Posted on 02/21/2015 1:57:02 PM PST by Lacey
Dale Long died in the same red car he used to run into an apartment security guard on a cold night in early January.
Long, who had been arrested in Tulsa nearly a dozen times since the early 1990s, was spotted by security officers who recognized him not only as the source of the disturbance to which they were responding but also as someone who had been banned from the property.
Tulsa police homicide Sgt. Dave Walker said Long was shot in the torso when the security officer he ran into pushed away from the vehicle and fired a single bullet. The 40-year-old continued to drive away, eventually crashing his car into a tree south of the shooting scene.
Long was pronounced dead of a gunshot wound to chest while still in the car.
That interaction at the Western Pine Apartments in 2400 block of South Maybelle Avenue, just west of the Arkansas River, was the beginning of an unusual homicide trend during the city’s first six weeks.
Of the 11 homicide victims so far this year, five have been killed by civilians or security guards in shootings Tulsa police have deemed self-defense. For comparison’s sake, only eight such homicides occurred in all of 2014, and six of those involved Tulsa police officers. Tulsa police have not been involved in a shooting yet this year.
“It’s been an odd year,” Walker said. “I’m sure it will even out over the next 12 months, but, yeah, … it’s been odd.” ‘No matter how slight’
While many are aware of Oklahoma’s “Stand Your Ground” law, not everyone knows its details, Tulsa County First Assistant District Attorney John David Luton said.
Enacted in 2006, the law extends broad protection to Oklahomans who think someone entering their “dwelling” might use physical force against them. The law even specifies that the victim need not be in fear of his or her life — use of deadly force is protected as long as the victim has “reasonable belief” the intruder might use “any” physical force, “no matter how slight.”
That’s an important distinction, Luton said, one that helps simplify many self-defense shootings, such as one in Muskogee last year where a man attempting to stop the burglary of a nearby home fatally shot one of the burglars. The man told police he pointed a gun at the burglars but fired only when one approached him “in an aggressive manner.”
The “no matter how slight” distinction is not the only one made in the law, which provides protection not only to those in their own homes but to those in a “dwelling, residence or occupied vehicle.” It defines a dwelling as “a building or conveyance of any kind,” including even a porch or a tent.
Even given these broad definitions, only one of the five self-defense shootings so far this year has involved the Stand Your Ground law, and it’s the only one of the five shootings in which the shooter has been cleared by the District Attorney’s Office.
On Jan. 13, Bradley Keeling, a clerk at Ryan’s Convenience Store in east Tulsa, fatally shot two intruders during a robbery attempt. Keeling was not arrested, and nine days later, Luton issued a press release stating that the District Attorney’s Office had cleared Keeling of any wrongdoing.
Tulsa police have not released surveillance footage of the shooting, withholding it for evidence, since two people suspected of being accomplices in the botched robbery have been charged and are awaiting a preliminary hearing.
But Luton, who has viewed the video, said Keeling saw three men (Kevin Dobbs, Brian Powell and Lakeit Thompson) approach the entrance wearing masks and armed with guns.
“Three guys are coming in. (Keeling) can see the glass doors. He sees them hooded up. The first guy comes in. (Keeling) sees the gun,” Luton said.
One of the robbers fired a gun at Keeling, who returned fire, striking two of the men, Luton said.
Dobbs and Powell died. The third man, suspected of being Thompson, fled with another man, but both were arrested later that evening when they returned to the convenience store and were spotted by police. To clear or not to clear
The other self-defense shootings this year have all differed, sometimes in slight ways. Long was shot by a security guard who said the ex-convict sped toward him, striking him with his vehicle. On Feb. 4, another security guard shot and paralyzed a man in a similar scenario.
That security guard, Walker said, came upon a red vehicle in which he believed two people were having sex. The guard said that when he asked for identification, the car backed into him, throwing him onto the trunk.
He told police he responded by firing at the back glass as the car sped away. It crashed into a tree after the gunshot struck the driver in the neck, and police arrived as the guard was giving the wounded man CPR.
Neither shooter has been legally cleared by the District Attorney’s Office. Luton said he is waiting for a medical examiner’s report on Long’s death, and prosecutors have not yet received the case file from police on the other shooting.
The differences between these two shootings by security guards are slight. In the Long shooting, the guard said he fired a shot as he was being struck by the vehicle. In the Feb. 4 shooting, the guard fired a shot into the back windshield as the car was driving away.
The guard who fired at Long’s vehicle shot at a vehicle that carried only a person the guard claimed had just tried to run over him, something that legally constitutes deadly force. In the Feb. 4 shooting, the guard fired at a vehicle that carried not only a driver who had struck him with the vehicle but also a 16-year-old girl.
Walker said the investigation into that shooting, as well as a fatal self-defense shooting of a man by his wife on Jan. 31, was slowed by a quadruple shooting Feb. 6 at a Tulsa barbershop.
“When we are deciding if we’re going to arrest someone (right after a shooting,) there are a lot of questions we have to ask ourselves,” Walker said. “What do we know at that point? In (the Feb. 4 shooting,) there were no witnesses, so what we had was the security officer, and what he told us, it’s being backed up by the evidence.
“Does he still have a legal right to shoot into that vehicle? I’m not sure. But when I arrest someone, it can take their whole livelihood and freedom away, and I want to make sure it’s right.” Medical examiner’s office reports bring valuable insight
A little more than two weeks prior to that shooting,
Andrew Bryiant, an off-duty Department of Veterans Affairs police officer from Oklahoma City who was on his way to a concert at Tulsa’s BOK Center, fatally shot a man he said he saw having a physical altercation with a woman.
Bryiant, 33, told police he stopped his vehicle when he saw Rodney Walker fighting a woman near 11th Street and Denver Avenue. Bryiant said he identified himself as a police officer, then shot Walker when he believed that Walker was reaching for a gun in his waistband.
Bryiant was not arrested, and District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler is awaiting the medical examiner’s report — which may be months away — before deciding whether to press charges.
“There’s a lot of things we glean from those reports, like where the person was shot,” Luton said. “Not only where, but if they were shot more than one time, the path the bullet took. … It’s really crucial.”
Bullets can take wildly varying paths once entering a body — in one shooting last summer, a bullet entered 19-year-old Jeremey Lake’s neck, then took a sudden 90-degree turn, shredding a lung and entering his heart — but still provide valuable insight.
“It tells us what? Maybe where was the shooter, where was the (victim) turning, were they running.” Luton said. “(Were they) going away? Coming toward? Where were they standing in comparison to the shooter?”
It can also tell you, in some cases, the proximity of the shooter, which Luton said is “extremely important” when it comes to deciding self-defense. Police will take a statement from the shooter, but that statement needs to correspond with what the medical examiner’s report reports, he said.
“Does (the report) match up and corroborate with all the other evidence we know, including statements by all the parties there?” Luton asked. “It can be very important in making those determinations.”
Toxicology tests that determine things such as levels of alcohol, drugs or prescription medication in the deceased’s system can take the state Medical Examiner’s Office several months to complete, but they are crucial at times.
“It may not mean anything in one case, but it may mean everything in another,” Luton said. “If a guy has a 0.28 blood alcohol level, that may be important.”
He was pulling forward in order to backup and run over the victim again.
Absolutely true. And using your car to commit ADW is a darn good reason. The perp being dead is good riddance. Think of it as permanent rehabilitation. The perp won't do it again.
The person in question was not attempting to commit ADW at the time, he was attempting to flee after such an attempt, assuming the story told is true.
To my mind, that makes it a question for LEO and the justice system, not one of self-defense.
You have evidence for that claim?
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