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. >{?
Actually, you did. I appreciate the irony.
b) When Provocation is adequate
i. Being subjected to a serious battery or a threat of deadly force; and
ii. Discovering one’s spouse in bed with another person.
"They broke the porch door on my Mom's trailer and asked me to turn down my stereo" falls well short of a self-defense justification under the statute, assuming that the members of the petit jury have at least room temperature IQs.
Take what pleasure in it you are capable of.
Still, it remains illegal for the police to bust down doors based on "noise complaints". Noise complaints do not rise to the level of a no knock raid in ANY jurisdiction. They make knock on the door, they may get a warrant if you refuse or are unable to answer, or simjply can't hear them knocking because you are practicing your highland bagpipes for a memorial for fallen firefighter's, but they may not break in without filling out a minimal amount of Constitutionally (The U.S. has a Constitution) mandated paper work.
Bad cop, no donut. You have lost the debate.
Or they are cops, like Texasforever and Cultural Jihad, pretending to be average citizens.
I did not say that.
Noise complaints do not rise to the level of a no knock raid in ANY jurisdiction.
Agreed, but that's YOUR strawman, not what I said.
They make knock on the door, they may get a warrant if you refuse or are unable to answer, or simjply can't hear them knocking because you are practicing your highland bagpipes for a memorial for fallen firefighter's, but they may not break in without filling out a minimal amount of Constitutionally (The U.S. has a Constitution) mandated paper work.
However, that doesn't equate to a Constitutional right of the resident to threaten the police outside when they knock on the door--which is what YOU are arguing.
Bad cop, no donut. You have lost the debate.
Bad FReeper, no satisfactory completion of Bonehead English. You have lost the debate because you didn't debate the point raised.
Barking dogs don't worry me.
Cheap empty retorts are amusing, I agree.
But tell us roscoe, do you really expect the feds/statists in power to protect you from the fire next time? Do you fancy yourself as a member of the power structure? -- Are you immune somehow from the abuses of power we see all about us?
You're "the fire?" Heh.
Great response. You know, Roscoe, I'm an old f*rt, like you. It's extremely unlikely that either of us will be big factors in the Restoration/Revolution dead ahead of us.
Nevertheless, when young folks ask me questions about how the various governmental intrusions into people's lives came about, I am forced to tell them the truth, and that truth does not reflect well upon all those who have been on the public payroll lo these many years.
Young folks resent keenly the socialistic interferences with their lives that are an integral part of the New Socialist America you all have been creating.
I teach them to have only contempt for you and your kind; the kids supply the well-deserved hatred.
I uttered no threat, only a prophecy. I won't weep at the funeral of American Socialism.
Somehow roscoe, this just sounds to me like more of your clucking.
- BUT, if you are sincere, feel free to squawk in the anonomods.
I replied, "call a supervisor, advise a barricade and wait for the CERT team."
His eyebrows went up and he said "for a noise complaint?!? You've got to be kidding."
I replied, "exactly."
He knew the CERT team would never be called out for a noise complaint where the suspect refused to come out. He also recognized that he couldn't just enter the residence.
Cap'n Crunch's solution is the Constitutional and Correct one - apply for an arrest warrant. Disturbing the Peace and Failure to Obey a Lawful Order come to mind....then they can enter the residence legally.
It's amazing how so many people that don't actually work in the LE field know so much more than those of us who do.
What I've been trying to explain is that this isn't an open-and-shut "murder" case for a lot of reasons, one of which is the illegal entry.
By saying this isn't open-and-shut, you're saying that the man may have had the right to knowingly kill cops who make errors while breaking the law (disturbing the peace).
What I've been trying to explain is that this isn't an open-and-shut "murder" case for a lot of reasons, one of which is the illegal entry.
But the man knew what he was doing, he intended to kill cops, he knew they were cops, he knew why the cops were there. A criminal shouldn't be allowed to kill cops if they make a constitutional error while in the process of arresting him. Hang the scumbag!
I don't know where you were a cop or who your cop friends are, but around here, if a scumbag breaks the law, the problem is dealt with without tying up a department all night and without digging through precedents or whatever to see what to do about someone who's just needs to sober up. People who have no respect for their neighbors and make all kinds of racket in town are scumbags.
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