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. >{?
Then we'll see how he feels about the 4th Amendment....
Having been in similar situations, it's my humble opinion that Trooper Corey Skidmore might have a problem with Betty Zito's "by any means necessary" statement.
First, again imho, this statement sounds somewhat contrived. It's far to 'legalese' for my taste. It's more reasonable to think she'd have said something like, "do what you have to do", or, "I don't care what you do, just get him out."
Second, rule # 1 (learned the first day at any police academy) when removing someone from a home, house, apt, etc. is to ask the question, "Does he (the suspect) have a gun"?If the troopers didn't ask this question, it was a fatal mistake, with the emphasis on *mistake.*
You can take the following to the bank.
There are lots of cops out there that watch too many reruns of NYPD Blue. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but the national trend regarding police tactics is troubling. Also, you can bet your bottom dollar that Betty Zito's statement will change before trial.
To smear anyone who questions such police tactics as "militia types" is to shut down the free and open exchange of ideas.
The nanny state is reaching into police dept.'s also. I see this more and more. When I go to honest Joe Citizen's house and he has a complaint and I tell him there is nothing I can do for him then maybe he'll start to vote for legislators who will do something for him.
I guess we are getting the government we vote for.
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, as we all know.
But did they call America Nazi Germany? By the way, you went through a lot of work for my post which wasn't the most serious one I've ever made. :^)
The point being made by many posters is that there is a fairly narrow, but well-defined boundary between proper police protocols, and police abuse. When the police (be they local, state or federal) overstep their bounds (for instance, at Waco and at Ruby Ridge) you see the spector of something not too different from the authoritarian European states of the 1930's and 1940's. Whether you call them jack-booted nazi thugs, or jack-booted fascist thugs makes little difference.
The people at Waco and Ruby Ridge were keeping to themselves. This guy was breaking the law in public infringing on his fellow citizen's peace. The police had to immediately make the man cease and desist, unlike in Waco and Ruby Ridge.
I responded to a comment that suggested in some locale the police would just "take care of the problem" (or something like that) - the suggestion being that they would not be bound by legal or Constitutional requirements ... they would be a law unto themselves.
On a disturbing the peace complaint, I believe that the police have the right to end this criminal activity. To tie up a department questioning each other whether they can stop him or not from disturbing the peace is stupid. I believe it's OK to act in a situation of a petty complaint where there are ambiguities. 999,999 out of a million, no one will get hurt. This guy was just a murderer waiting for his chance. I hope he fries. (I guess I'm just your friendly neighborhood jack-booted thug. LOL)
In my book, that's Nazi-ism. I hope I explained it a little bit better. I meant no personal offense.
[sarcasm on]Don't mention it. It doesn't offend me at all to be called a murdering Nazi over a trivial matter like a noise complaint. [sarcasm off] America is Nazi Germany because of the ambiguous suppression of people who make too much noisse in residential neighborhoods?
This guy was breaking the law in public infringing on his fellow citizen's peace. The police had to immediately make the man cease and desist ... I'm not totally clear from the article what, exactly, Frank Zito was doing, but from other posts on the threads, it sounds as if he was talking to himself. It also sounds like his mother called the police, on the pretext of disturbing the peace, to get him yet another psych eval. I disagree that the police "had to immediately make the man cease and desist." After all, it's not against the law to be a nut!
"On a disturbing the peace complaint, I believe that the police have the right to end this criminal activity." A "complaint" in and of itself does not mean a law was being broken, or had been broken. In college I had a party one evening in my apartment. Some very studious neighbors called the campus police who knocked on my door. I saw them through the peep hole and talked to them through the door. They said there was a noise complaint. I asked what time it was, and assured them the music would go off before 10 p.m. - which it did. They hung around for a while, but there wasn't much they could do - I was within my rights too!
This guy was just a murderer ... IF his acts were premeditated; IF the police acted within the law, and ;IF he had the capacity to make a rationale judgment, you may be right. Thanks for the discussion.
Yes, if he wasn't being an immediate public nuisance, then the police shouldn't have broke in. But two dead cops for this error is extreme.
A "complaint" in and of itself does not mean a law was being broken, or had been broken.
It's against the law to disturb the peace.
In college I had a party one evening in my apartment. Some very studious neighbors called the campus police who knocked on my door. I saw them through the peep hole and talked to them through the door. They said there was a noise complaint. I asked what time it was, and assured them the music would go off before 10 p.m. - which it did. They hung around for a while, but there wasn't much they could do - I was within my rights too!
You have no respect for others.
This guy was just a murderer ... IF his acts were premeditated; IF the police acted within the law, and ;IF he had the capacity to make a rationale judgment, you may be right. Thanks for the discussion.
He's a murderer.
Sure I have respect. I refrained from puking up beer on their front doorstep!
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