Posted on 10/01/2002 7:16:59 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Dozens protest Preble County police shooting
Slain mans roommates say he was unarmed
EATON | Preble County law-enforcement officials declined to talk publicly Monday as they turned information about Friday's fatal shooting by a police officer of a 23-year-old man over to detectives from the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
Montgomery County investigators, called in by Preble County Sheriff Tom Hayes, also said they would not talk about their review of the shooting by a member of a Preble County's emergency services group officers from a number of police departments who are trained to handle drownings and hostage and other situations.
However, it was anything but quiet outside the Preble County Courthouse, where dozens of friends and relatives picketed and said that police were covering up what happened to Clayton Jacob Helriggle, 23, of 1282 Ohio 503 South.
The protesters disputed police claims that Helriggle had a gun when he descended a stairwell and was shot by a Lewisburg police officer, whose identity has not been released. Friends and relatives on Monday carried blue plastic cups similar to the one they said Helriggle had in his hand Friday night.
Among the protesters were four of Helriggle's roommates, three of whom said they were inside the brick farmhouse when police stormed the house to serve a warrant to search for narcotics.
Maj. Wayne Simpson of the Preble County Sheriff's Office declined to discuss information about what happened Friday night and said a report on the shooting of the Preble County man had not been completed. Preble County Prosecutor Rebecca Ferguson said she sealed the search warrant after the shooting, and had no comment regarding the investigation.
"They're a professional group of officers, that's what their job is, and I'm not going to second-guess them. Whatever (Montgomery County officials) come up with, they come up with," Ferguson said.
Friends called Helriggle "peaceful and nonviolent," but police said the 1997 Twin Valley South High School graduate held a 9 mm handgun, not a blue cup, in his right hand when he descended the dimly lighted stairs. Roommates said Helriggle owned a 9 mm gun, but that it was upstairs when police entered their house.
"It's like we were armed, hardened criminals waiting inside to take them on," said Wes Bradley, 26, who lived in the bottom of the six-bedroom farmhouse with his girlfriend, 22-year-old Tasha Webster.
Bradley said he and Webster were near the kitchen next to the stairs, when officers "broke through the back door with battering rams and started throwing in flash grenades three at a time, to blind us."
The officers wore full body armor and carried shields, he said.
Another roommate, Ian Albert, said he had returned home from the grocery store with Chris Elmore, 24, who remained outside while Albert ran into the house.
"We saw at least two paddy wagon-type vehicles, like a SWAT bus," Elmore said. "About 30 officers stormed out of the woods" surrounding the farmhouse. "They'd cut the barbed wire, and you could see a staging area, like where 25 to 30 uniformed cops had been lying down and slithered along the grass."
Officers ordered Elmore to get on the ground, and he said he heard three pops, which he said could have been the flash grenades and gunshot.
"I yelled 'Nobody's armed,' and they told me, 'Shut up, shut up.'
Elmore described the action "like a movie, in slow motion."
Inside, Albert said, the police threw him against the staircase, "with my head on the second step up. I wanted to yell at Clay, but I looked up and saw him, rounding the stairway, and he had this look on his face, like, 'What's going on?' and the cops yelled, 'Get down' and then 'boom.'
Albert, who completed four months of Navy Seal training, said he reached up for Helriggle, "and I tried to apply pressure," he said, placing his left palm on his right chest, where Helriggle was struck by the gunshot.
"He died in my arms," he said. "It took about two minutes."
Albert said he was placed in a sheriff's car, and Helriggle's parents arrived.
"They saw me, drenched in Clay's blood, and they ask me, 'Is he all right?' and I just shook my head. The cops are smoking and joking, high-fiving each other. Wow, I think, they took down a farm of unarmed hippies.
"If they would have come to the door and said, 'Give us your dope, hippies,' we'd have gotten about a $100 ticket."
Police said they confiscated a small amount of marijuana, pills, drug paraphernalia and quantities of packaging items used in the distribution of marijuana.
The four roommates said they smoke marijuana from time to time and that they had marijuana pipes in the house. Bradley said he had a prescription for Fiorocet, a codeinelike painkiller, for a bad knee. They said the packaging police referred to was a box of plastic sandwich bags.
Webster said there was nothing in the house "that a good divorce lawyer couldn't have gotten us out on a misdemeanor," and said an old shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle found there were used for hunting.
"We target-practiced outside all the time, shot at bales of hay, jugs, that sort of thing," Webster said.
Bradley and Webster said Helriggle took a nap around 5 p.m. and had made plans to meet his girlfriend later.
"I'm not sure if he woke up from the bashing on the door or what," Bradley said.
All four said they were not read their rights or told what charges were filed against them. They were released from the Preble County Jail around 1:30 a.m. Saturday. No criminal charges have been filed.
Nancy Fahrenholz, the daughter of Everett "Bill" Fahrenholz, an attorney and former country prosecutor, hugged Bradley on Monday at the courthouse. Helriggle and five roommates rented the house from the Fahrenholzes.
"I'm so sorry," said Fahrenholz, a Rhode Island resident in the area to finish up the estate of her father, Bill Fahrenholz, who died a month ago.
"(Dad) would have been furious at this," she said. "We're all very distressed."
She said Helriggle "was a really nice guy," and that her family was pleased with the five young people's work on rehabilitating the farmhouse.
Helriggle's 77-year-old grandfather, Donald, a Miamisburg resident and Ohio Bell retiree, said his grandson rented the farmhouse "so they could play their instruments, listen to their music and drink a little beer. . . . They just wanted to be doing what 23-year-olds do."
There are laws restricting marijuana sales and possession at the federal level and in all fifty states, the cult's hatred of representative government notwithstanding.
Possibly. But wheather or not he had the gun in his hand, or wheather he even knew it was a SWAT team making all the noise downstairs is very much in question from the information available in the article. What kind of "judgement" does it take to jump to conclusions, and argue based on facts not in evidence?
This kind of condescention is funny from a FR wannabe lawyer who thinks that finding "gun" and "Commerce Clause" on the same page means without question that the Supreme Court reasoned that since gun ownership is an enumerated right in the Bill of Rights it can't be regulated by the Commerce Clause.The case you cited was about commerce, not enumerated rights, as the Court further explains:
"Proyect attempts to distinguish this body of authority by arguing that, while growing marijuana for distribution has a significant impact on interstate commerce, growing marijuana only for personal consumption does not. Despite the fact that he was convicted of growing more than 100 marijuana plants, making it very unlikely that he personally intended to consume all of his crop, Proyect contends that no one may be convicted under a statute that fails to distinguish between the cultivation of marijuana for distribution and the cultivation of marijuana for personal consumption. This contention is without merit."
I seriously doubt the ninja coppers would be able to establish a GO position without the Dog giving them away. In a graphic way, this is my best guess of what happens if they took down my house. The dog barks like mad, I get up with arms to find out why. Hey, the wife has someone hell bent on her death, so this is a regular occurrence. Then they bust in the door, we all get to find out how munch Kevlar a .338 WM will punch through. I die from several 9mm rounds form an MP-5 (probably not a well aimed controlled burst), then (TF)Mrs. Dead Dog gets popped by a sniper's .308 or gets one shot of .00 buck before she joins me in a blowing frothy blood bubbles on the floor.
I would never live long enough to find out who broke in my house, and really, wouldn't have any other responsible choice but to defend my home and loved ones. My parents never get grand kids from this side of the family, and they get to bury their only son. The cops immortalize their fallen Hero's on TV, and write up their lack of a narcotics bust as another case of bad Intel. The mothers of the Cops children become involuntary single mom's and their children grow up with out their dads
But hey, it's a small price to pay to keep the streets clear of Mari Jane and Visine. This BS has to stop.
The way to fight drugs is to legalize it, and be honest to kids about the effects. Most people that actually try the stuff either walk away and never look back, or use it like I use beer on a Saturday afternoon. The others have problems and will be addicts regardless.
I don't even hold any animosity to the cops, they would just be fallowing orders, that are legal as far as they know. The problem lies with hand wringing bureaucrats buying votes with feel good legislation.
I can't help but think that one day, someone with combat experience and good reflexes will give these cowboys a little surprise they didn't bargain for. That person might actually HAVE A GUN and USE IT effectively. As there ARE home invasions that take place (committed by guys who AREN'T cops), a citizen has no choice but to open fire if a intruder breaks into the house unannounced..
That court being the 2nd Circuit, not the the USSC. You're aware that they aren't the same court?
The decision, and the decisions it referenced, lay to rest the lunatic contention that guns are subject to being outlawed because illicit drugs are.
Your argument lies smoking on the ground.
I sleep very well.
There are no illicit drugs on my property.
And I have no problems alerting local law enforcement to suspicious neighborhood activity.
I appreciate the job that they do to keep our communities safe.
Sure, I may grumble a little about an occasional parking ticket,
but what the heck, I pay my taxes for enforcement of parking regulations as well,
If I "take a chance" and get caught, then I gotta ante up the parking fine.
No big deal.
What if was YOUR son or daughter? What if it was YOU or your WIFE? Would your opinion change if it were you or your family who became the next victims of the drug police? They HAVE been known to get the address wrong on occasion, and HAVE shot and killed innocent men, women, and children. And that's not even including Waco...
Really? So the federal government no longer has the authority to prohibit posession of a sawed off shotgun under the Commerce Clause?
No . . . you're sh*tting me . . . really?The decision, and the decisions it referenced, lay to rest the lunatic contention that guns are subject to being outlawed because illicit drugs are. Your argument lies smoking on the ground.
No. The decision laid to rest the fact that possessing a gun did not equate to a form of COMMERCE which the federal government could regulate.I stand by my assessment that wannabe lawyers like you are an opposing attorney's wet dream.
In addition to short attention span, paranoia is another symptom of drug addiction.
Watch out for those Meter Maids!
They can be brutal! </sarcasm>
The same good neighbors let the distraught ex-husband of another neighbor case her property. They chose to stay out of that one, but whined to me about her bringing that element into their area.
A slightly off the subject comment. All that pointing of guns in the movies and on TV is unreal. In the real world, if someone is about to point his gun at you, you try to take him out BEFORE he has a chance to shoot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.