Son, you just took my breath away. Do you vote, or just serve on lynch mobs? 
Posted on 04/05/2002 8:59:46 PM PST by freespeech1
Frank Zito says he shot police because they broke his door
* Outburst comes during evidence suppression hearing; ruling due today
By: BRIAN HAAS, Staff Writer April 04, 2002
FRANK ZITO ... faces death penalty
SALISBURY - "If they didn't break into my door, I wouldn't have shot them," Frank Zito blurted out Wednesday at a hearing to suppress evidence in Zito's murder trial.
Attorneys for both sides argued in Wicomico County Circuit Court whether several pieces of evidence, including several alleged admissions by Zito, should be allowed in the jury trial. Circuit Judge Donald C. Davis said he should issue a ruling on the motion to suppress evidence sometime today.
Zito, 41, of Centreville, faces the death penalty on two first-degree murder charges and several other felony and misdemeanor charges.
Police allege that he shot and killed Centreville Patrolman Michael S. Nickerson and Dfc. Jason Schwenz, of the Queen Anne's County Sheriff's Office. The two officers went to investigate a noise complaint in February of 2001 when police say Zito shot both officers with a shotgun.
Zito has pleaded not guilty and not criminally responsible to the charges against him.
Judge Davis heard testimony from several police officers and Wicomico County Detention Center employees as to what happened Feb. 13 and Feb. 14, 2001.
Maryland State Police Trooper Corey Skidmore was the first officer to testify and the only witness to the shooting. Skidmore said he arrived to back up Nickerson and Schwenz who were trying to get Zito to come out of his house.
After being threatened, the officers got a key to Zito's trailer from his mother, Betty Zito, who was also Zito's landlady, Skidmore said. He said Zito's mother told the officers to get Zito out "by any means necessary."
After the three officers broke through a storm door and entered Zito's screen porch, Schwenz opened the front door with the key, Skidmore said.
As the door opened, Schwenz was hit with the first shotgun blast, followed by Nickerson, who was thrown backward, Skidmore said.
Skidmore said Zito had not seen him on the porch, so he waited for Zito to come out, sprayed his eyes with pepper spray and arrested Zito.
Maryland State Police Tfc. Brian Fisher was the officer who officially arrested Zito after the shooting, Fisher said. He testified that he took Zito away from the shooting scene and back near his patrol car.
Fisher said Zito was yelling "Nazi Gestapo" at the officers and complained that someone broke into his home. Fisher said Zito also told him he had put a shotgun under his couch.
At that point, Fisher said, he arrested Zito and read him his Miranda Rights. Though one of the Miranda Rights is the right to keep silent, Fisher said Zito kept talking.
"'I thought I was protecting my home,' " Fisher quoted Zito as saying. " 'I didn't know they were police until I got outside.' "
Robert E. Williams, an investigator for the Queen Anne's County State's Attorney Office, formally interviewed Zito for about an hour that night, Williams testified. Again Zito was told he could remain silent. But Zito "just started talking," Williams said.
Williams said Zito complained that police were trying to "beat (him) up" and threaten his mother. Then, Williams said, Zito described the events leading up to the shooting.
"'When they went to the second door, I got the 12-gauge and took the safety off,'" Williams said Zito explained. Then, as the door opened, "'I just shot.'"
"'I know I snagged that bastard,'" said Zito, according to Williams.
Williams said Zito talked with very little questioning by him or two other officers present at the interrogation.
Several other officers testified that Zito admitted shooting the two officers with no questioning. Two officers at the Wicomico County Detention Center also testified that they overheard Zito admit to the shooting while talking on the jail's telephone.
Defense lawyers later called Betty Zito to the stand. Wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair, Mrs. Zito was too weak to hold up her right hand to be sworn in. She lifted her right hand with her left hand as high as she could while being sworn in.
She testified that her son has his own trailer, which he rented from her. She said his rent is no different from the rent for the eight other trailers on her property.
She said Frank "wasn't so good" on Feb. 13, a condition made worse by the police breaking his storm door. She said police threatened to "tear gas" Zito's home unless he came outside.
She sobbed lightly as she described her frustration that day, trying to get someone on the telephone to help her and her son.
She said the only reason she gave the officers the key to Zito's trailer was so they wouldn't break his door and "tear gas" him.
Then she said she went around the side of Zito's trailer to peer inside and find him. That's when Mrs. Zito heard the "pop, pop" of the shotgun blasts, she said.
As defense lawyer Patricia Chappell wheeled Zito's mother past him and out of the courtroom, he gently put his hand on his mother's knee.
"Goodbye," she said as she passed from the courtroom.
In their closing arguments, defense lawyer Brian Shefferman argued that Zito's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure was violated by the three officers. He said Zito did not consent to the officers coming on his premises even though they entered his enclosed porch.
Shefferman argued that all evidence that came about because of the "illegal" entry to Zito's trailer should be suppressed during the jury trial. Most of the testimony that would be lost if this motion were to be granted would be Trooper Skidmore's description of the shooting and the events leading up to it.
Shefferman also argued that statements that Zito made to officers throughout the night should be suppressed because Zito was injured when he made them. Officers testified earlier that Zito was bleeding from a cut on his face that night. >{?
Your posts have been dedicated to examining and presenting to the group every possiility that the evidence to convict Frank Zito would be inadmissable, insufficient or indictable. You've done this because you know that the people here would welcome a dismissal of this case because the police violated some 4th Amendment Protection.
Moreover, I think YOU would welcome a dismissal of this case for those reasons. You wouldn't be presenting these one sided scenarios to the jackals here unless you were on board. You blame the Cops for this homicide.
You are a former cop. You are a State Prosecutor. Yet you are creating optimism on this thread that a 4th Amendment technality or a self-defense strategy will permit a murderer of two policemen go unpunished.
That makes you the sleaziest piece of garbage I've ever encountered.
Son, you just took my breath away. Do you vote, or just serve on lynch mobs?
Only the RICH have Rights
I see you're taking some flack for your comments. Fwiw, I appreciate the resaonable approach you've added to this thread. Like you say, those shootings could -- and should -- have been avoided.
."Police State tactics" are a serious threat, a serious issue, many examples on this thread, but this isn’t it. They screwed up. Police State tactics? That crazy in the trailer park, assault weapon found (10/22 with accessories, so it looks ugly in the picture, hand grip, magazine visible, ugly stuff), 1,992 rounds of ammunition (bot 4 bricks, used 8 rounds to shoot at rabbits). Fortunately the Swat team was successful in their entry, protecting us (not our rights) Frank is dead (and we’re safer) and the officers are with their children tonight. That’s a Police State, not using a key from mom to enter the trailer of a retarded (?) son who you’ve visited frequently before. Yeah, that’s wrong, also stupid, but they paid a huge price for their mistake.
The militarization of police functions in America is a HUGE problem, but IMO it’s not evident here. I have nothing but compassion for the officers and their families, and Frank and his mom too. It’s a sad event.
To me, as a nonprofessional (Abundy, I get to go on the jury) it’s the “confession”. Clearly not coerced (per police state tactics) if we believe the police. Somehow I have to reconcile “I thought I was protecting my home, “I didn't know they were police… until I got outside." (Lots of harm, no foul) with “Fisher said Zito was yelling "Nazi Gestapo"”, do I believe Fisher. If he knew they were LEOs when he pulled the trigger, he’s a murderer (and he DID form intent), if not, he’s innocent.
BTW, as a prosecutor, would you actually worry about whether Frank commited a crime (can’t believe you got beat up for that) rather that pursuing the interests of the State? If Md doesn’t want you, come here to Illinois. As you know, about half our death row residents later walk for technicalities (like, they didn’t do it). And one of those who turned away is running for gov as an R, though he never knew anything. That’s how you get to a police state. We could use more of you.
No the defense bar can't stand you because nobody around you can stand you.
Don't kid yourself. You're a crude hack. You don't exhibit a modicom of professional bearing or class. Adolf? You're another ham 'n egger running the poor folk through the system and getting your ass kicked by the real pros in every major case. You only bring the bluebirds to trial, because your office houses the bottom of the barrel in the legal profession, you are civil servants and you get paid pretty much what your worth. Your legal skills are good enough for government work.
It is an absolutely chilling list. The fact that you can lose your property due to someone on it being involved in any sort of drug related activity, including being a user of it, without your knowledge adds to the hysteria. A landlord, parent, friend, etc., is under an obligation due to those laws to turn you in and allow the government to do whatever they want to "investigate" or lest you may lose your property. This country is slowly moving into being a police state, and the new patriot act just moved us that much closer.
On the contrary, Fufkin. - Your comment makes you one of the sleaziest pieces of garbage many of us have ever encountered here at FR.
- And thanks for writing your own rebuke.
How many will it take for you to see a problem?
Agreed. And so has the court. The fact that the police may have not respected his 4th Amendment rights is no excuse for murder. The person turning the key on his door might have been his own mother. I know this comes as a big disappointment to the murderous militia nutcases, but even if an I.R.S.-employed ex-wife's child support lawyer-turned-burglar were to enter the home to steal, the law does not allow for killing in the self-defense of property rights. A vase cannot be equated with a human life, no matter how expensive the vase or how low-life the intruder.
Does Mr. Frank Zito think he's a one-man lynch mob? Do those non-jury members who pass judgments upon the police from a thousand miles away after reading a news story from a liberal paper believe they are not on a lynch mob?
You dismiss so cavalierly our BoR, and so easily that it is frightening. You also question if ABundy knows the job of the prosecutor. I believe that you'll find that the job is to find the truth. I know that you'd prefer that he ignore the facts and the law and just prosecute everyone but sometimes you run into something called 'testa-lying' and innocent people. But apparently that isn't important to you, is it?
What about the old adage that it is better for ten guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be convicted?
ABundy
Thanks for your voice of reason to counter the bootlickers that always show up on these threads.
This guy needs to go to jail and FAST. God help him if I was on his jury.
Abundy is one the wisest and thoughtful posters you're going to find on this site. His dissenters are generally just society's backwash.
lol
It is clear that freespeech1 is no friend of polite society.
Abundy is one the wisest and thoughtful posters you're going to find on this site. His dissenters are generally just society's backwash.
Weird post VA. -- You, and the 'backwash' above you just flagged, are Abundy's dissenters.
You clowns are all fedophiles, and we can thank our lucky stars a few good men in the justice system, like Abundy, are not.
This is going to come down to a self defense issue. The 4th Amendment issues will be deemed moot. There's no self defense evidence. The third cop came upon the scene and the first two officers were trying to talk Zito out of his trailer. So ... I assume they identified themselves ... unless they tried to coax him out by saying they were the Publisher's Clearinghouse Prize Patrol. He knew they were there. So, after a period, Zito hears noise out on the porch, and hears a key in the lock opening the front door. Well, that's either the cops or his mother. He was not surprised, he was ready and raised, and he blew each man's chest apart with a shotgun blast ambush style as soon as the door opened.
Does that get you hot boys?
Zito will be found guilty, he will receive the death sentence, and Badray, maybe all you "real patriots" can go on hunger strikes or carve the number "4" into your heads in vigil for this Constitutional martyr during his last days before the eternal fire.
If there are sanctions to be leveled for the 4th Amendment violation, maybe a couple of the cops' orphaned kids can go to ABundy's office and do some copying for him. Or some of you scholars could go spit on their graves for their terrible transgression.
We'll see won't we mole man?
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