Homeless Sex Offender Dies; Van Amasses Tickets

This post documents the death of Faamamalu Casey mentioned at the end of this story.

While the article is about the death Thomas Craig who died in the van he has his own post elsewhere in the Murders blog, as does Nicolas Chaykovsky also mentioned at end of story.

12-11-2010 California:

While passing the Caltrain station earlier this week, one of the men we'd interviewed for our story on homeless sex offenders last year flagged us down. He'd said no one had seen Thomas Craig, another one of our sources in the story, for several weeks. Now the Ford Windstar that Craig slept in parked on Bluxome Street had been gathering parking tickets, and our informant speculated the worst: "I think he died in there. I told the fire department, but they just laughed it off."

The consequences of Jessica's Law have been sinister to Craig and others to say the least: Since the law mandates that sex offenders must live 2,000 feet away from a park or school, in San Francisco, their only option is to not have a residence at all. The parole department currently mandates that they remain homeless.

While the city mulls a change to how the law is enforced locally, the paroled offenders continue to sleep in vans parked in lots and alleys, in homeless drop-in centers, or in doorways. Law enforcement experts say the instability makes it more likely the sex offenders will re-offend. In Craig's case, he had been convicted of forced oral copulation with a minor, though he always insisted he'd been framed. He did tell us about how the sex offenders were no longer allowed to enter a program for parolees at Walden House since it was too close to a school.

The complications from Jessica's Law abound. Yet a man dying inside his van and lying undiscovered for weeks seemed to be taking the macabre circumstances up a notch.

We checked on the minivan various times this week and, yep, it had been pegged with three different tickets for parking during street cleaning since mid-November. On Wednesday, a pink notice that the city was going to tow the van appeared. The sheets that Craig usually hung inside for a modicum of privacy were still up. We knocked and there was no answer. The county jail said he wasn't in custody, and the medical examiner said they had no record of him.

Finally today, we met our informant at the Caltrain station again. "He died." But not in the van.

A call to the medical examiner cleared things up: Craig had checked into St. Francis Hospital.

on Nov. 14, saying he had lung cancer. His condition declined at the hospital until he died at 2 p.m. on Nov. 18, likely due to multiple organ failure from cancer.

This will be the third person made homeless by Jessica's Law to die that SF Weekly has learned of this year. First, Nicolas Chaykovsky died in February from a heart attack, with his case manager speculating it was living on the streets that did him in. Faamamalu Casey died of a heart attack on May 27, according to the medical examiner.

Craig's van, meanwhile, is still slated to be towed. Apparently a handful of the homeless guys stored their stuff in there. Since no one has a key, they're all going to lose their possessions now. "Can't inherit the car," our informant, who sleeps under a nearby highway, said with a wry chuckle. "He's gone. I hate to say it." ..Source.. by Lauren Smiley

2 arrests in sex assault suspect murder

12-2-2010 Missouri:

(KMOV) -- News 4 sources confirm a man found shot to death Tuesday at Route 66 State Park near Eureka was the owner of a south St. Louis comic book store and suspect in the rape of a 13-year-old.

Police found the car owned by Kenneth McClure, 57, Wednesday morning in south St. Louis.

That car was seen in the area of where McClure's body was discovered.
McClure was supposed to be in court Tuesday morning for a hearing related to his rape charge, but he did not show up.

A State Park Ranger found McClure's body on the ground in an area near where Highway 44 and the Meramec River meet at Route 66 state park. He was shot in the back of the head.

Police are still looking for the shooter. ..Source.. by KMOV News4

UPDATE 12-2: News 4: 2 arrests in sex assault suspect murder

(KMOV) -- News 4 has learned 2 suspects have been arrested in the murder of Kenneth McClure.

His body was found Tuesday at Route 66 State Park near Eureka. McClure, 57, was the owner of a south St. Louis comic book store and suspect in the rape of a 13-year-old.

St. Louis County police say the two suspects were arrested Wednesday morning and booked on 1st degree murder charges and armed criminal action. The charges were taken under advisement by the St. Louis County Prosecutor's office and the suspects were released from custody.

McClure was supposed to be in court Tuesday morning for a hearing related to his rape charge, but he did not show up.

A State Park Ranger found McClure's body on the ground in an area near where Highway 44 and the Meramec River meet at Route 66 state park. He was shot in the back of the head.

Man found dead in St. Louis County was arrested for rape in October

ST. LOUIS • A man found dead in St. Louis County Tuesday was charged earlier this year in a statutory rape case and had been arrested after a standoff with police in October, a relative said.

The man's nephew identified the shooting victim found by St. Louis County police at Route 66 State Park as Kenneth McClure, 57, of St. Louis. His body was found a few hours after he missed an appearance in the court case against him.

McClure was involved in a standoff with police Oct. 28 after they showed up at the comic book shop he operated to arrest him on charges of statutory rape, assault and unlawful use of a weapon. He was accused of sex with a 13-year-old girl.

McClure had a weapon when police showed up at Legends Comics and Sports Cards, in the 5800 block of Hampton Avenue. He put the gun to his head at one point but later surrendered to police. He was charged with resisting arrest.

St. Louis County Police on Wednesday afternoon confirmed Kenneth McClure was the man found at the state park.

St. Louis police said a car seen leaving the park and found later in the city is linked to McClure. They said the license plate belonged to McClure, though they said it didn't appear the plate matched the car. McClure's nephew said McClure had recently put the plate on the Camaro to move the car from storage.

Police found the body at Route 66 State Park, near the Meramec River and Interstate 44, while responding to a call of shots fired about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The area is at the entrance of the old Times Beach community. A ranger saw the older-model, dark-colored Chevrolet Camaro leaving the area. St. Louis County police said the car was the victim's.

The man, who appeared to be in his 50s, had been fatally shot. A ranger found the body under a bridge on the north outer road, according to Rick Eckhard, spokesman for the St. Louis County police.

Police on Wednesday morning recovered the Camaro. The car was discovered after 6 a.m. Wednesday at Juniata Street and Ohio Avenue.

McClure posted bond and was released from jail Nov. 4. He was scheduled to appear in Judge Michael Stelzer's court Tuesday morning on the charges against him.

Just before the 9 a.m. hearing, McClure called his attorney, Jim Pree, and said he had car trouble, Stelzer said. They waited, but when he still didn't show up, Stelzer issued a warrant for his arrest.

"This is the first time I was waiting for a client and I found out he was murdered while I was waiting," said Pree.

McClure was the "nicest guy you'd want to meet," Pree said, and professed his "absolute, complete innocence," in the sex case.

His nephew, Everett "Sonny" McClure III, 30, said the last time he spoke to his uncle was shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday, when his uncle called him telling him to go to the comic book store to check on the alarm system that had been tripped. Everett McClure said he assumed his uncle was calling from the courthouse. When Everett McClure arrived at the store, he found a note from his uncle instructing him on how to sell the Camaro. The salutation in the note said, "Love you stay strong for me."

He said he found out later Tuesday afternoon that his uncle was likely the man found dead in the state park near Eureka.

"I feel like I got cheated out of my goodbye," Everett McClure said. "To get the last chance to say goodbye, to say how I felt."

Everett McClure said police questioned him at St. Louis County Police headquarters for nine hours before releasing him.

The charges against McClure in the case stem from incidents between June 2008 and June 2009, according to court documents. He was accused of sex with the girl, pointing a gun at her, and hitting her with a back scratcher and a fly swatter, all in the 5800 block of Hampton. That's where the comic shop is located and also where McClure lived. ..Source.. by FROM STAFF REPORTS

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[UPDATE] Kenneth McClure: Man Killed at Route 66 Park Was Comic Shop Owner Accused of Raping Teen

12-2-2010:

Update: St. Louis County police have questioned two people on suspicion of killing McClure. Otis Richmond, 32, and Angel Scheibel, 25, live in the 3400 block of Juniata in south St. Louis, just down the street from where McClure's Camaro was discovered yesterday.

The two were arrested and booked early Wednesday and later released. The St. Louis County prosecutor's office is determining whether or not to file charges of first-degree murder and armed-criminal action. Their mugshots appear below. ..Source.. by Chad Garrison

Coroner: Man who died after Taser incident had health issues

3-23-2011 Nevada:

A 44-year-old man who died after Las Vegas police shocked him with a Taser "several" times in December had cocaine and alcohol in his system, the Clark County coroner's office said Wednesday.

Las Vegan Anthony Jones died from cocaine and ethanol intoxication, the coroner's office said. But other factors contributed to his death, including "police restraining procedures" and an enlarged heart from obesity and mild hypertension, the coroner found.

Assistant Coroner John Fudenberg said that although science has not determined whether Taser guns kill, the use of the less-lethal weapon could have been a factor in Jones' death.

"It's safe to say that it could have possibly contributed to his death," Fudenberg said.

The coroner ruled Jones' death a homicide, meaning only that Jones died as the result of actions of others.

ROUTINE TRAFFIC STOP

Jones died in the early morning hours of Dec. 11. His confrontation with police began with a routine traffic stop less than a mile from his home and ended with a struggle with officers who used a Taser to subdue him.

The incident began when Jones' 1993 Lexus was stopped at about 1 a.m. in the 1000 block of West Lake Mead Boulevard, near Martin Luther King Boulevard. Police have not said what prompted the stop.

Police said Jones ran north across Lake Mead and jumped a wall into the backyard of an abandoned house in the 1000 block of Hart Avenue, about two-tenths of a mile from his car. When police caught up to him, he aggressively resisted them, and officers used a Taser "several times," according to police. The department has not said how many times Jones was shocked.

Jones was pronounced dead at Valley Hospital Medical Center.

The officers involved were Mark Hatten, who has been with the agency since January 2007, and Timothy English, who was hired in June 2008.

Hatten and English were placed on routine paid administrative leave after their encounter with Jones, but police spokesman Jacinto Rivera said they are back at work in positions in which they do not have "citizen contact." Their return to regular duty depends on the outcome of a coroner's inquest that has yet to be scheduled, he said.

CRIMINAL RECORD

Jones spent most of his adult life in prison, starting with a sexual assault conviction in 1982 when he was 16. He had several other offenses since then, prison records indicate.

On Aug. 25, Henderson resident Eduardo Hernandez-Lopez, 21, died after he was shot with a Taser by the Nevada Highway Patrol.

According to the Nevada Department of Public Safety, troopers were alerted to an accident on U.S. Highway 95 involving an individual fighting others there.

When officers arrived, they had an altercation with Hernandez-Lopez, whom they described as an "irate individual." During the altercation the man was shot with a Taser, and troopers later noticed he was not breathing. The coroner's office listed his death as "cardiopulmonary arrest during varied restraining procedures" and a homicide. The inquest is pending.

A Taser delivers 50,000 volts of electricity, which incapacitates the body.

A 2008 study by Amnesty International concluded that Las Vegas led U.S. cities in deaths involving law enforcement use of Tasers. The study found that between June 2001 and August 2008, seven people died after Tasers were used on them.

Six of the deaths involved Las Vegas officers, who began using Tasers in 2004. ..Source.. by Antonio Planas

Police: We had to shoot

12-7-2010 Nebraska:

Omaha Police Chief Alex Hayes said Tuesday that a police officer and U.S. marshal had no choice but to shoot a man in the parking lot of a busy southwest Omaha strip mall.

The lawmen who fired at Joe M. Weible narrowly avoided being run over by Weible's vehicle, Hayes said.

“We don't get to pick the location where these (shootings) happen,” Hayes said. “When you're thrust into a situation where you have to use deadly force, it happens where it happens.”

Hayes said officers “try to minimize what the backdrop is when those shots are fired” and try to control where they point their weapons.

Hayes said Weible, 35, did not have a gun but did have knives in his possession. He said Weible accelerated and drove his pickup truck at a high rate of speed toward Officer Jeff Gassaway and the marshal.

Hayes said the threat was from the charging vehicle.

“It's a deadly weapon,” Hayes said of the pickup, a 1998 Chevy S-10. “It will kill you if you don't get out of the way or try to stop it.”

Four to five shots were fired. One struck Weible. Police have not said if the other bullets struck the pickup.

The shooting happened about 2 p.m. Monday at the strip mall near 120th Street and West Center Road. Weible died later at Creighton University Medical Center.

Hayes said it was not clear who fired the fatal shot.

Gassaway, 44, is a 13-year police veteran. In 2008, he shot an escapee from a state prison after he swerved his vehicle at Gassaway.

Gassaway was honored by the U.S. Attorney's Office for investigating street gangs and shared the 2004 CrimeStoppers Officer of the Year Award with another officer.

The U.S. Marshals Service refused to identify the marshal involved in the shooting.

Both Gassaway and the marshal are on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

The Metro Area Fugitive Task Force is led by U.S. marshals. It has 12 full-time members — six marshals, six Omaha police officers, one Douglas County sheriff's deputy and one Council Bluffs police officer. There are also nine part-time members.

The task force operates in both Iowa and Nebraska and works to take fugitives off the streets.
U.S. marshals also are responsible for protecting federal courts, transporting prisoners and other duties.

Hayes said the task force had been working with the woman who alleged she was assaulted by Weible. She called 911 on Nov. 29.

An arrest warrant was issued, charging Weible with first-degree sexual assault and attempted strangulation of his former girlfriend.

Weible called the ex-girlfriend, 26, on Monday and asked her to meet him at the shopping center.

That place was a familiar meeting spot for the couple, Hayes said.

The woman notified police of the phone call.

Task force members arrived before the meeting time. Weible already was there, sitting in his truck. Law officers, some of them in vehicles, surrounded him and ordered him out of the pickup.

Gassaway and a marshal approached on foot.

Weible started the truck, tried to back up but was blocked in by police vehicles.

He accelerated in the direction of Gassaway and the marshal, who were about 6 feet away, Hayes said.

Both fired their weapons as they got out of the way of the truck.

After he was shot, Weible's vehicle continued forward and crashed into two parked cars near the entrance to a Baker's Supermarket, Hayes said.

He was then Tasered, Hayes said.

The Police Department's policy on use of deadly force apparently covers situations such as the Weible shooting:

“Shot(s) will not be fired at or from a moving vehicle except as the ultimate measure of self-defense, or defense of another. Firing of weapons at a moving vehicle will only be done in extreme, close-range circumstances when all other means of stopping the vehicle containing a dangerous felon have been attempted and have failed.”

The Weible shooting was the fifth officer-involved shooting in Omaha this year that resulted in a death. Omaha hadn't had a police-involved fatal shooting since 2007.

The total number of police-involved shootings for 2010 is nine when accounting for people who were injured but not killed.

Hayes said the task force had tried to find Weible before Monday's shooting.

“We had to get him off the street before he tried to hurt this woman again,” he said.

Last week, members of the task force searched Weible's father's home in Cozad, Neb.

“They looked under the beds and everything, even the building out back,” Jack Weible, 81, said. “I asked them what the deal was but they wouldn't say. They didn't believe he wasn't here.”

Weible's father said his son had an off-and-on relationship with the woman he was accused of assaulting.

The couple met at Nebraska By-Products in Lexington, Neb., where Joe Weible drove a truck. They lived together in an apartment there.

The couple split up for several years, Jack Weible said, but had gotten back together in the last few months.

“I thought he was happy,” Jack Weible said. “They went to get her stuff about three or four months ago, and I thought they were getting along good.”

The ex-girlfriend declined to comment on Tuesday.

Joe Weible moved to Omaha about six months ago and worked for a lumber company, his father said. He graduated from Cozad High School and had previously lived in Kearney. ..Source.. by Jason Kuiper and Juan Perez Jr.

Murders of prison inmates in Sterling, Colorado, spur state review

This post covers death of David Guerrero-Estrada, no names for others mentioned.

January 2010 Colorado:

Department of Corrections officials will meet in Sterling today to try to understand why four inmates have been killed at the prison there in the past two years.

DOC executive director Tom Clements said he is meeting with Sterling Correctional Facility warden Kevin Milyard to be debriefed on each of the cases.

"We're looking at cell assignment protocols," Clements said. "We want to see if there are any common denominators. It's got my attention."

The focus is on Sterling because all other prisons in DOC have a total of just three murders in roughly the same time frame. .... ....

Three of the four inmates killed there in the past 21 months were behind bars for either sex offenses or crimes against children. ....

Sanguinetti said DOC regularly takes measures to protect threatened sex offenders or child abusers or killers, including segregating them from the general population. ...

In another case, Jaime Rodriguez, 29, has been charged with first-degree murder in the Jan. 13, 2010, beating death of David Guerrero-Estrada in his cell. Guerrero-Estrada was convicted in 2007 of attempted sexual assault of a child and sentenced to three years in prison.

Rodriguez has been found mentally incompetent and is being evaluated and treated at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. ..Source.. by Kirk Mitchell

Wanted Sex Offender Shot and Killed by Detectives

11-5-2010 California:

Nathaniel Henry has been sought by authorities since he removed his tracking device on Sept. 9.

SAN BERNARDINO ( KTLA) -- A registered sex offender who removed his tracking device has been shot and killed by detectives.

41-year-old Nathaniel William Henry of Lucerne Valley had been sought by authorities since he removed his tracking device on Sept. 9.

Authorities say they finally caught up with the parolee in the 7600 block of Camp Rock Road Thursday.

Henry is said to have threatened officials with a handgun before detectives from San Bernardino's Specialized Enforcement Division opened fire.

Medical personnel were called to the home but Henry was pronounced dead at the scene.

In 2003, court records show Henry was charged with 10 sex crimes including two counts of oral copulation of a person under the age of 16, two counts of sexual penetration with a foreign object of a person under the age of 16 and four counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child age 14 or 15.

It's unclear if there were multiple victims involved.

Henry eventually pleaded guilty to rape. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

Henry was also wanted for grand theft auto. ..Source.. by KTLA News

Police kill man wanted in shooting, sexual assault in South Jersey

7-22-2010 New Jersey:

A man wanted in a shooting and sexual assault in Collingswood early Wednesday was killed hours later after he pulled a gun on members of a fugitive task force, officials said.

Naquan Johnson, 21, of Williamstown, was tracked down to a unit of the Cherrywood Apartments in Gloucester Township after fleeing an apartment in Collingswood where he Tasered and sexually assaulted a woman and shot a man about 1 a.m., authorities said.

When members of the New York/New Jersey U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force tried to take him into custody about 6:30 p.m., he a “made a threatening gesture” with a handgun, prompting officers to open fire, said a statement issued by the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.

Johnson died from his wounds.

Earlier, police said, he sexually assaulted an 18-year-old woman during a gathering at an apartment on the 1000 block of Collings Avenue in Collingswood.

“He apparently made romantic overtures toward the woman, and when she rebuked him, he Tasered her and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint,” the statement said.

He then shot a 21-year-old Philadelphia man in the head during a subsequent dispute, police said.

The shooting victim was reported in critical condition at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton Wednesday night.

The New Jersey State Police and the New Jersey Attorney General's Shooting Response Team are investigating the shooting that left Johnson dead. ..Source.. by Inquirer Staff Report

Sex assault suspect killed by police

12-19-2010 California:

LONG BEACH, Calif., Dec. 19 (UPI) -- A California man suspected of sexually assaulting a minor family member was fatally shot Sunday by an officer who went to a home to question him, police said.

The Long Beach Police Department said in a statement officers were flagged down about 5 a.m. by a female who made the sex assault allegation.

Police said when the officers contacted the unnamed suspect, he produced a handgun and was shot by an officer, the Long Beach Post reported online. He was pronounced dead at the scene by city paramedics, the news Web site said.

No officers were hurt.

The minor who was allegedly assaulted was treated at a hospital.

City homicide detectives and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office were investigating the officer-involved shooting. ..Source.. by UPI

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UPDATE: Long Beach Police Officers Fatally Shoot Sexual Assault Suspect

12-20-2010 California:

UPDATE 9:34am Monday | Chief of Police Jim McDonnell issued a statement and took questions from the media Sunday afternoon after the early morning officer-involved shooting that killed a sexual assault suspect in Long Beach. He reiterated the story released by the department yesterday (which you can read below) and also added new details.

After last weekend's controversial shooting of Doug Zerby, in which it appears officers did not notify Zerby that they were present nor asked him to drop his weapon (it would turn out to be a water nozzle), McDonnell on Sunday made it very clear that officers confronted the suspect and announced themselves in both English and Spanish.

The suspect had fled to a nearby home and officers told him to exit in both languages. When he did not, they entered the home in an attempt to arrest him.

They found the suspect in a second-story bedroom and again told him to surrender in both English and Spanish. The suspect was sitting on a bed and rolled to the other side, where he grabbed a handgun and three officers opened fire, killing him. ..Source.. by Ryan ZumMallen

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Competing Claims And Motives In The Zerby Case

12-27-2010:

11:31am | I've never liked the adversarial system as it plays out in American jurisprudence.

Even if you're unfamiliar with the term 'adversarial system,' you know what it is: the prosecution and the defense each put on its best case, and a judge or jury decides the winner.

Especially in the context of criminal justice, where people are accused of the worst sorts of inhumane behavior, the term 'winner' is crass; nevertheless, it fittingly reflects the reality: within the parameters of what is legally allowable1, each side tries to win, period. Thus do you often hear variations on a theme: "If you're looking for truth in a court of law,

you're looking in the wrong place." The adversarial system is not about finding truth, it's about beating your adversary. It's about winning.

While I am completely on board with the state trying to prove its case and the accused getting a competent, vigorous defense against prosecution, I have always imagined it would be possible to have a system wherein both sides' first priority is to serve truth. That, it seems to me, would always make for the best chance to find "justice."

This oppositional frame shapes events far outside the courthouse walls. Historically we have found it alive and ill-but-thriving in police going to criminal lengths to justify their criminal behavior, and attorneys materially obfuscating fact and truth in the pursuit of victory.

I'm on this a priori tangent about the Zerby case because I've just been comparing the contrasting versions of the December 12 shooting of Doug Zerby offered to us by Long Beach Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell and by Brian E. Claypool, the attorney hired by Doug Zerby's family. And while I still count myself in that nearly all-inclusive group of people who are in no position to know what happened on December 12, what I do know is that already we are seeing both sides positioning themselves for combat, and it does not seem certain either is primarily driven by a search for truth.

Let us start by considering Claypool's version of events, which he animatedly offered on December 17, five days after the shooting. Piecing together everything he said, "Here's what really happened":

A very drunken Zerby did not wish to drive, and so he stumbled to his friend Doug's house and knocked on the door. Since Doug was not home, Zerby sat on the porch to wait, killing time by playing with a water nozzle he found there, apparently sometimes handling it as if it were a gun2. Police received a 911 call from an individual claiming he saw Zerby with a gun, though admitting that he didn't know much about guns3. "[A]t least five to six […] possibly more; could've been upwards of seven or so" officers arrived on the scene, and during a period of 10–15 minutes they took up positions around Zerby, one officer as close as 12 feet away behind a brick post that would have protected him from harm even if Zerby had a gun and opened fire. They observed Zerby with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. "We know they [i.e., the officers] […] didn't fear for their lives." Eventually one of the officers made a noise, and Zerby turned in that direction, though with his arms still down, and one officer began firing, which triggered at least two and maybe three others to do the same4, "blast[ing] 20 rounds" at Zerby, 10 to 12 of which hit him, some after he was slumping forward from being shot5. "It was target practice for the Long Beach Police Department […] a flat-out ambush." Zerby's body ended up leaning against a banister, which suggests Zerby never made an aggressive maneuver.

Needless to say, Version Claypool differs from the LBPD version of events, which, as outlined by Chief McDonnell at his December 13 press conference, goes like this:

At approximately 4:40 p.m. police were dispatched to the scene based on the 911 call, which involved two witnesses who believed Zerby was brandishing a gun identified as a "six-shooter." Officers arrived and "took positions where they could watch the suspect until more officers arrived,"6 from where they observed an apparently intoxicated Zerby brandishing what appeared to them to be a handgun. They did not establish contact with Zerby because they first wanted to set up "containment" in case Zerby tried to exit the scene; and because they first wanted "a helicopter […], K9 units, and […] our mental-evaluation team." Over the course of 10–15 minutes as they waited for these resources to arrive, the officers observed Zerby pointing the presumed gun at the apartment building, then continued to play with the object, "which made noises that were similar to that [of] a handgun." As soon as Zerby became aware of the officers' presence, he pointed the supposed gun at the officers, using a two-handed grip typical of an individual about to discharge a handgun, at which point two officers shot him, including with two shotgun rounds. The officers did not speak with Zerby before shooting him "due to the actions of Mr. Zerby […]." "The message is: you're responsible for your actions."7

There's plenty in both accounts to wonder about. In Version Claypool, it strains credulity8 to think three to four officers who didn't fear for their lives fired 20 times on someone sitting cross-legged with his hands in his lap, including at least some shots after he was leaning forward, incapacitated. In Version McDonnell, there are frighteningly obvious questions, such as why officers had to wait for dogs and a helicopter before saying, "Long Beach Police Department. Drop your weapon."

Then there's also the matter of the factual discrepancies. From the little I know about forensics and ballistics, the number of shooters and their distance from Zerby when they fired is absolutely determinable—which means either Claypool or McDonnell can (and eventually will) be shown to have, for whatever reason(s), put forward inaccurate information.

Lastly, we have both Claypool and McDonnell inserting themselves into the mix by offering conclusions. To begin with, aside from spinning the incident as an "ambush," Claypool's account includes information he cannot possibly know, such as assertions about the intentions of the officers involved and Zerby's state of mind. And so whatever else is the case regarding his various assertions of fact, Version Claypool is at least somewhat embellished, in that it is not confined to the facts involved.9

For his part, McDonnell's stated conclusion that Zerby's own actions caused the officers not to speak with Zerby and then to shoot him can be nothing but spin, an attempt to exonerate the officers' actions in the forum of public opinion in advance of the investigation being conducted to determine whether that conclusion is valid, or whether what is truer is that the officers killed a man due to a deadly ineptitude (isolated or systemic). I'm open to the possibility that the officers and the LBPD may be blameless, but I cannot see how on December 13 anybody—especially those of us who weren't there—was in a good enough position to have determined it to be so.

That a mere one day after an officer-involved shooting of an unarmed man the chief of that police department seems already to have determined the shooting to be justified might reasonably cause one to be concerned about whether any departmental investigation of the incident isn't compromised from the start.10

In a tragedy such as the death of Doug Zerby, there are inevitable questions, especially in the immediate aftermath. Unfortunately, Claypool and McDonnell, by focusing on more than simply finding and acting upon truth, have made the process more questionable than it needs to be. In going forward, we should urge both sides not to be focused primarily on coming out of their corners fighting. Because this is not a boxing match; this is not a debate. An unarmed man was killed, and we should have a common goal, a goal that none of our behaviors should compromise: to find out why it happened, and to take whatever steps we might to minimize the chance that such a calamity will again befall us.

Beyond that, there may be a time when we can definitely assign blame, and there may be appropriate actions to take in that regard. But that time was not within a week of the shooting. Those who would play the blame game in that time frame might fairly be said to be posturing, digging trenches and hunkering down for an upcoming battle. That is not about justice; it's just another way of burying one's—and others'—head(s) in the sand.

Let's not go there.

Footnotes
1And, on occasion, outside of those parameters.
2Claypool skips over the question of what Zerby was doing with it, but he doesn't dispute that Zerby must have been doing something with it that made it appear to at least one person—namely, the 911 caller—that it was a gun.
3While this is true, Claypool takes the statement out of context: the caller was committed to his belief that Zerby had a gun; his statement about knowing little about guns was made in relation to the 911 operator's asking what kind of gun it was, to which the caller stated his belief that Zerby was brandishing a "a little tiny six-shooter or something like that" and not a 9 mm or a .45 caliber handgun. "Do you actually see a gun?" the 911 operator asks. "Yes, I do," the caller replies immediately.
4Regarding two of the officers, Claypool says, "All they did was barge in the apartment […] go to the side deck, and start shooting a shotgun at Doug Zerby."
5"Doug had already been incapacitated, and these police officers continued to shoot."
6Later McDonnell indicates that they tried to take positions of cover, and implies they were "30 to 40 feet" away—well beyond the effective range of the tazers they possessed, he says.
7This may sound harsher than it was meant, as McDonnell never (otherwise) implies that Zerby "deserved" to be shot; but this was McDonnell's statement in response to a reporter's question about what message this shooting sends to members of the community.
8Unless we were talking about, for example, a racially-motivated killing—as once were common enough in this country and which, unfortunately, are not extinct—but no one is suggesting this kind of factor is in play.
9This includes one assertion by Claypool that already we know to be false: "There was no indication from that 911 call that Doug Zerby had committed a crime," he says, even though brandishing a handgun in public—which is what the caller stated Zerby was doing—is a crime in California. (See California Penal Code Section 417.) That it turned out Zerby was not committing a crime does not lessen the fact the 911 call was indeed an "indication that Doug Zerby had committed a crime."
10Something I like about American jurisprudence is built into it is the possibility of outside investigations.

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IN PRINT: Zerby Shooting

11-20-2011

One of two death-row 'suicides' may not be a suicide, official says

1-8-2010 Georgia:

Georgia's top Department of Corrections official has now acknowledged that one of two recent "suicides" on Georgia's death row may not have been a suicide.

And while Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens told his board Thursday the GBI is investigating the death, a GBI spokesman on Friday said that was not the case.

During the agency's board meeting, Owens was asked about the inmates' deaths. "One of them may not be a suicide," Owens told the board, according to a transcript of the meeting.

On Dec. 6, condemned killer Timothy Pruitt died at Augusta State Medical Prison after sustaining injuries on Nov. 19. On New Year's Day, guards found death-row inmate Leeland Mark Braley hanging in his cell. Both were housed on death row at the state Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

A number of family members of death-row inmates have said Pruitt's death was not a suicide and that he was likely killed by another death row inmate, Sara Totonchi, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said Friday.

At Thursday's meeting, board member Roger Garrison asked Owens if the GBI is investigating Pruitt's death. . "Yes, sir," Owens replied.

But on Friday, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said Corrections investigators only consulted with a GBI investigator about Pruitt's death. "As far as the GBI being actively involved in investigating either of these cases, we're not involved because we weren't asked," Bankhead said.

Corrections officials initially called Pruitt's death an "alleged suicide." Pruitt, 43, was sentenced to death for the 1992 rape and murder of Wendy Vincent, a 10-year-old Lumpkin County girl. Braley, 35, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the kidnapping and stabbing death of Kelli Hammond, an insurance agent from Zebulon.

Totonchi has said that death-row inmates may be preparing to wage a hunger strike because of recent get-tough measures imposed by Corrections officials. The prison recently eliminated all contact visits between inmates and their families and restricted prisoners to their cells all but one hour each day. ..Source.. Bill Rankin, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Was death row inmate murdered?

1-31-2010 Georgia:

Inquest to be held for Pruitt, whose Dec. 6 death was first reported as suicide

A coroner’s inquest will be held in the strangulation death of a Lumpkin County man on Georgia’s death row that some believe was a murder.

The Dec. 6 death of Timothy Pruitt was first reported as the result of an apparent suicide.

Pruitt, 43, spent 12 years at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison awaiting execution for the 1992 rape and murder of 10-year-old Wendy Nicole Vincent of Dahlonega. He died 17 days after he was found hanging by a bed sheet in his cell at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Butts County Coroner Ralph Wilson said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into the death of Pruitt and another death row inmate, Leeland Mark Braley, who was found hanging in his cell Jan. 1.

Wilson said witnesses will be supoenaed and juries seated to hear evidence about both deaths in separate inquests. He said he is waiting for the GBI and the Georgia Department of Corrections to wrap up their probes before scheduling the inquests.

Braley’s death is generally accepted as a suicide, but many within Georgia’s prisoner advocacy community believe Pruitt was murdered by another inmate, said Sara Totonchi, Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights and a member of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

“He was in the process of writing a letter to his fiance at the time of his death,” Totonchi said.

The Georgia Department of Corrections did not return several phone and e-mail messages seeking comment last week.

Kari Ohland, who said she visited Pruitt every weekend and was his fiance, said she spoke with Pruitt the day he was found hanged.

She said the letter that Pruitt was writing to her that day was later found and sent to her.

“There was no indication he was suicidal,” she said. “Not at all. He was saying how excited he was to see me that weekend. There’s no way he choked himself.”

Ohland said she was later told by another death row inmate, Michael Nance, that convicted quadruple killer Jerry William Jones was seen going into Pruitt’s cell shortly before he was found. Inmates’ cell doors were open and guards stayed inside observation booths during certain times of the day, she said.

Since the two deaths, death row has been on 23-hour a day lockdown, with no contact visits for inmates, Totonchi said.

Ohland said she refuses to believe Pruitt’s death was a suicide.

“There’s no way he would have done that to me,” she said. ..Source.. by Stephen Gurr

Convicted San Gabriel child molester killed in prison

1-9-2011 California:

ARCADIA - A registered sex offender convicted of assaulting a 5-year-old girl inside an Arcadia bookstore in 2008 and sent to prison in September was beaten to death in his cell, state corrections officials said Wednesday.

Jaime Elvis Elizondo, 35, of San Gabriel was killed Dec. 20. His High Desert State Prison cellmate, Steven Cisneros, 36, is the prime suspect, said Lt. Charlie Hahn, prison spokesman.

The Lassen County Sheriff-Coroner's Office said Elizondo died of blunt force trauma.

Elizondo was convicted in September of exposing himself to the young victim inside a Borders bookstore at the Westfield Shopping Mall in Arcadia in 2008. The assault was captured on the store's video system.

A witness confronted Elizondo and later found his photo on a Web site listing registered sex offenders and gave police the information.

The Megan's Law website lists Elizondo as having a conviction for lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14, but it does not list the date of that conviction.

At the time of Elizondo's arrest, Arcadia police praised the witness not only for confronting Elizondo and interfering with his abuse, but also for following up and reporting the crime to police.

Elizondo was sent to High Desert State Prison to begin serving a 30-year-to-life term for lewd acts on a child under 14 following his conviction in the Arcadia case.

Cisneros, 36, arrived at the prison in November to serve a 56-years-to-life sentence for murder, officials said.

The 5-foot, 4-inch, 200-pound killer was convicted in February 2010 of first-degree murder in the stabbing of his roommate, Lawrence Kaiser, 44, at a sober-living facility in Santa Barbara.

After Elizondo's beating death, Cisneros was placed in segregation while the homicide is investigated, Hahn said.

Both Elizondo and Cisneros arrived at the 4,600-inmate facility in Susanville on the same day - Nov. 30, prison officials said.

At his request, Elizondo was being housed the prison's "sensitive needs yard," a special ward for inmates "with victimization concerns, who feel their safety could be put in jeopardy" if mixed in with the general inmate population, Hahn said.

Cisneros also was being housed in the sensitive needs yard, Hahn said. ..Source.. by Hector Gonzalez, Staff Writer

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Sex offender killed in state prison

1-5-2011 California:

ARCADIA - A serial child molester convicted of assaulting a 5-year-old girl inside an Arcadia bookstore in 2008 and sent to prison in September for 30 years was beaten to death by his cellmate, prison officials said Wednesday.

Jaime Elizondo, 30, of San Gabriel was killed by cellmate Steven Cisneros, said Lt. Charlie Hahn, spokesman for the High Desert State Prison. Elizondo was convicted of exposing himself to the victim inside a Borders bookstore at an Arcadia mall in 2008. The assault was captured on the store's video system.

A witness confronted Elizondo and later found his photo on a Web site listing registered sex offenders and gave police the information. Here's our original post on the story with a photo of the molestation. ..Source.. by Frank Girardot

Robbery Suspect Shot Outside Denny's Restaurant in Pasadena

8-9-2010 Texas:

PASADENA, Texas - Police say a robbery suspect was shot and killed by officers after he threatened to shoot them outside a Denny's Restaurant in Pasadena.

The robbery and shooting took place at approximately 3 a.m. Monday in a shopping center on State Highway 225 (Pasadena Freeway) near South Richey Street.

An employee at the restaurant told police that the suspect demanded money from the night manager while pointing a gun at his head.

Witnesses told police that they had seen the suspect near a white Dodge Ram pickup truck before he entered the restaurant.

Police say that after the suspect stole the money from the Denny's Restaurant, he ran away on foot toward the rear section of the shopping center parking lot.

Two officers confronted the suspect behind the shopping center and they both shot him several times after the suspect pointed a handgun in their direction, according to statement released by the Pasadena Police Department.

The suspect was wounded several times in the torso area and died.

Police identified the 43-year-old suspect as a registered sex offender. Approximately $280 in cash was found near the suspect's body.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office, Medical Examiner's Office, Pasadena Police Department Internal Affairs and homicide detectives will conduct independent investigations into the shooting and the two officers will be placed on administrative leave with pay.

The Dodge Ram that witnesses saw the suspect driving in was stolen from a Shell fuel station in the Baytown area on Sunday night. ..Source.. by ALEXANDER SUPGUL

Long Beach man suspected of sexual assault killed by police

12-19-2010 California:

The man who was shot and killed Sunday by Long Beach police was suspected of sexually assaulting a family member, police said Sunday.

Police said officers were flagged down about 5 a.m. by a woman in the 2100 block of Pine Avenue, regarding the sexual assault of a female minor by a suspect who is a family member. He was identified only as a 41-year-old male Long Beach resident.

After interviewing the alleged victim, officers decided a crime had been committed and went to the suspect’s residence, said Long Beach Sgt. Dina Zapalski. The suspect allegedly produced a handgun and officers fired. The man was pronounced dead at the scene by Long Beach Fire Department paramedics.

A handgun was found at the scene. No officers were injured, Zapalski said.

The girl was taken to a hospital and received treatment. No other information on her condition was available.

Long Beach homicide detectives and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office are investigating the shooting. ..Source.. by Carla Rivera

Blue Ridge man shot by police had registered sex offender status

12-31-2010 Texas:

The man who died in a shootout with sheriff's deputies on Tuesday had a residency status as a registered sex offender.

Collin County Sheriff's Office officials confirmed the identity of 34-year-old David Thomas Christoffel as the man who was shot and killed by sheriff's deputies following a nine-hour standoff at his home north of Blue Ridge.

Collin County dispatchers received a call from the home at 12:36 a.m. Tuesday from someone who identified herself as Christoffel's "ex." She told dispatchers the subject was threatening to have a shoot out with sheriff's deputies and "to watch the news because he is going to watching her from heaven and to give his love to the kids."

Deputies responded to the home and reported several shots fired from an assault rifle, which they later identified as an AK-47 with approximately 150 rounds of ammunition. They were unable to locate the suspect and asked for additional support for a tactical team and a police negotiator, according to Collin County dispatch reports.

Christoffel asked to speak a captain with the sheriff's office and ask to call his ex-wife and let him know that deputies had arrived at the house. He also told the negotiator "he has cameras around his house and will shoot deputies if they get out of their car."

Deputies also learned a 3-year-old and 11-year-old were in the home "scared and hiding under the bed," according to dispatch reports.

Negotiations continued between Christoffel and sheriff's deputies during which he held himself hostage and threatened to open fire on the responding officers. Deputies eventually made contact with the suspect's mother who said he had psychological problems and that "he is in fear of his life because of being (a) registered sex offender."

The county's "Offender Watch" database confirmed Christoffel's status. Christoffel was convicted in 1995 of a second-degree felony charge of indecency with a child. The address of the shootout is listed as his official residence in the database. His case file could not be obtained from the Collin County Courthouse because of a software upgrade.

Sheriff's deputies also learned that his ex-wife worked as a dispatcher in Hunt County for the local sheriff's office. Chrisoffel tried to contact the Hunt County sheriff several times but never spoke with him directly.

"Apparently this is all over his ex-wife that is a Hunt County dispatcher," the dispatch report read.

Christoffel gave deputies an indication that he would surrender himself to authorities at 9:22 a.m., but an exchange of gunfire between Christoffel and deputies ended with a call to the Medical Examiner's Office. A representative declared Christoffel dead at the scene. None of the deputies involved in the incident were injured as a result of the exchange of gunfire.

Lt. John Norton of the Collin County Sheriff's Office said the Texas Rangers are still investigating the incident.

Attempts were made to reach the suspect's family members, but they could not be located by presstime. ..Source.. by Danny Gallagher

Ex-locals charged in slayings of Augusta pair

Posted in Related Deaths

12-16-2010 California:

Two former central Maine men jailed on drug charges in California now are facing charges of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of an Augusta couple who reportedly moved there to help with a marijuana operation.

Robby Alan Beasley, 30, formerly of Augusta, and Elijah Bae McKay, 28, a former state champion wrestler from Gardiner Area High School, are charged with murdering Frank Maddox, 32, and his wife, Yvette Colon Maddox, 40, according to information from Capt. James Bauman of California's Lake County Sheriff's Department.

A conviction on first-degree murder in California carries a sentence of 25 years to life.

The partially decomposed bodies of the Maddoxes were found March 4 at the bottom of an embankment in a rural area of northern California. The medical examiner ruled the deaths homicides, saying that the two suffered gunshots wounds before dying.

The couple had been staying in Clearlake, Calif., for several months.

One of Yvette Maddox's Maine relatives reported her missing on Jan. 28, and Frank Maddox was reported missing on Feb. 11.

Early in the investigation, Bauman said detectives learned that Beasley had hired the two and brought them to Lake County to work in a marijuana operation.

Beasley, who had moved to Clearlake, Calif., and lists his occupation as a painter, was arraigned on the murder charges Wednesday morning in Lake County; and McKay is to be arraigned today.

Beasley is scheduled to appear in court again Dec. 20.

Bauman indicated additional arrests are anticipated and that police are continuing the nine-month investigation.

Beasley was arrested March 6 in California on a Maine warrant charging him with violating probation by leaving the state without permission. He had been convicted of criminal threatening and felony assault in Kennebec County in June 2007 and remained on probation for those offenses.

He was questioned in connection with the Maddoxes' deaths, according to Bauman, and later charged with marijuana cultivation.

Kennebec County District Attorney Evert Fowle later said that a second warrant was issued from Kennebec County, charging Beasley with violating probation by committing new criminal conduct.

A statement from Bauman on Wednesday says McKay became a person of interest about a week into the Maddox murder investigation.

McKay was arrested March 11 in Lake County, Calif., on marijuana cultivation, possession for sales and weapons charges and released the same day on $10,000 bail. He allegedly fled to Georgia and was brought back to the Lake County, Calif., jail where his bail was increased to $2 million.

The Lake County jail records show McKay was born in Santa Rosa, Calif., but he graduated from Gardiner Area High School in 2001.

In his senior year there, his 116 wins were the most ever by a Gardiner Area High School wrestler, and he was named wrestler of the year by Kennebec Journal sports writers.

In Bauman's statement about the murder charges, he gave no indication whether authorities had located Frank Maddox's 1982 pickup truck. They said earlier the vehicle was important to the investigation and had published two photographs of the truck taken by a local code enforcement officer on Feb. 2, when it was reported as an abandoned vehicle. The rusted, beige truck was to be towed, but it disappeared before the wrecker arrived.

The Maddoxes and Beasley have criminal records in central Maine dating back several years.

Published records show members of the Maine State Police tactical team arrested Beasley at his Pittston home in December 2002 after he allegedly fired several shots out of his home and at a guest's vehicle. A 17-year-old girl was injured in the incident.

He also was arrested in October 2005 after a standoff with police in Augusta.

Beasley was indicted in January 2007 on charges of threatening a woman with an AK-47 assault rifle in Vassalboro. He pleaded guilty to criminal threatening and assault and was sentenced to five years in prison with all but 10 months suspended and two years' probation.

Beasley also was accused of trafficking in marijuana in 1999 in Gardiner.

Frank Maddox has convictions for unlawful sexual contact in 2001, possession of scheduled drugs and failing to comply with notification requirements of the Maine Sex Offender Registry, according to Kennebec County District Attorney Evert Fowle. Maddox and Beasley were both sent to the Maine Correctional Center in Windham in 2007, and Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty indicated the men were in the prison at the same time.

Yvette Maddox served time in Kennebec County jail after pleading guilty to unlawful drug possession, Fowle said. She was sentenced in September 2005 to three years in jail, with all but 90 days suspended and two years' probation.

Published records show only one criminal conviction for McKay, for operating under the influence May 21, 2004, in Gardiner. McKay was fined $400 for the offense. ..Source.. by Betty Adams

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No death penalty for former Mainers

4-28-2011:

CLEARLAKE, Calif. -- A district attorney will not seek the death penalty against two former Mainers charged with killing a couple who moved from Augusta to California to work in a marijuana operation.

Lake County Deputy District Attorney Art Grothe confirmed that the death penalty will not be sought in the prosecutions of Robby Alan Beasley, 30, formerly of Augusta; and Elijah Bae McKay, 28, formerly of Gardiner.

They are charged with the January 2010 slayings of Frank and Yvette Maddox, formerly of Augusta. Beasley is alleged to have shot them both at the side of a remote county road because he suspected the couple was stealing marijuana from him.

Beasley and McKay are facing separate trials. Each faces two counts of murder and special allegations of committing multiple murders in the first or second degree, committing the offenses with the intent to inflict great bodily injury on the victims and using a 9 millimeter firearm. Beasley also is charged with having a previous felony conviction in Maine for criminal threatening with a firearm.

Grothe said that, instead of the death penalty, he will seek life without the possibility of parole for both men.

Beasley and McKay appeared separately in brief hearings Tuesday in Judge Stephen Hedstrom's Lake County courtroom.

Beasley appeared for a trial readiness conference, as his trial had been scheduled to start next month. However, his attorney, Stephen Carter, entered a motion that morning to continue the hearing to later this year. Grothe did not oppose the request.

Hedstrom approved the motion, ordering Beasley to appear in Lakeport on Aug. 22 for a trial-readiness and settlement conference.

The judge also rescheduled Beasley's trial, which now is set to start Oct. 3.

McKay appeared for entry of plea and the setting of his preliminary hearing. However, his case, too, was continued.

Attorney Justin Petersen appeared on behalf of McKay's attorney, Richard Petersen of Ukiah, who is reportedly suffering from health problems that will prevent him from continuing with the case.

Hedstrom continued McKay's hearing to May 24, at which time there also will be a possible substitution of McKay's counsel. ..Source.. by ELIZABETH LARSON

2 Lubbock teens charged with murdering sex offender

Missing in news reports is, if the plan was to rob Brinson, what additional occurred to raise that to murder, assuming murder was not originally planned?

12-22-2010 Texas:

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - Two teens, including a juvenile, have been arrested on murder charges in the shooting death in Lubbock of a registered sexual offender.

Police say 52-year-old Brian James Brinson of Wilson was found dead in his car in downtown Lubbock before dawn Sunday. He had been shot at least once in the torso.

Police officials say 18-year-old Devante Lamar Jones and a 16-year-old boy were taken into custody Monday. Online jail records listed neither bond settings nor attorneys for the two.

Brinson's sexual offender registration shows that he had been convicted in Oregon in 2002 of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy. ..Source.. by ConnectAmirillo.com

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Murder suspect: Plan was to rob Brinson because "he had touched me"

12-21-2010 Texas:

A 16-year-old murder suspect said he decided to beat up and rob Brian Brinson because the 52-year-old man touched him in November, according to court documents released Tuesday.

Zeven Devon Sanders, 16, admitted to being involved in the murder victim’s robbery late Saturday night, but claimed somebody named “Black” fatally shot Brinson, who was a registered sex offender, court documents revealed.

Lubbock Police arrested Sanders and Devante Lamar Jones, 18, late Monday afternoon on murder charges, but no other warrants had been issued.

Police on Tuesday couldn’t confirm if a third person named “Black” might have been involved, but Police Capt. Greg Stevens said they were checking into the claims. However, witnesses only reported seeing two people inside the victim’s car the night of the murder.

Sanders, who turns 17 on Sunday, wrote in his statement to police: “The plan was to beat up Bryan because the way he had touched me before. Devante and I decided since we were going to beat him we might as well take his money. I figured Bryan would have money on him and I needed sixty dollars to try and get back to Fort Worth so I could see my mom. I assumed because Bryan was a white guy he would have money. Devante and I did not want to kill anyone.”

Sanders said he was walking home from Monterey High School in November when a man approached him. He said the man, who he later learned was Brinson, asked him directions to a BBQ place, according to court documents. The teen told him about a place on the east side of town.

“I was tired so I sat in the guy’s car... I was talking with the guy and while we were talking he grabbed my leg, between my knee and thigh. This guy and I finished talking and then he touched my chest. I felt uncomfortable and told the guy my grandma was calling me,” according to his statement to police.

Brinson sent him numerous text messages over the next several weeks, asking him to meet up, Sanders told police.

It was unclear on Tuesday whether police had confirmed Sanders’ story about the text messages or about Brinson allegedly touching him in November. Stevens said they couldn’t comment on that since it was still an ongoing investigation.

But Brinson did have a history of sexually assaulting children.

He was convicted in 2002 in Oregon for the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy, according to Oregon prison officials. Brinson also was convicted of manslaughter in 1989 in Oregon in connection with the beating death of an 8-year-old girl on the Ecclesia Athletic Association’s farm in Clackamas County. The Ecclesia Athletic Association has been described by some as a cult.

After multiple requests to meet up, Sanders said he finally agreed to meet Brinson the night of the murder with the intention of beating him up and robbing him, according to police reports. He told Brinson to meet him at 24th Street and Avenue L.

“Black” showed up at Sanders’ house just before Sanders and Jones planned to leave to meet Brinson and insisted on being involved, Sanders told police. “Black” brought along a gun.

While Sanders claimed he, Jones and “Black” were inside Brinson’s car, at least two witnesses said they only saw two people near and inside the car that night.

A neighbor called police at about 11:15 p.m. Saturday to report “shots fired.” The neighbor also reported the Mercedes at the corner of 24th Street and Avenue K. The caller said the vehicle’s lights were on and the doors open.

A patrol officer found Brinson slumped over in the Mercedes in the 1300 block of 24th Street at about 12:15 a.m. after another call from a different neighbor reporting the vehicle. The caller “knew it didn’t belong” and was scared, according to court documents.

The car was sitting in front of the duplex where Sanders lived with his grandmother and 10-year-old brother.

In his statement to police, Sanders said he, Jones and “Black” initially ran from the car after the gunshot, but then went back. “Black” drove the car and parked it in front of Sanders’ residence.

While Sanders claimed that “Black” brought the gun, at least one person told police that Jones had the gun Saturday night that he always carries with him, according to court documents.

The neighbor also overheard a conversation between the two teens on Saturday night less than an hour before the murder was believed to have taken place.

Sanders and Jones were talking about meeting up with a guy. At one point, Jones said to Sanders: “The guys going to take your booty.” Sanders replied: “Hell no.”

That statement was taken at 6:15 p.m. Sunday, according to court records.

Officers arrested both Sanders and Jones on Monday after they served a search warrant on Sanders’ residence in the morning. Police recovered an orange sweatshirt and pair of jeans which appeared to have blood stains, according to court documents. Sanders reportedly was wearing an orange sweatshirt the night of the murder, according to several witness statements.

Sanders was being held at the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center on Tuesday.

Jones, who was last arrested in August on a marijuana possession charge, was booked into the Lubbock County Jail.

The bond attached to Jones’ arrest warrant was $500,000. Bond information was not available for Sanders since he’s a juvenile.

Police didn’t know if either teen had retained an attorney. Public documents didn’t indicate attorney information for either suspect. ..Source.. by Robin Pyle

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Lubbock murder victim had ties to Oregon cult-like group; convicted in child's death in 1989

12-20-2010 Texas:

Lubbock Police on Monday didn’t know if a murder victim’s connections with a cult-like group in Oregon or his criminal past that included the beating death of a young girl had anything to do with his shooting death over the weekend in a Central Lubbock neighborhood.

Local officials a day after the apparent homicide had few leads in the death of Brian James Brinson, 52, who was a registered sex offender in Midland for a 2002 conviction in Oregon for the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy, according to the Texas Sex Offender Registry.

Brinson also spent 12 years in an Oregon prison after he was convicted in 1989 on manslaughter charges for the beating death of an 8-year-old girl on the Ecclesia Athletic Association’s farm in Clackamas County, Oreg., according to the Sheriff’s Office and Oregon news reports.

A patrol officer found Brinson’s body at about 12:15 a.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of 24th Place after a call reporting “shots fired.” He was found dead of a gunshot wound in his Mercedes sedan.

Police didn’t know what he was doing there or why he was in Lubbock.

Brinson was reportedly involved with the Ecclesia Athletic Association in the 1980s. The group was called a religious-based cult at the time. The association was connected with the severe beatings of more than 50 children on the farm, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

The children on the farm were taken into state custody after the death of Dayna Lorae Broussard, the 8-year-old daughter of Ecclesia founder Eldridge Broussard.

Brinson was one of four convicted in the child's death.

Young Dayna was taken to a fire station on Oct. 13, 1988, but paramedics were unable to revive her, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities later learned she had been beaten hundreds of times with a hose, a pipe and an electrical cord while other children watched. The child reportedly was beaten because she stole food after the group withheld food as punishment.

A total of 53 children, some with scars on their backs, were removed from the group’s Sandy farmhouse by the state Children’s Services Division.

Broussard formed the Ecclesia Athletic Association in 1982 to “shape group members through intense training and strict discipline so they could resist the temptations of crime and drugs in Watts,” according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

In 1990, a federal grand jury in Portland began investigating other Ecclesia leaders for possible civil rights violations. Officials arrested Eldridge Broussard and three of his followers in early 1991 on charges of holding Ecclesia children in slavery and conspiring to deny them their civil rights.

Broussard never made it to trial because he died in September, 1991 of complications related to his diabetes.

Brinson served prison time between June 1989 and April 2001 on the manslaughter charge, said Jeanine Hohn, Oregon State Corrections spokeswoman. He then was convicted in 2002 on the sexual abuse charge. State records show Brinson was released from the Oregon prison system on June 11, 2004.

Brinson registered in Midland as a sex offender in July 2009. He submitted a change of address notification in June, when he relocated to Wilson, according to Texas records.

Police ask anyone with information about Brinson’s death to call them at 775-2410 or 775-2745. Residents also may call Crime at 741-1000 and remain anonymous. ..Source.. by LubbdockOnline

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Cult member convicted in brutal child beatings at Sandy farm shot to death in Texas

A former Clackamas County cult member and sex offender was found shot to death Sunday in Lubbock, Texas.

Two teenage boys, one a juvenile, were arrested on murder charges in the shooting death of 52-year-old Brian James Brinson of Wilson, Texas. Brinson was found dead in his Mercedes, shot at least once in the torso.

A former member of the Ecclesia Athletic Association based in a Sandy farmhouse, Brinson was convicted along with three others in Oregon in 1989 in the beating death of 8-year-old Dayna Lorae Broussard, daughter of the cult's founder.

Police found 53 other children in the farmhouse had been systematically beaten, starved and forced to watch the girl being flogged to death with hoses.

The brutal case made national news in the New York Times, as well as Time Magazine.

After spending 12 years in prison on the manslaughter conviction, Brinson was convicted in 2002 of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in a department store dressing room.

Lubbock police say 18-year-old Devante Lamar Jones and a 16-year-old boy were taken into custody Monday. ..Source.. by Kimberly A.C. Wilson, The Oregonian

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Last defendant pleads guilty to killing sex offender in Lubbock

1-17-2013:



Zeven Devon Sanders, the last of three defendants in the December 2010 murder of a sex offender from Oregon, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to one count of robbery.

Sanders entered his plea before District Judge Brad Underwood.

He had originally been charged with capital murder because the killing took place during the commission of another felony. He would not have faced the death penalty, however because he was 16 years old when the crime was committed.

Sanders, now 19, initially intended to lure Brian Brinson to a location so he and a friend, Devante Lamar Jones, could beat him, apparently because Brinson had touched him inappropriately when he gave Sanders a ride in his car near Monterey High School.

As the plan developed, they decided to also rob Brinson because Sanders wanted money to visit his mother in Fort Worth.

Sanders wrote in his confession: “The plan was to beat up Bryan because the way he had touched me before. Devante and I decided since we were going to beat him we might as well take his money. I figured Bryan would have money on him and I needed sixty dollars to try and get back to Fort Worth so I could see my mom. I assumed because Bryan was a white guy he would have money. Devante and I did not want to kill anyone.”

Sanders told police he was walking home from Monterey High School about a month before the murder when Brinson asked him for directions to a barbeque restaurant. Sanders said he got into Brinson’s car. While they talked, he said, Brinson grabbed Sanders’ thigh and touched him on the chest.

In the written confession following his arrest, Sanders told police that Brinson frequently sent him text messages asking for a meeting.

The two planned to only beat and rob Brinson. But on the day they planned to ambush Brinson, a man initially identified to police by the nickname “Black” showed up and insisted on going along.

“Black,” who was later identified as Arenn Lamar Davis, brought a gun and shot Brinson in the torso, according to Sanders’ confession.

Police found Brinson slumped over the steering wheel of his Mercedes-Benz, which was parked in front of the duplex where Sanders lived.

Brinson, 52, had been convicted in Oregon of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy and of manslaughter in connection with the beating death of an 8-year-old girl. He served prison sentences for both crimes. ..Source.. by WALT NETT

Police Make Arrest In March Slaying

This man was killed because his status a a FSO was revealed to the Landlord by the police doing a address check. i.e. Killed by Law case

12-17-2010 Nevada:

David Morrison, 30, Was Convicted Sex Offender

LAS VEGAS -- Las Vegas Metro police arrested a man on Tuesday in connection with the slaying of David Morrison, 30, in March.

Police arrested George "Goofy" Casanova and booked him for murder, robbery, burglary and conspiracy to commit robbery.

Police said Morrison was found dead in an upstairs bedroom at 6121 Edgewood Circle on March 22.

Morrison had lived there since the beginning of the month with several roommates.

Police said the day before Morrison was killed, a detective with Metro's sex offender unit had stopped by the house to speak with Morrison, a registered sex offender. The detective told police that no one was home when he visited, so he left a card at the door.

When Donald Clewell, one of the roommates, returned home and found the card, he gave the card to Jose "Rascal" Calderon, police said.

Pascal, in turn, gave the card to James "Chip" Fragala, who is employed by the owner of the house to collect rent, police said.

Clewell told police that Fragala disliked that Morrison was a sex offender because he has a teenage daughter. He said he overheard a conversation between Fragala and Calderon that talked about Morrison and "taking him out," police said.

A few days after Morrison's death, Fragala overheard Casanova speaking on the phone about fighting with a "chomo," prison slang for a child molester.

Fragala's girlfriend, Andrea Raney, said she had dropped Casanova outside of Morrison's home the day after his death, and when he returned, he was "as white as a ghost," police said.

Casanova, who failed a polygraph test, said someone else had hit Morrison on the head several times and he had returned to the house as Morrison lay dying to steal his wallet and cell phone, police said. ..Source.. FOX5 News

Man Shot By Police Wielded Fake Gun

If this man was well known to the police, was it also well known he was a registered sex offender?

12-17-2010 Oregon:

UPDATE 4:57 PM — Court records show that Ferguson was a registered sex offender, having been convicted of rape in 1988. The files say he was routinely taking meds for depression and anxiety, including medical marijuana, and had received counseling for alcoholism. Recently, he had been put on probation because he failed to register as a sex offender. That would make Ferguson that fourth person with mental illness to be fatally shot in a Portland police officer-involved-shooting this year.

Records from when Ferguson failed to register in 2007 paint a troubled picture. He was listed as unemployed and a transient, with his address at the seedy Unicorn Hotel on 82nd Avenue. On a page about warning signs, the officer checked "yes" to option reading, "Defendant has no regular, verifiable contact with family or significant others in local community."

KGW has an old booking photo of Ferguson, and his live-in partner, Marsha Lawson (who is listed in court documents both as Ferguson's girlfriend and caregiver), posted this photo of him and a cat on her Myspace.

Original post 4:20 pm:
The man shot and killed by police last night at an East Portland apartment complex aimed a fake gun at police, the cops now report. A photo of a toy gun the police say is a "very accurate depiction" of the gun used in the incident is below the cut.

Officers arrived at the Ventura Park apartments at 3:47 last night, responding to a call from an apartment resident who said a man was threatening them with a 9mm handgun. Officers went to the apartment to contact the suspect, who then aimed the fake handgun at them. The officers quickly fired shots, killing the man who is now known to be 45-year-old Darryel Dwayne Ferguson.

A toddler, two women, and another adult male were in the apartment. One neighbor says he counted 16 shell casings in the hallway.

The door frame has been taken off the apartment, Room 201. Leaning against the building wall, bullet holes were clearly visible in it. Neighbors report that Ferguson would quarrel with other complex residents and that he once showed his neighbor a sawed-off shotgun he said he owned. Neighbors also say he would tell them that he was dying of either cancer or AIDS and that he seemed to have some mental health issues. But he was at turns also very generous—his next door neighbors say he once stopped by and gave them a typewriter for free. ..Source.. by Sarah Mirk

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Fake Gun, Real Death

12-23-2010 Oregon:

Police Kill Man Holding BB Gun

THE FOURTH FATAL police shooting this year of a Portlander battling mental health issues came in the early hours of Friday, December 17, when 45-year-old Darryel Dwayne Ferguson allegedly brandished a fake gun at officers responding to a 911 call in his apartment complex.

Court records reveal Ferguson, a registered sex offender, had been suffering from depression and anxiety, at times taking medicine for his illnesses, and that he was a medical marijuana patient who had also battled substance abuse. Neighbors tell the Mercury he had cancer and was HIV positive—conditions his sister confirmed to the Oregonian.

His death continues a troubling trend this year for a police bureau that sees a large portion of its calls each day involving someone dealing with, in some fashion, mental illness.

"We as a community have decided that [providing adequate treatment] would be an imprudent financial decision on our part," says Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland. "As a result, the police get to do the dirty work. It doesn't matter whether they're equipped. We have dumped the responsibility on them."

According to police accounts, the fatal incident began about 3 am, when a resident of the Ventura Park Plaza apartments at East Burnside and 122nd reported being harassed by a drunken man. Police spoke with a man in the building but left after deciding tensions had eased. Soon after, the same resident called again, saying the same man had a 9mm gun and had threatened to shoot him. Officers then knocked on Ferguson's door. He opened it, allegedly while holding a gun, and within seconds was fatally wounded by the officers. The weapon was later found to be a BB gun.

Officers evacuated a toddler and three adults from the apartment. Surrounding neighbors, also evacuated, waited for hours on a TriMet bus as shelter from the cold night.

The police bureau did not release the exact number of wounds Ferguson suffered, but according to autopsy results, Ferguson "died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen." One neighbor told the Mercury he heard police say afterward that 20 shots were fired.

The two officers in the shooting, Jonathan Kizzar and Kelly Jenson, are on administrative leave. Ferguson's sister told the Oregonian her brother may not have realized it was police knocking when he opened the door holding the BB gun. Police are releasing no more details pending a grand jury investigation.

By Friday afternoon, the bullet-riddled door frame of Ferguson's unit had been removed and was briefly propped up in the hallway.

Neighbors described Ferguson as both quarrelsome and generous. His next-door neighbors say he picked fights with other residents, but also once stopped by just to give them a typewriter and a computer table.

Ferguson's court file shows a troubled history: He was required to register as a sex offender and undergo treatment for substance abuse after a felony rape conviction in 1988. He was charged with assault and harassment in 2003, though the charges were dropped. He was put on probation two years ago for failing to register as a sex offender. He had been living in the Ventura Park complex with his girlfriend for at least a year, neighbors say, but records in 2008 state he had no solid address and had "no regular, verifiable contact with family or significant others in local community." A 2007 record listed Ferguson's address as the Unicorn Hotel. He has been unemployed, living on disability checks and food stamps.

Overall, there were five officer-involved shootings this year (four of them fatal)—the most since 2006—reversing a recent trend in which shootings had plunged in comparison to the rest of the past 18 years. Officials have attributed that drop to things like giving cops Tasers, improved crisis training, and stronger civilian oversight. But Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch says that's "all been thrown out the window at this point."

Coincidentally the shooting came the same day the Portland Police Association (PPA) submitted a letter to the city asking that the two sides jointly declare an impasse and move the contract bargaining to mediation. The city has agreed, for now, that could mean key issues—like drug testing and civilian oversight—will be hashed out behind closed doors.

At a news conference Monday, December 20, members of the Fire Frashour campaign, a group of activists who had loudly demanded the firing of the officer who shot and killed Aaron Campbell in January, linked the union's decision with the most recent shooting.

"Despite the recent shooting, the city is still closing the police association negotiations to the public," Kathryn Cates said on the steps of the Justice Center. "By agreeing to remove the negotiations from public scrutiny, the city negotiators are colluding with the PPA to preserve the cops' impunity." ..Source.. by Denis C. Theriault and Sarah Mirk