeless." Beyond that, why he no longer wanted to live remained a mystery.  

The Jessica Hernandez Police-Involved Shooting Case

     In Denver Colorado at six-thirty in the morning of Monday January 26, 2015, two police officers responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle. The officers knew the parked car, occupied by five people, was reported stolen. According to the police version of the story, as the officers approached the vehicle it lurched toward them. Both officers opened fire hitting and killing the driver who turned out to be 17-year-old Jessica Hernandez. The car struck one of the officers in the leg.

     Bobbie Diaz, the mother of a 16-year-old girl who was in the stolen car at the time of the shooting was in bed when she heard four gunshots followed by a man yelling, "Freeze! Get out of the car! Get down!"

     When Diaz went outside to investigate she saw police officers pulling young people from the car. They yanked Jessica Hernandez out from behind the steering wheel and handcuffed the unresponsive girl. One of the teens in the group screamed, "She's dead! She's dead!"

     Another witness to the police shooting, neighborhood resident Arellia Hammock, told a reporter she heard three gunshots that morning. In referring to the teenagers involved, she said, "They shouldn't have stolen a car. But the cops are too fast on the gun. You've got stun guns. You've got rubber bullets. Why do they have to shoot all the time?"

     One of the occupants of the stolen car offered a version of the incident different in a very important way from the official police account. According to this witness the vehicle didn't move toward the officers until after they killed the driver.

     The Denver chief of police, pursuant to departmental policy in such matters, placed both officers on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation into Hernandez's death. The inquiry was . conducted by three separate agencies: the Denver Police Department, the district attorney's office and a civilian oversight organization called the Office of Independent Monitor.

     At a vigil held that night for Jessica Hernandez residents of the neighborhood critical of the police  held signs protesting the shooting. One of the signs read: "Your Badge Is Not a License to Kill."

     Two days after the fatal shooting, 200 angry protestors gathered outside Denver's District 2 police station. An official with the independent civilian oversight organization reported to the media that in the past seven months Denver police officers had fired four times at vehicles they perceived as threats.

     According to the Denver Police Department's use of deadly force guidelines officers in cases like this are urged to step out of the way of approaching vehicles rather than to open fire. Moreover, if the driver of the vehicle is hit the car or truck could become an unguided missile.

     Because Denver police cars were not equipped with dashboard cameras, shooting investigators would have to rely on witness accounts of the incident. It would have been helpful to detectives if the incident had been caught on a neighborhood surveillance camera.

     Not long after the fatal shooting Jessica Hernandez's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.

     In June 2016 Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey decided there was not enough evidence to file criminal charges against the police officers involved in Jessica Hernandez's death. The officers were returned to duty.
   
     In April 2017 the city of Denver and Jessica Hernandez's family settled the wrongful death lawsuit for $1 million. 

Kenneth Buck: A Petty Criminal Who Turned Violent

     In 2012 Kenneth Arnold Buck, a 20-year-old homeless resident of Chandler Arizona who had a history of shoplifting and petty theft in California entered a church in Chandler to use the bathroom. Inside the building he encountered the man who taught music at that church. Buck pulled a knife and demanded that the victim turn over his cellphone and wallet.

      Following the robbery the music teacher followed Kenneth Buck onto a city bus where he confronted him. Mr. Buck responded by breaking into tears, throwing his knife to the bus floor and giving back the stolen items.

     After pleading guilty to robbery Kenneth Buck served three months in the Maricopa County Jail. The judge also sentenced him to three years probation.

     In January 2013 Chandler police officers arrested Kenneth Buck for public intoxication. At the time of his arrest he was carrying a small quantity of marijuana. The judge added two years to his probation.

     On November 21, 2014, after Mr. Buck violated the terms of his probation by changing his place of residence without his probation officer's permission, and missing several drug tests, the judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

     At one in the afternoon of Monday January 5, 2015 police officers in Chandler spotted a man driving a Dodge pickup truck that matched the description of the vehicle associated with a local burglary. The truck bore fictitious out-of-state license plates and was being driven by Kenneth Buck.

     Once he realized the police were tailing him, Kenneth Buck stepped on the gas and ran a red light. The officers gave chase. After driving a couple of blocks Mr. Buck slid open his rear window and started firing shots at the pursing police car. The officers responded with a volley of their own.

      The pursuit came to an end when Kenneth Buck pulled the truck to a stop, climbed out of the vehicle and continued to fire at the officers. In the exchange of gunfire he was hit several times. Although seriously wounded, Buck managed to climb back into the pickup and drive off. After a short distance the Dodge came to a stop. Inside the vehicle officers found the 22-year-old slumped dead behind the steering wheel.

     Notwithstanding Kenneth Buck's record of relatively minor crime, he turned out to be a dangerous person who could have killed a police officer. 

The John Mallett Stabbing Spree

     As a teenager growing up in New York City John Mallett spent time in the juvenile wing in the city jail on Rikers Island. He stabbed a boy in a fight over a girl. As a young adult Mallett, a paranoid schizophrenic, continued to have problems with the law. He served three years in prison for robbery. John Mallett's family tried to get him help through the courts and public health but were ignored. They learned that the criminal justice system is of no help to a family of a violent mentally ill person until that person commits a heinous crime. Then of course it is too late.

     John Mallett moved to Nashville Tennessee where his mental illness continued to lead him into trouble. In March of 2010 he was convicted of resisting arrest and three months later for criminal trespass. In February 2011, just before moving to Columbus Ohio, the authorities in Nashville charged Mallett with the unlawful possession of a weapon. (That charge was later dismissed.)

     In Columbus, John Mallett moved in with his aunt. He became such a problem for her she asked him to move out. This placed the mentally ill man under considerable stress. On March 14, 2012, while in downtown Columbus a few blocks from the state capitol, John Mallett entered the 25-story Continental Centre building carrying three knives, one of which came from his aunt's kitchen. The office building housed, on the first floor, a for-profit trade school (criminal justice, security, investigation and court reporting) called Miami-Jacobs Career College. The school, owned by the Delta Career Education Corporation headquartered in Virginia Beach Virginia, consisted of 37 campuses and 16,000 students around the country.

     In the trade school's admissions office John Mallett carrying a knife in each hand repeatedly stabbed two employees and a criminal justice student. Back outside he knifed an attorney who worked for the state attorney general's office that was housed in the building. Several bystanders tried but failed to disarm Mallett. One of the witnesses dialed 911.

      Within minutes of the 911 call Columbus patrol officer Deborah Ayers pulled up to the building. The 15-year veteran of the force confronted Mallett near the building's entrance. "Sir," she yelled, "you need to put the knife down. Sir, please put the knife down!" Instead of complying with the officer's command Mr. Mallet lunged toward her with his knife. Ayers fired 11 shots, hitting Mallett twice. Before he collapsed to the pavement a second officer shocked him with a stun gun.

     The 37-year-old Mallett and his four victims were rushed to a local hospital. They were expected to survive their wounds. The fact Mallett had lunged at the officer with his knives suggested a suicide-by-cop attempt.

     On Thursday March 15, 2012, the day after the rampage, the local prosecutor charged John Mallett with four counts of felonious assault.

     A battery of psychiatrists appointed by the court to examine the assailant concluded that he suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia. On June 10, 2013 Franklin County Judge Kimberly Cocroft found Mallett not guilty by reason of insanity.

     A few weeks after the verdict corrections officials assigned the schizophrenic to a Columbus area forensic psychiatric facility where he was to remain incarcerated until his doctors declared he was sane enough to rejoin society. 

The Gilbert Collar Police-Involved Shooting Case

     Gilbert Thomas Collar grew up in Wetumpka, Alabama, a town of 6,000 within the Montgomery metropolitan area in the central part of the state. The 135-pound, 5-foot-7 high school wrestling star was enrolled at the University of South Alabama, a 15,000-student university located in Mobile, Alabama. Collar, a social sciences major, wanted to become a high school teacher and wrestling coach.

     A university police officer named Trevis Austin, at 1:23 in the morning of Saturday, October 6, 2012, heard someone banging loudly on one of the campus police station's windows. Upon investigation of this noise the officer encountered Gilbert Collar, nude and crouched into a fighting stance. The muscular young man, who challenged the officer to a fight, obviously appeared to be out of his mind. When Gilbert Collar made an aggressive move toward Trevis Austin the officer drew his weapon, backed-off and warned the threatening 18-year-old to settle down. Collar rushed toward the campus cop several times, and each time the retreating officer ordered the man to stop and desist. The out of control student took a knee, rose and charged the officer again. This time officer Austin shot the young man once in the chest. The attacking freshman stumbled, regained his footing, rushed toward the officer again, then collapsed and died.

     University police officer Trevis Austin was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation conducted by the Mobile County District Attorney's Office and the local sheriff's department. An important aspect of the inquiry involved reviewing the surveillance camera footage of the bizarre confrontation. Some of the questions to be answered included whether or not the student and the officer who shot him knew each other. Investigators also wanted to determine if Mr. Collar had a  history of mental illness and/or drug use. The autopsy and toxicological would answer the question of drugs.

     Jeff Glass, Gilbert Collar's high school wrestling coach told a reporter that "He [Collar] was a kind soul. He was never aggressive to anyone off the mat. He was a 'yes sir, no sir' kind of guy." Chis Estes, an 18-year-old who grew up with Collar reportedly said, "Gil was a very 'chill' guy, mellow and easy-going. That's why I don't understand the story that he attacked the cop."

     According to the toxicology report Gilbert Collar had gotten high on a laboratory drug that mimics the effects of LSD. He had taken the drug at the BayFest music concert on the night of the deadly encounter. Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, at a press conference, announced that the student had assaulted others prior to his death.

     In 2013 a grand jury sitting in Mobile County cleared officer Trevis Austin of criminal wrongdoing in the shooting.

     In the wake of the grand jury no bill, members of Gilbert Collar's family brought a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against former officer Austin and the university. In 2015, pursuant to that suit, former Tallahassee police chief Melvin Tucker, on behalf of the plaintiff, rendered an expert opinion regarding whether the officer's use of deadly force in the case was appropriate.

     In his report, made public in May 2015, Mr. Tucker concluded that officer Austin had used excessive force in violation of his department's deadly force policy. Melvin Tucker wrote that the officer should either have retreated or used non-lethal means to subdue the student.

     Mr. Tucker noted in his report that over the past 131 years only three police officers in the state of Alabama had been killed by an unarmed assailant. The use of force expert wrote that in 2012 not a single police officer in the United States had died as a result of being disarmed by an arrestee.

     This was one of those difficult cases that no matter how it was resolved it won't satisfy anyone. From the campus police officer's point of view he was confronted by an aggressive, muscular young man who was apparently out of his mind and intent on engaging him in a wrestling match. For all the officer knew he was dealing with a drug-crazed man with supernatural strength. (The officer was 5-foot-eleven and the student 5-foot-seven.) Had these two gotten into hand-to-hand combat there was a possibility that the attacker could have ended up with the officer's gun. Even if the officer had been equipped with a taser device there was no guarantee it would have subdued this aggressive, out-of-control subject, particularly with the LSD type drug in his system.

     Looking at this case through the eyes of Gilbert Collar's friends and relatives it's easy to understand why they had questions regarding this student's sudden and violent death. His mother Bonnie said this to a reporter: "Freshmen kids do stupid things, and campus police should be equipped to handle activity like that without having to use lethal force." Although Gilbert Collar was not a kid, college freshmen are known to do stupid things. But taking off your clothes in the middle of the night and without provocation or notice attacking a police officer goes beyond youthful stupidity. 

Officer James Peters: Scottsdale's Dirty Harry

     During the period November 2002 through February 2012, Scottsdale, Arizona police officer James Peters shot at seven people, killing six of them. From this, one might conclude that Scottsdale, the Phoenix area suburb of 220,000, was the site of daily shootouts between the police and a large population of violent criminals. But this wasn't the case. In 2011 the Scottsdale police only shot one person and it wasn't fatal. By comparison the police in Phoenix that year shot 16, killing 9.

     How could one member of a police department made up of 435 sworn officers shoot so many people in a relatively low crime city? After say, the third shooting incident, why wasn't this man psychologically evaluated and at the very least put behind a desk? Moreover, didn't the officer himself ask himself why he was the only guy on the force doing all of the shooting?

     On November 3, 2002 roughly two years after joining the police department, Peters, as a member of the SWAT team, responded to a domestic violence call at the home of a man named Albert Redford. Following a 4-hour standoff James Peters and two other SWAT officers fired seven shots at the suspect hitting him three times. Mr. Redford died a few hours later in the emergency room. As it turned out none of the fatal bullets had been fired from Peter's rifle. An investigation by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office cleared all three officers of wrongdoing

     Officer Peters, on March 25, 2003, responded to a call regarding shotgun blasts coming from the home of a distraught, disbarred attorney named Brent Bradshaw. Three hours later Peters and his follow officers encountered the 47-year-old suspect wandering along the Arizona Canal carrying a shotgun. When Mr. Bradshaw refused to drop his weapon officer Peters killed him with a shot to the head. This shooting was declared justified.

     On October 10, 2005 Officer Peters shot and killed Mark Wesley Smith. High on methamphetamine, Smith was smashing car windows with a pipe outside an auto-body shop.  In justifying his use of deadly force in this case, Peters said the subject had threatened a fellow officer with the pipe.

     Brian Daniel Brown, 28, took a Safeway grocery store employee hostage on April 23, 2006 after he had hijacked a Krispy Kreme delivery truck. After killing the hostage taker the department awarded Officer Peters a medal of valor.

     Peters and Scottsdale officer Tom Myers were in Mesa, Arizona on August 30, 2006 hoping to question Kevin Hutchings, a suspect in an assault committed earlier that evening in Scottsdale. After Mr. Hutchings fired a shot from inside his house the officers had the power company cut off electricity to the dwelling. When the armed man came out of his house to investigate the power outage Peters shot him to death. The city, in this case ended up paying the Hutchings family an out of court settlement of $75,000. Even so, the department declared this shooting justified and Officer Peters kept his assignment as a street cop even though he had killed two people in one year.

     On February 17, 2010 Officer Peters and Detective Scott Gailbraith confronted 46-year-old Jimmy Hammack, a suspect in five Phoenix and Scottsdale bank robberies. When Hammack drove his pickup truck toward the detective Peters shot him. A few days later Hammack died in the hospital. This shooting, on the grounds the subject was using his vehicle as a deadly weapon, went into the books as justified.

The Killing of John Loxas

     John Loxas, 50, lived alone in a trash-littered house near Vista De Camino Park in Scottsdale. In 2010 police arrested him for displaying a handgun in public. On February 14, 2012 Peters and five other officers responded to a 911 call concerning Loxas who reportedly was threatening his neighbors with a firearm. To complicate matters Mr. Loxas, who regularly babysat his 9-month-old grandson, had the child in his arms while intimidating the neighbors.

     When James Peters and the other officers arrived at the scene Mr. Loxas and the baby were back inside the house. When ordered to exit the dwelling, Loxas, still holding the child, appeared in the doorway. As the subject turned to reenter the house and lowered the baby exposing his upper torso and head, Peters, thinking he saw a black object in Loxas' hand, shot him in the head from 18 feet. The subject, killed instantly by the bullet from Peter's rifle, collapsed to the ground still holding the baby. Fortunately, and perhaps miraculously, the infant was not injured.

     As it turned out, at the time Officer Peters killed Mr. Loxas the subject was not armed or within reach of a weapon. Police did find, in the dead man's living room, a loaded handgun hidden between the arm and cushion of a stuffed chair. Farther into the dwelling searchers discovered a shotgun, several "Airsoft"-type rifles and pistols and a "functional improvised explosive device."

     In explaining why he had shot Mr. Loxas, Officer Peters said he had been concerned for the safety of the baby. Peters was placed on paid administrative leave pending yet another police involved shooting investigation by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Critics of the shooting, including some of Loxas' neighbors, protested the incident outside the police department.

     Except for the Safeway hostage case in April 2006, most police officers, faced with the choices presented to Officer Peters, probably would not have exercised deadly force. This didn't mean that Peters had committed criminal acts, or that his shootings were even  administratively unjustified. It just meant that most officers wouldn't have been so quick to pull the trigger. If it were otherwise, every year thousands rather than hundreds of people would die at the hands of the police.

     Because Mr. Loxas had been armed shortly before the police arrived at the scene, and Officer Peters thought the subject was holding a handgun when he shot him, this case was ruled a justifiable homicide. Whether or not, under the circumstances, the killing of Mr. Loxas was the right thing to do was another question altogether.
 
     On June 22, 2012 the Scottsdale police board for the Public Safety Retirement System approved Officer Peters' application for early retirement based on some unnamed disability. He received a pension of $4,500 a month for life. Not bad for 12 years of work. No wonder the country was going broke and people in the private sector resented the government.

     In September 2012 the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, on behalf of John Loxas' relatives, sued the city of Scottsdale. The Scottsdale City Council, in June 2013 approved a court settlement of $4.25 million. The Loxas family had originally sought $7.5 million in damages. The city of Scottsdale in this case was self-insured up to $2 million, a sum that would have to be paid by municipal taxpayers. Officer James Peters had been one costly cop. 

The Edward and Eric Campbell Murder Case

     On the morning of January 1, 2015, 54-year-old Edward Campbell and his 21-year-old son Eric, a pair of criminals from Texas, invaded the home of Jerome and Dora Faulkner in Oxford, North Carolina. Before that, on September 2014, the elder Campbell assaulted his own wife with a firearm and had since jumped bail on that case.

     After shooting to death Mr. Faulkner, 73 and his 62-year-old wife Dora, a pair of randomly picked victims, Edward Campbell and his son placed their bodies beneath a mattress in the back of Mr. Faulkner's red Chevrolet pickup truck. They set fire to the Faulkner house and with the father behind the wheel of Mr. Faulkner's pickup, and his son Eric driving Mrs. Faulkner's white Chevrolet SUV, the killers headed west in the stolen vehicles.

     The retired Mr. Faulkner had been a volunteer fire chief and his wife a registered nurse.

     At four in the afternoon of the double murder, Lewisburg, West Virginia police officers Nicholas Sams, a rookie just out of the police academy and his partner Lieutenant Jeremy Dove, while driving on Interstate 64 in Greenbrier County, spotted the stolen SUV driven by Eric Campbell. The officers pulled the vehicle over.

     As the West Virginia police officers sat in their patrol car behind Mrs. Faulkner's SUV, Edward Campbell pulled off the highway, got out of the stolen red pickup truck and approached the two officers with his handgun drawn. When he reached the police car Edward Campbell fired several shots into the vehicle. One bullet entered officer Sam's back and another grazed his head. Campbell shot Lieutenant Dove in the chest and neck. Both officers were wearing bullet-proof vests.

    One of the wounded police officers returned fire, striking Edward Campbell in the leg. Campbell limped into a wooded area where, ten minutes later a deputy with the Greenbrier County Sheriff's Office took him into custody.

     Shortly after his father's arrest, Eric Campbell, having driven away from the shooting scene, pulled off Interstate 64 and waited for officers to arrest him. When officers searched the stolen red pickup truck they discovered the bodies of the murdered North Carolina couple.

     Paramedics rushed the wounded police officers to the Greenbrier Valley Medical Center where they were listed in stable condition. Edward Campbell was hospitalized for the bullet wound in his leg.

     A Greenbrier County prosecutor charged the father, Edward Campbell, with two counts of malicious assault and attempted murder of a police officer. Back in North Carolina a prosecutor charged Edward and Eric Campbell with double murder, arson, burglary and car theft. In the meantime, the suspects were held in West Virginia under $500,000 bond.

     Eric and Edward Campbell were extradited to North Carolina on the murder, arson, burglary and car theft charges in February 2015. The following month, Greenville County District Attorney Michael Waters, in an April 8, 2015 hearing in Oxford, North Carolina, petitioned the court to seek the death penalty against Eric Campbell. The judge granted the request.

     In March 2016, the father, Edward Campbell, committed suicide while in custody awaiting his trials.

     Eric Campbell, facing the death penalty, told investigators that his father was a drug addict and methamphetamine manufacturer who had physically and psychologically abused him for years. Eric Campbell also claimed to have been diagnosed with ADHD as a child. He said he had been prescribed Adderall that his father had stolen from him for re-sale.

     In August 2017 a jury sitting in Oxford, North Carolina, after three hours of deliberation, found Eric Campbell guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. A month later Superior Court Judge Henry Hight sentenced Campbell to life in prison. In speaking directly to the convicted double murderer, Judge Hight said, "You need to thank God and this jury and the fact you're in the state of North Carolina that your life has been spared." 

     Both of the police officers survived their wounds.

The Jerame Reid Police-Involved Shooting Case

      On the night of December 30, 2014 in Brighton, New Jersey, a Cumberland County town of 25,000 south of Philadelphia, Bridgeton police officers Roger Worley and Braheme Days pulled over a Jaguar for running a stop sign. Officer Worley was behind the wheel of the patrol car.

     Officer Days approached the passenger side of the Jaguar and asked the two men in the car how they were doing. The passenger, 30-year-old Jerame Reid, said, "Good, how you doing, officer?"

     A few months earlier officer Days had arrested Jerame Reid for possession of drugs. As a teenager Reid had been convicted of shooting at police officers. The judge sent him to prison for twelve years.

     A few seconds after approaching the Jaguar, officer Days spotted a handgun in the glove compartment. He said, "Don't move! Show me your hands!"

     On the other side of the vehicle officer Worley pointed his gun at the driver, Leroy Tutt. Mr. Tutt sat in the driver's seat with his hands sticking out of the car door window where they could be seen. Officer Worley called for backup.

     Officer Days reached into the Jaguar and removed a silver handgun from the glove box. To the vehicle's occupants he said, "You reach for something you're going to be (expletive) dead!"

     One of the men in the stopped car said, "I got no reason to reach for nothing." Again officer Days warned, "Hey Jerame, you reach for something you're going to be (expletive) dead!"

     As Jerame Reid opened the front passenger door, he said, "I'm getting out of the car." By now officer Worley had joined officer Days on that side of the vehicle. Both officers had their guns drawn. Mr. Reid climbed out of the vehicle and when he stood up his hands were raised to the level of his chest in the officers' plain view.

     A few seconds after Jerame Reid exited the Jaguar officer Days shot him. Officer Worley also fired his gun but missed his target.  The shot man collapsed to the ground and died on the spot. He did not possess a firearm.

     The police-involved shooting incident was caught on the officers' dashboard camera. The chief of police placed both officers on administrative leave and turned the case over to the Cumberland County prosecutor's office.

     Shortly after receiving the case, Cumberland County prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae recused herself from the inquiry because she had personal ties to officer Days. First Assistant prosecutor Harold Shapiro took over the investigation.

     Critics of the way the authorities handled the case called for either a special prosecutor or an intervention by the state attorney general's office. Protestors, notwithstanding the fact that Jerame Reid and the officer who shot him were black, claimed racism.

    In February 2015, three months after Mr. Reid's death, a local newspaper reported that in 2011 Jerame Reid had filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the Cumberland County Department of Corrections, Warden Robert Balicki and three corrections officers. Reid claimed the jail guards assaulted him in October 2009. According to Reid the officers, without provocation or justification, repeatedly punched, kicked and pepper sprayed his face then threw a bucket of water on him as he lay on the cell floor.

     As a result of the beating Reid said he suffered broken ribs and a fractured left orbital bone that left him without sensation and nerve damage to his lips and cheek area. According to court documents the encounter began after Reid confronted another inmate over stolen belongings. The accused inmate told correction officers that Reid possessed a sharp object.

     Responding jail guards handcuffed Reid and placed him into another cell. According to the plaintiff, after he made a comment to one of the officers they gave him the beating. (The officers alleged that Reid threw the first punch.)

     Reid's lawyer, in court documents, said the corrections officers, after an internal investigation were disciplined for not filing a use of force report. The matter was not referred to the local prosecutor's office for investigation.

     As a result of the plaintiff's death the lawsuit against the county, the warden and the correction officers was dismissed.

     After a federal prosecutor decided not to pursue the shooting incident against the officers the case, in April 2016, went before a local grand jury. The grand jurors declined to indict either officer. In July 2016 members of Mr. Reid's family settled a federal lawsuit against the police department for an undisclosed amount.

The Leslie Sapp Police-Involved Shooting Case

     In 2014, 47-year-old Leslie Sapp, a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, found himself on the U.S Marshal's Office Top 20 Wanted List. On July 21, 2014 an Allegheny County prosecutor had charged Mr. Sapp with rape, statutory sexual assault and related lesser offenses.

     Mr. Sapp stood accused of having sex numerous times with an underage girl at his home between April 2011 and May 2014. The victim, just 11-years-old when first assaulted, didn't report Sapp out of fear. She also kept quiet because she didn't want to get in trouble with her mother. On many occasions Leslie Sapp provided the girl with marijuana.

     At the time the charges were filed Sapp's whereabouts were unknown. The U.S. Marshal's Western Pennsylvania Fugitive Task Force took charge of the investigation to locate and bring him to justice.

     Leslie Sapp had a criminal history going back to the 1980s when the authorities in Philadelphia charged him with a series of crimes that included aggravated assault, robbery and various gun violations. Finally, in 1993 following a conviction in Philadelphia a judge sent him to prison where he served ten years of a ten to twenty year sentence. After getting out in 2003 Mr. Sapp continued to get into trouble by violating the terms of his parole.

     In 2013 Leslie Sapp pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited firearm. The judge sentenced him to three years probation.

     At six-forty-five Tuesday morning January 6, 2015, a Pennsylvania State Trooper, a deputy with the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office and other members of the fugitive task force showed up at Sapp's house in the Knoxsville section of Pittsburgh. When the officer encountered the fugitive he displayed a handgun in a threatening manner. One of the officers responded by shooting him to death.

     As it turned out Mr. Sapp was in possession of an air gun that shot pellets. Because it was black and didn't have the orange barrel marker the gun looked real. According to a law enforcement spokesperson, Leslie Sapp held the gun "in a manner consistent with being used against a police officer."

     In April 2015 the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office ruled the Leslie Sapp shooting justified.

     To threaten a police officer with a pellet gun is no different than wielding a firearm that shoots bullets. Mr. Sapp must have known this and was willing to accept the consequences.