Posted on 06/21/2005 12:22:53 PM PDT by familyop
SEATTLE -- A man carrying an unusable hand grenade and a sheaf of papers including a "living will" was fatally shot by police Monday in the lobby of the downtown federal courthouse, authorities said.
The Seattle man, born in 1952, had often expressed "a disdain for the federal government as well as some of its policies," U.S. Marshal Eric Robertson said, and often frequented the courthouse as well as the federal office building.
Police could not tell that the grenade was inert as the man held it in his hand, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said.
Several news organizations identified the man late Monday night as Perry Manley. KING-TV, which aired an interview with the man's ex-wife, described him as an outspoken critic of the court system who had e-mailed the television station recently, protesting the child support system and alleging that millions of noncustodial parents were being impoverished by the government.
Ex-wife Susan Calhoun said Manley grew bitter and quit a high-paying job when, after their 1990 divorce, a court ordered him to make child support payments for their three children. The children are now grown and those payments were no longer required, the television station reported.
"It was really about the money," she told KING. " 'Don't tell me what to do with my money.' "
The station also reported the man was under investigation by the FBI for threats against U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly, who had denied the man's requests to bring a state case to the federal level.
Pending a King County medical examiner's report, FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs said Monday night, "We wouldn't be able to say anything about his identity or background or history."
The medical examiner's office said it would not identify the man until Tuesday.
The investigation led police and federal agents to a Seattle apartment building Monday evening, but Burroughs refused to say whether it was the man's residence.
The man arrived at the courthouse shortly before noon Monday, wearing camouflage and with a backpack that he later strapped to his chest. Witnesses said he tried to skirt security and began shouting threats, police spokeswoman Christie-Lynne Bonner said.
The papers he was carrying included a "living will," indicating that he might have expected police to shoot him, Kerlikowske said. The backpack also contained a cutting board, which the man may have intended to use as a protective device, Kerlikowske said.
Inside the lobby, a security officer saw the man take the grenade out of his backpack, then walk across a ledge next to a pool that blocks public access to a secured area, Robertson said.
Hundreds of judges, jurors, employees and prisoners in the building were evacuated. Streets surrounding the building also were cordoned off as dozens of police cars responded, jamming noontime traffic.
Meanwhile, security officers tried talking to the man, but he refused to put the grenade down.
Seattle police were called and after about 25 minutes of negotiations, "the man made a furtive movement," Robertson said. "At that point the officers had no choice but to stop that threat."
An officer with a .223-caliber rifle and another with a shotgun each fired once at the man, who fell to the floor still holding the grenade. "It was very clear, immediately after the shots, that the individual was deceased," Robertson said.
Bomb squad members determined the grenade had been drilled out and was inactive. The man's body was removed several hours later, the police chief said.
Robertson said the man also had some court documents, although he didn't describe those papers in detail. But the man had filed complaints with the courts before, and was known to be dissatisfied with the federal government in general.
"I believe it's more of a global government frustration," Robertson said.
Kerlikowske said the two veteran officers who fired the shots were placed on paid administrative leave. They were not immediately identified.
Chay Adams, 27, of Seattle, said she saw police shoot the man.
She was leaving the U.S. Marshals office on the ninth floor where her father is a deputy marshal. "There were a bunch of marshals running toward me with bulletproof vests and weapons ... saying it would be in my best interest to leave," she said.
Adams and about eight other women were evacuated to the fifth floor, where she said she could see down into the atrium lobby. She saw police confront the man, who had been sitting on a bench with a yellow backpack strapped to his chest.
He was nervous and kept clasping his hands, she said, but there was nothing unusual about him.
"If they wouldn't have known what happened, you wouldn't have paid any attention to him," Adams said.
She watched the man for a few minutes, then heard two shots.
"With one shot, the man slumped over, and with the second shot, he slumped all the way over and his head ended up in his lap," Adams said.
Kim Kingsborough told Northwest Cable News she saw the man in the lobby before the standoff occurred.
"He just stood around for the longest time in the lobby, looking around," she said, then he tried to sneak by the pool.
As officers approached him, Kingsborough said, the man shouted: "Don't come near me!"
The new federal courthouse opened last August. Many of the major security features of the $171 million high-rise at Seventh Avenue and Stewart Street are disguised. Even glass walls that permit ample sunlight are blast-resistant.
The new courthouse houses the U.S. Marshals Service, judges, support staff and court clerks, as well as the U.S. Attorney's Office, bankruptcy courts, and probation and pretrial services.
It holds 13 district courtrooms, five bankruptcy courtrooms, and 22 suites for judges and their staff. Secure hallways lead from cell blocks into the courtrooms, so prisoners don't contact the public - unlike in the old building.
What he did was unacceptable and he is responsible for his own death.
"Ex-wife Susan Calhoun said Manley grew bitter and quit a high-paying job when, after their 1990 divorce, a court ordered him to make child support payments for their three children. The children are now grown and those payments were no longer required, the television station reported.
"It was really about the money," she told KING. " 'Don't tell me what to do with my money.' "
If he brought a grenade (even a fake one) to a federal building, that's about all the sides of the story we need to know. He brought his fate upon himself.
Of course he was.
It was a suicide by cop.
Was the frickin grenade blue?
If it wasn't then the cops were right on this one, but if it was blue they knew darn well it was fake.
The government actually expected him to provide monetary support for the three children that he fathered! Stupid bureaucrats...everybody knows that a man who fathers three children has every right to abandon them once they've dropped from the womb and he's decided it's time to move on.
I don't think we should hold the LEO's to be able to differentiate a fake vs. live hand grenade in a situation such as this. He had no business bringing this to a public building; the responsibility of his death is solely upon himself.
SEATTLE -- A man carrying an unusable hand grenade and a sheaf of papers including a "living will" was fatally shot by police Monday in the lobby of the downtown federal courthouse, authorities said.
he ask for help, and got it
Why do I keep thinking of the old adage of " Don't bring a knife to a gun fight"......
Was he a Freeper?
What's your next comment - that the police committed an illegal preemptive attack in order to benefit their cronies in the US oil industry?
I'm not blaming the police on the grenade issue. I was commenting on how incompetent the journalists are to do hard news.
So9
It would be like ragging on the cops for shooting someone pointing an unloaded automatic at them.
Literally? I guess that explains how law enforcement knew immediately that he was dead.
Shhhh!!! Don't you know that "real" conservatives don't believe in taking personal responsibility for their actions? You must be a Bushbot!!!
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