Way to go!

Path: ...!news1.erols.com!hunter.premier.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.sgi.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.internetmci.com!info.ucla.edu!nnrp.info.ucla.edu!oak!zeleny From: zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny) Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.guns,ca.politics,la.news,misc.legal Subject: Man Facing Death Sentence For Killing Trespassing Cop Date: 20 Sep 1996 17:46:21 GMT Organization: ptyx Lines: 62 Message-ID: <51ul9d$21e4@uni.library.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: oak.math.ucla.edu

Do you wonder what happens to civilians unwilling to lie down for police abuse of power? Daniel Allan Tuffree, 49, a former high school teacher, the testimony in whose trial ended yesterday, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Officer Michael Clark 13 months ago, after three warrantless police officers traipsed on his front lawn with their guns drawn -- to check on his welfare. The case, which is presided over by the notoriously prosecution-friendly Judge Allan L. Steele in the Simi Valley courthouse that hosted the acquittal of Rodney King's uniformed assailants in their first trial, will go to the jury in early October after jury instructions are drawn and lawyers make their closing arguments. Tuffree faces a possible death sentence.

Clark was one of three police officers sent to Tuffree's home on August 4, 1995, after reports that the former Chatsworth High School teacher had been drinking alcohol, taking Valium and was possibly suicidal. A gunfight began shortly after police walked into Tuffree's backyard and started asking him questions, refusing his order to leave his property. Defense attorneys have argued that Clark fired on Tuffree first and that police acted improperly. They called expert witnesses who testified that police should have walked away once they realized that Tuffree was not hurt or suicidal.

Lou Reiter, a retired Los Angeles Police Department commander, testified that Simi Valley police officers made one mistake after another when they came to Tuffree's home. According to Reiter's testimony, the three police officers were working with third-hand information when they arrived at the scene. Before taking action, they did not devise a plan in case a confrontation occurred with Tuffree, who was a known gun owner. And they did not announce themselves before walking into Tuffree's backyard with their guns drawn, all actions that could have aggravated a distraught man who reportedly had been drinking alcohol, taking Valium and who had stopped answering his phone. "No one had anticipated or made an evaluation of what would happen if things didn't go right," said Reiter, a private consultant on police procedure who was an LAPD officer for 20 years. He also told the jury that he believed Simi Valley Police Sergeant Anthony Anzilotti to have been negligible in his role as the supervising officer on scene that day, testifying that "in [his] opinion [Anzilotti] didn't supervise at all." And he said Clark erred by not walking away from Tuffree's kitchen window once he realized the former schoolteacher was conscious and not injured: "The emergency is over; therefore, the right to be in his backyard is over."

Reiter denied the claims of two other police experts called by the prosecution, both of whom testified that Simi Valley police officers sent to Tuffree's house last summer had a "moral, ethical, and legal" obligation to follow through with the request to check on Tuffree's welfare, having no choice but to get close enough to make direct contact with Tuffree in order to ensure that he was safe. But Reiter, who retired from the LAPD in 1981, said that "officers always have a choice," explaining that there are situations in which police can walk away once they have determined that a person is safe. "There are a lot of people in their homes that are not confronting a medical emergency who just want to be left alone," he said.

See http://www.latimes.com/HOME/COMMUN/NEWS/ZONE26B for more information.

Cordially, - Mikhail | God: "Sum id quod sum." Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum." Zeleny@math.ucla.edu | Popeye: "Sum id quod sum et id totum est quod sum." itinerant philosopher -- will think for food ** www.ptyx.com ** MZ@ptyx.com ptyx ** 6869 Pacific View Drive, LA, CA 90068 ** 213-876-8234/874-4745 (fax)