Posted on 10/01/2002 7:16:59 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Dozens protest Preble County police shooting
Slain man’s 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."
Didn't you know, the cops don't NEED no stinkin law, as they consider themselves ABOVE it. If they all decide that's what they are going to do, it simply becomes "policy".
It held that the Lopez standard does NOT apply to illicit drugs.
And emotional instability. You notice all the yowling on this thread?
So you spend your time compiling a dossier on others
to facilitate your trolls to the "Smokey Back Room".
That's gotta be one of the worst kept "secrets" on the entire forum.
Like what? Standing around? Laughing suspiciously? Beard too short? Perhaps we could move executions of "druggies" to local football fields where you could enjoy them more. Williban! That has a ring to it.
There are laws restricting marijuana sales and possession at the federal level and in all fifty states,
Laws at state levels reasonably ~regulating~ such activities are constitutional. Decrees prohibiting them at ANY level are not due process, thus unconstitutional. - Read a book.
the cult's hatred of representative government notwithstanding.
Roscoe, you are a leading member of the only 'cult' operating at FR. Your silly '5' posts are evidence of that, plus your ongoing 'war posts' against drugs, guns & the constitution itself. Busted again.
Uh, who other than the cops were armed in this story? And who was the drug dealer? Are you saying that possession of Baggies is now considered to be drug paraphenalia? Perhaps the DEA should raid all of the grocery stores in the USA that sell them...
Now we know where the blimpo-lesbo talk show host gets her lunatic ideas!
Isn't it comforting to know that if someone who you've pissed off calls the local drug tip hot line on you, YOU'LL be the NEXT "firearm toting druggie" executed by the cops. It doesn't matter if they find a joint or not, they'll just say a informant said that you were a distributor....
Sourceless, citeless, meritless, endless.
None of the perp's lost their lives. Just the victim did. You seem to forget that HOMICIDE is a crime.
What kind of idiot would come down the steps brandishing a 9mm handgun when the police SWAT team is making a drug bust?
Evidently not one person in this story did anything like that. The shooting victim was holding a blue cup in his hand, and his 9mm was stored away. He was going DOWNSTAIRS to see what was going on. You apparently can't understand is the simple fact that he probably had no idea of who broke into his house in the middle of the night, as it was probably DARK...
Nope.
One of the nice things about not being an addict is knowing that I'd never be so paranoid to over-react to an inadvertant intrusion. I might be a little startled at first, but would quickly conclude that there was some kind of mistake. As far as I'm concerned, they can search all they want, even without a warrant. There ain't nothing in my home worth getting all worked up about.
Of course, I also have the legal means to defend myself against criminal intrusion. But I trust my ability to judge the distinction between the two different situations. Another advantage of not having my thinking clouded by drug use.
You just better hope that your neighbors don't have any grudges against you, or just MIGHT find yourself in possesion of some illicit drugs on your property with the boys in BLACK smashing your door in...
The other drug dealers said so.
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