Shoot the old geezer just like we trained you to!
Posted on 02/24/2017 9:06:21 AM PST by nickcarraway
Oid Sheriff’s deputies violate procedure during a September 2016 welfare check?
NBC Bay Area’s Investigation raises questions about whether Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputies violated their own policies and procedures leading up to the shooting of Saratoga homeowner Eugene Craig in September, 2016. Senior Investigative Reporter Stephen Stock reports in a video that first aired on Feb. 23, 2017.
An attorney for the family of 86 year-old Eugene Craig says sheriff’s deputies violated their own department policy when they kicked in the doors and confronted Craig in his living room during what was supposed to be a “wellness” or “welfare” check.
The attorney, Dennis Luca, a long-time retired San Jose Police officer, turned civil attorney, was originally hired by Craig’s 90 year-old widow after the shooting last fall.
“Simply put, they did not follow established policy and procedure that virtually all police departments, sheriff's office follow regarding the escalation of force,” said Luca.
The widow wanted Luca to look into the September 12, 2016, shooting death of her husband, a Navy Veteran, described by friends who knew him for decades as a “war hero.” Close family friends describe the 86 year-old Eugene Craig as a Navy aviator war hero who helped land airplanes on carriers in the middle of the night during the Korean War.
“If you're there at someone's house to check on their welfare, why do you kick two doors down at night time when my client is 86 years old, his wife is 90, and they live alone at that house and they have for years?” asked Luca.
A family friend who says he’s known the Craigs for decades and was outside the home at the time of the shooting raises similar questions about whether the deputies followed proper procedure and their own policies.
“Gene died because of it,” said Ron “Ronnie” Roberts. “And there was no reason for it.”
Though the Craig family hired another law firm to represent their interests in February, 2017, before he was replaced Luca interviewed the widow and those who were at the home at the time of the shooting. Luca and his firm also collected evidence that he says shows the retired Navy veteran did not have to die standing in his own home with his wife by his side.
Sheriff’s records show this wasn’t the first time deputies had gone to the Craig’s home on Titus Avenue in Saratoga.
Since 2011 they’d been there six times before—twice for medical calls and “suspicious circumstances” and once each for vandalism and an abandoned vehicle call. Click here for calls to service to the Craig home.
Friends, family and a source within the Santa Clara Sheriff’s office all say that because of that history deputies who worked that area were familiar with the elderly couple living there. On September 12, 2016, deputies went to Craig’s home for a “wellness” or “welfare” check after someone from outside the home called requesting it.
That “wellness check” was not because of any reported crime and it ended up in the shooting death of Craig as he stood inside his own home.
The official press release from that incident released by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office right after the shooting says the deputies went to the 1200 block of Titus Avenue around dusk on September 12, 2016, believing an elderly person inside had medical issues.
The Sheriff’s official news release says that after calling out for about fifty minutes, deputies tried to force their way through the front door.
Because the door was steel encased the deputies couldn’t force entry and so the news release says they tried another location and went through a side door.
There they found Eugene Craig who, according to the official news release “displayed” a .38 caliber revolver, prompting Sergeant Douglas Ulrich to shoot Craig where he stood in his own home.
“The deputies gave him several verbal commands to drop the firearm and a deputy shot the individual,” said Lt. James Jensen, a spokesman for the Santa Clara Sheriff’s office on the day after the shooting.
Picture showing overall scene through side door into living area. Pictures obtained by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit and never before shown publicly show both the backdoor into the garage and the side door into the home forced open.
The Investigative Unit took another picture showing a bullet hole in the side door frame leading into the house. It was a shot that missed.
Another picture appears another shot through the side door which apparently missed the Craigs, who were standing a few feet inside the door according to what Eugene Craig’s widow told attorney Luca. In that picture a bullet hole is visible high in the wall behind where the couple had been standing.
Picture showing where bullet missed and hit wall behind where Craigs stood.
“From the information we have, they turned a welfare check, meaning is everybody OK, into a deadly force situation,” said attorney Luca. A situation “that resulted in an 86 year-old man being shot multiple times and killed in his own house.”
“They went from window to window shining lights in,” Ronnie Roberts said describing what he saw when he arrived at the Craig’s home.
Roberts said he saw several deputies milling about the house with flashlights around the windows when he got to there. He estimates he arrived 15 to 20 minutes before the shooting. Roberts went to the house at the request of another friend, Jim Marshall.
Marshall told NBC Bay Area that he got a call from Eugene Craig that night asking for him to come over.
The retired navy man whom both Marshall and Roberts said was hard of hearing, told Marshall he thought someone was outside his house trying to break in.
“Every Wednesday night, we have dinner with them for the past couple of years,” Marshall told NBC Bay Area. “It’s the only outing that they usually take. this particular Wednesday, happened to be their last Wednesday at hometown buffet which is where we always met.”
“Gene had no thoughts about this in the first place. That this would ever happen,” said Marshall That night both Ron Roberts and Marshall say Roberts was closer to the home than Marshall and so he got there first.
When he arrived, he says he says volunteered to go up to the house and make contact with Eugene Craig whom he told deputies he knew. But Roberts says he was told to stand back by deputies.
“All they had to do was let me go in the house,” said Roberts. “I could have got in to the door, I could’ve called him, I could’ve done anything, but they wouldn’t let me do anything. Just stay there, stay back out of the way.”
Only later did it become apparent that Craig mistook the deputies with flashlights walking around the house for burglars. He never called 9-1-1. Instead he called his friend. “I heard a bam, b-b-b-b-bam,” said Roberts “There was at least six shots.”
Roberts says he was standing on the driveway when he saw four officers try to break down the front door. Fail. Then run around back and Roberts said he heard them kick in the back door to the garage.
“And then a few minutes later, I heard them kicking the next door. And I heard a single shot and then just as soon as that shot, there was five or six other shots. And real fast. B-b-b-b-bam,” Roberts said. “I heard the screaming, you know. ‘Oh! Oh!’ and then the back up, I heard them holler, ‘gun!’ before the first shot.”
According to the official autopsy report, Craig was hit by four bullets to the chest and pelvis. The reports said the 86 year-old was grazed once.
Add in the two bullet holes in the door frame and wall, and it matches the number of shots Ron Roberts says he heard.
“They (deputies) didn't progress through the steps necessary, and that's why I say they created the deadly force event. Not Mr. Craig, who has a right to be in his house. He hadn't committed a crime,” said attorney Luca. “He has a right to be safe in his house like all of us do. The police just can't kick doors, come into the house and start shooting.”
According to Santa Clara County Sheriff’s written policy, the use of force entering buildings “will be practiced with the utmost restraint” “and only after all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted.” The policy on potential hostage or barricaded subject situation also says officers on such scenes should “request the field supervisor.” Ronnie Roberts and Jim Marshall want to know why those procedures were, in their view, not followed.
“Why they didn’t have supervisors there, why they didn’t try to negotiate, why they didn’t break a window and put a phone in the house,” asked Roberts.
A sheriff’s department source in a position to know told NBC Bay Area that neither a Lieutenant nor a Captain were called to the scene until after the shooting.
The source says the swat team wasn’t called either… nor was a negotiator… no tear gas… no intercom… no loudspeaker.
The Sheriff’s Department source worries about the legal justification—what’s called exigent circumstances—that would have made it allowable for deputies to force their way into the home.
Sergeant Ray Kelly is a spokesman for Alameda County Sheriff’s office who would not speak to the specific circumstances about Eugene Craig’s home. But Kelly did discuss, in general, how law enforcement is typically trained when called to a welfare check.
“Welfare calls can run the gamut of interest for people and people have different motives and reasons to do it,” said Kelly. “So we don't put a lot of credibility in anonymous…welfare checks.” It’s a situation Kelly says law enforcement officers around the state encounter all the time.
“Those calls are very common and we do go to several of those type of calls every day, throughout the year all the time,” Sergeant Kelly said.
“There are certain things that allow us to immediately violate the Fourth Amendment and go into a location. That's exigency, which is basically a fancy word for emergency,” said Kelly. “In some of those cases it’s better to kind of just walk away and come back and then keep reassessing. Use alternative means to maybe find (information.)”
“Go talk to the neighbors have you seen this person? Look to see are there newspapers piled up at the door? Is there mail piled up in the mailbox? Are there any notices on the doors? Is there any running water? Things like that.” Sergeant Kelly said.
“So those are things you balance and so it's up to you at that point as an officer to maybe notify your supervisor, have your supervisor or other officers kind of come together and make a reasonable conclusion as to what you should do,” said Sgt. Kelly. “And sometimes the most reasonable thing to do is to just walk away.”
Attorney Dennis Luca and Ronnie Roberts said deputies at the Craig home didn’t do any of that.
“Those (exigent) circumstances can't be created by the police,” Luca said. “They (deputies) are either objectively there or not. If the police had shown up and they had heard a gunshot, they'd heard screaming, they would have had to make a split second decision. Do we go in to protect our lives or the lives of somebody else? That is not the situation they were confronted with objectively when they arrived.”
“It didn't have to happen. It shouldn't have happened,” said Luca. “And now I have a 90 year-old woman who is alone, who was married for many years to a war veteran, a pilot, and now she has no one. That's not a tragedy. That is horrific.”
We asked the sheriff’s department numerous times to answer questions about this shooting or to explain their policies and procedures and why they apparently weren’t followed. But the sheriff’s department refused comment citing what they say is still an active investigation.
They also would not let us speak with Sergeant Douglas Ulrich whom they identified as firing the fatal shots.
We contacted the new attorney representing the Craig family. He had no further comment.
I guess they know whether he’s well or not now.
that would end badly as well. the sound of someone messing with the door lock would likely have resulted in a .38 response through the door.
The couple had been out that night so it was not as if they had not been seen for a week or two.
It is very odd.
Yeah, but somebody else called this one in. How do you keep your neighbors or enemies from calling in a wellness check for you? It's impossible.
I’ve heard of these things called lockpicks...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Those require a certain amount of finesse and skill to operate.
Boots and guns do not.
Many of these elderly veterans are EXTREMELY DEAF! My dad
was a combat veteran of WWII. When he came home from the
war; he was very deaf. It got worse over the years. If you
go through the firefights & the sky being black with planes
flying overhead in a thundering roar, you’ll be deaf, too.
My dad was almost paranoid about someone breaking in on him
& he had a Smith & Wesson revolver for which he poured his
own bullets. . one at a time at the kitchen table.
I am as well. I agree this is over the top, and I cannot see any justification for what transpired here.
I won’t call on my neighbors. I can’t control what my neighbors do to each other or to me. If my door gets kicked in either an intruder will be shot or I will be shot by police.
"It depends," although I am strongly biased to do not call, and won't speculate (much) on what it would take to get me to call. Maybe if they had a running gun battle going on.
Sheriff came to my door at 2 am once. Turned out my phone was calling 911, on its own. Did it twice that day. Cops didn't bust down the door either time.
“but when dogs or veterans get the same treatment I don’t support the pigs.”
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All dogs?
All veterans?
They both have not-so-nice representatives——as do cops.
.
.
Under no circumstances what-so-ever should a person in their own home, who is not even suspected of a crime be shot by police. If these officers failed to follow procedure they should be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If they did follow procedures then the police chief and whoever else was responsible for the procedures should be fired and the procedures rewritten.
Someone is responsible for this man dying in what should be the safety of his own home and there must be severe consequences.
We used to call this a :
HOME INVASION ROBBERY and FIRST DEGREE MURDER, With Special Circumstances of Using a Firearm during the Commission of a Violent Felony.
THEY ALL DESERVE LIFE IN PRISON!
We used to call this a :
HOME INVASION ROBBERY and FIRST DEGREE MURDER, With Special Circumstances of Using a Firearm during the Commission of a Violent Felony.
THEY ALL DESERVE LIFE IN PRISON!
_________________________________________________________
While I couldn’t agree more with you about the wrongness of what happened, all the cops who participated must share some of the guilt, but, there was only one cop who shot his gun at the guy apparently.
He should have to go to prison for a long time, what he did was evil and there was no excuse for it. I feel sorry for the stupid cop but examples need to be set or others will do the same thing.
I agree that if there was no written policy on how to handle the situation then the chief should suffer severe punishment along with the city that hired him.
This should never happen in America. The man was a war hero who was treated like a low down common criminal, actually worse. Criminals get to go in and out of prison this guy is dead and his poor wife a widow.
I fear what will happen instead is that since the old man had a gun the cop will get off with NO PUNISHMENT. Mind you guns are legal. He probably had a newspaper and a church baptism certificate too. He has just as much right to have the gun as the newspaper and baptism certificate. Someone needs to pay!
I understand, but under the FELONY MURDER RULE in California,
EVERY LAST PERSON INVOLVED is Just as Guilty of FIRST DEGREE MURDER, from the Dispatcher to the Chief. Now it might be a stretch to include those 2, but THE LAW does not make that distinction, it clearly states “ALL PARTIES” which would include EVERY PERSON that had any involvement of ANY KIND, regardless of how minor or incidental.
Shoot the old geezer just like we trained you to!
If your neighbor asks you to drive him to the store and he just happens to shoot and kill the clerk, the State will arrest YOU and try YOU for first degree murder with special circumstance, the use of a gun in the commission of a crime.
For those of you in Rio Linda "special circumstance" means you are quite eligible for the death penalty.
The State doesn't care that you had no foreknowledge, and odds are good this isn't the trigger happy cop's first excessive use of force rodeo, and equally good his colleagues thin blue line covered for him (read that as 'they flat-out lied').
When good cops shield bad cops they become bad cops themselves, sooner or later.
Lesson: do not just stand there, it ain't the OK Corral.
Take some cover and/or concealment and choose your shot. I practice head shots, bad guys and rogue cops wear chest body armor.
They may get me, but I will not leave alone.
Veterans and dogs do not get the cover of “authority” as cops do, or the unions and thin blue line lying and covering for them.
They did it. The police can't prevent Trump supporters from getting the hell beaten out of them in plain view. They can't prevent people attending a lecture at Berkley in plain view from getting the hell beaten out of them. However, when it comes to shooting 86 year old men in their own homes, they are johnnie on the spot and are hell on wheels.
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