Iraq veteran shot three times by policeman

San Bernardino: An Iraq war veteran has testified that a deputy ordered him to get up from the ground twice during a videotaped confrontation after a car chase and then shot him three times when he tried to comply.

Senior Airman Elio Carrion said on Monday the deputy swore repeatedly at him as he tried to explain that he was in the military and was not a threat as he lay near the passenger-side door.

"I said, 'I'm in the military, I'm in the [expletive] military. Believe me, we mean you no harm'," Carrion testified. "And the officer says, 'OK, get up' and I repeat that I'm going to get up, and as I get up, he shoots me."

Former San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy Ivory J. Webb Jr, 46, has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of voluntary attempted manslaughter and assault with a firearm. If convicted, he could face more than 18 years in prison.

Deputy District Attorney Lewis Cope replayed an amateur video of the January 29, 2006, shooting recorded by a bystander and broadcast on TV stations nationwide.

Carrion, 23, showed no emotion as he watched the footage that showed him being shot in the chest, left leg and left shoulder. His relatives in the audience appeared to struggle to hold back tears.

Webb's lawyer said that Webb may have told Carrion, "Don't get up!" He also said that just seconds before the gunfire, Carrion's hand moved toward his jacket pocket - something that puts police on alert.

Well, that link is fascinating!

Prosecutors contend the police dispatch recordings are an example of how Ivory J. Webb Jr.'s actions and mistakes that night in January 2006 led to the unnecessary shooting of Elio Carrion, an Air Force senior airman who was home on leave.
On the recording, Webb is heard giving dispatchers at least three wrong locations as he held Carrion at gunpoint.
It wasn't until after Webb shot Carrion that he finally told fellow officers where to find him.
"Ivory, you have to give us a better (location)," a colleague called out to him over the radio.
"Francis and Benson, Francis and Benson," Webb said, eventually confirming his correct location.
Webb is on trial in San Bernardino Superior Court charged with attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm in connection with the shooting of Carrion on Jan. 29, 2006.
Webb, 46, shot Carrion at the end of a dangerous, high-speed car chase in Chino.
Carrion was a passenger in the car, which was driven by his friend, Luis Fernando Escobedo. The chase ended when Escobedo lost control and crashed into a wall on Francis Street near Benson Avenue in Chino.
A nearby resident videotaped the shooting. Prosecutors said the tape shows Webb shooting Carrion as Carrion complied with the deputy's orders to surrender.
Webb contends he shot after Carrion reached into his jacket as though he were grabbing for a weapon.
Prosecutors began playing the recording of the night's police radio traffic Wednesday afternoon, but paused for the evening recess. They resumed playing it Thursday morning.
According to the recording, Webb never told dispatchers when he first spotted the Corvette speed past him or when he began to give chase.
His first radio transmission did not come until he reported he was holding two suspects at gunpoint near Francis Street and Ramona Avenue - several miles east of his true whereabouts.
Seconds later, a frantic Webb is heard yelling "shots fired," and then "I got one down."
As other officers and paramedics rushed to the scene, Webb again reported an erroneous location before finally getting his whereabouts correct.
While prosecutors contend the recording illustrates mistakes made by Webb that night, the former deputy's attorneys claim it shows the sort of stress and pressure Webb was under while trying to pursue and arrest two potentially dangerous chase suspects.
Webb's attorney, Michael Schwartz, has told jurors the deputy only gave mistaken reports of his location because he was genuinely lost.
The chase took him into unfamiliar streets within Chino city limits, outside his normal beat, Schwartz said. The streets were unlit, and street signs were small and difficult to see, the defense attorney said.
Also during the trial Thursday, prosecutors showed jurors graphic photographs of Carrion lying bloody on a Chino street minutes after he was shot.
The disturbing images, which showed paramedics tending to gunshots on Carrion's shoulder, chest and leg, prompted sobs from some courtroom observers.
In the first photograph, Carrion was lying on the street handcuffed and bleeding.
Subsequent photos showed paramedics cutting away Carrion's clothing as they tended to his wounds. Holes from the bullets could clearly be seen near his left underarm, on his chest and on his left leg.
Blood soaked his clothing and was smeared across parts of his body.
He wore a white sneaker on one foot. Near his wounded body were the bullet casings ejected from Webb's gun.
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy Charles Carter, who was on the scene that night, testified it is routine for deputies to keep suspects who have been shot handcuffed until they are searched for weapons and the location is secure.
"We don't know at that point what we have," Carter testified. "He could still be dangerous."
Webb faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted as charged. He no longer works for the Sheriff's Department

"I live in San Diego. Trust me. They are professionals compared to San Bernardino PD. Those guys make Hell's Angels look like Mary Poppins."

After WWII, combat veterans were generally treated like scum on our coasts and in some other locales. The soldiers (first of the later-named "1%-er" motorcycle clubs) took revenge against some California municipalities. The same could easily happen after WWIII intensifies.

General George Patton was one Army officer who didn't put up with civilian mistreatment of his men. That's probably why we have no more like him.

From Bob Tuley's Patton site:

General Patton training troops at Fort Benning Georgia in 1941. Patton personally drove a tank through the "strip" of bars and cat houses across the river at Phenix City Alabama whose residents frequently robbed, beat and even murdered soldiers on weekend pass. Somehow missed by history, Phenix City, a mob run city in Alabama in the 1930's and into the early 1950's, was the site of many violent attacks against blacks and whites due to the organized crime activity. In 1954 a military government was installed, and the arrest of hundreds of mobsters, and ejection from town of thousands, and dynamite destruction of many buildings, finally cleaned up the town.

When Patton was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, the white trash of Junction City's honky-tonk row captured and threatened to kill one of his black non-commissioned officers. Patton ordered his calvary to mount, borrowed a cannon, and moved against that notoriously bad area. He threatened to level the area unless his man was released. The man promptly was.
Info Courtesty of Barbara Boland

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