Breaking: David Kerstetter’s Family To Sue The District
On Nov. 6, 2008, David Kerstetter was shot and killed inside his home by D.C. police officers. Despite the decision of the U.S. attorney's office not to prosecute the officers involved, Kerstetter's family has filed a notice with the District that it plans to sue the city over their son's death. The family's attorney, Douglas Sparks, notified Mayor Adrian Fenty in a letter dated May 1 [PDF].
We have written about the Kerstetter shooting here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here---not to mention the cover story linked above. The Sparks letter is based on the lawyer's interviews with witnesses, the autopsy report, and an exhaustive scene analysis. It provides the first counter-narrative to law enforcement's public account that Kerstetter had lunged at the officers with a knife---that Officer Frederick Friday shot and killed the Logan Circle resident in self defense. The new evidence appears to point to excessive force.
On the morning of Nov. 6, Officers Friday and Christian Glynn responded to the Kerstetter home after receiving a radio report for a suspicious door. The two met with the condo complex's maintenance man and a concerned neighbor. Sparks writes:
The maintenance man nudged the door open further and yelled upstairs to David, asking if he was home and whether the maintenance man could go upstairs. David replied that he was home, but that he did not want the man to enter or come upstairs because he had seen the police officers standing behind him. David said they should just go away and just leave him alone. The police officers then stood just outside David's front door for twenty to forty minutes while they spoke further with the maintenance man and neighbor, communicated via radio with police supervisors, and discussed David's known mental illness...and his history of depression following the death of his partner one year earlier.
Sparks states that the officers were unsure about what to do next. Kerstetter had made it clear that he did not want them in his home. Soon, though, they became "impatient" and announced, "We're going in." Sparks says the officers had no "reasonable belief" that a crime was in progress. The two cops drew their guns, went inside, and walked up the stairs to the second-floor living room and kitchen area.
It is unclear what Officers Friday and Glynn found on the second floor. They must have noticed that the furnishings were immaculate, that everything was perfectly in place.
Officers Friday and Glynn eventually made their way up to the third floor.
Sparks notes in his letter:
The officers apparently knew of no standard protocol to follow when responding to calls involving persons in crisis or persons known to suffer from mental illness---whether from a lack of standards, or a lack of training to carry out existing standards. Nor did they seek assistance from specialists at the District's Department of Mental Health who were available to assist with these types of matters.
Officers Friday and Glynn found Kerstetter in his bedroom.
Even law enforcement officials are unsure as to what exactly happened inside that bedroom.
Immediately following the shooting, D.C. police issued a press release which stated: "The officers were suddenly confronted by an adult male...reportedly wielding a knife. Reportedly, a struggle ensued as the officers repeatedly ordered the man to drop the weapon. It was at that time that the police in the face of apparent imminent danger fired upon the subject."
The U.S. attorney's office tells a different account of the exchange between Kerstetter and Officers Friday and Glynn. Spokesperson Channing Phillips omits the struggle narrative in an e-mail to Washington City Paper:
Mr. Kerstetter threatened to take his own life and held a knife to his own throat. Despite reasonable efforts to avoid taking Mr. Kerstetter’s life by repeatedly telling him to drop the knife, Mr. Kerstetter instead lunged toward the officers with the knife and ultimately left the officer who had his weapon drawn with no choice but to use deadly force to protect himself and others from death or serious bodily injury.
Sparks says the shooting appears to be plain overkill. He points to the autopsy report [PDF] and his scene work. The bloody scene suggests that Kerstetter had been effectively caged in, that he had been trapped in the far left corner of the room between his bed and the bathroom door. So far there has been no evidence cited which supports a struggle between the cops and Kerstetter. The pictures on the bedroom walls remained untouched. A blood-stained vase next to the bathroom door hadn't been knocked over.
Kerstetter bled out in his bathroom.
According to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's autopsy report, Kerstetter was shot five times. There were two gunshot wounds to the torso. The track of each bullet was front to back and downward. There were three shots to the lower extremities hitting knee, femur, bladder, and so on. The track of each bullet was back to front and upward. "It's consistent with a man in a sitting position and falling backwards," Sparks says in an interview.
Sparks writes that the cops fired at least eight rounds at Kerstetter. The three allegedly missed bullets were found in the bathroom floor, the floorboard in front of the bathroom, and in a bathroom wall.
"The trajectory of the rounds that hit David, as well as those that missed him, establishes that the officers fired downward," Sparks writes. "Blood spatter patterns along baseboards, trim work and elsewhere demonstrate that most, and perhaps all, rounds were fired while David was down and incapacitated."
In an e-mail sent this afternoon, Phillips says that the U.S. attorney's office did not conduct blood-spatter analysis in this case, "but it's my understanding that it wouldn't have been necessary in this instance given the other corroborating evidence that was available."
Phillips says the evidence included the knife, shell casings, audiotaped witness statements, and toxicology report.
"Shell casings---we all know they shot him. No surprise they found shell casings. They found a knife. What does that establish? The issue in question is where were the officers and where was [Kerstetter] when they fired off eight rounds," Sparks says. "Had they done a blood-spatter analysis, they would have discovered that it contradicts the police assertions and is far more reliable and scientific."
"We did a thorough forensic examination through a combination of highly respected experts in a variety of disciplines," Sparks adds. He says that he would want to see law enforcement's forensic examinations. "What was the available forensic evidence they relied upon? We'd sure like to see it. Not just we. When homicides are committed in our name with our money, the public has a right to know the facts on a basic moral level."
Sparks notes that police missed at least one bullet during the course of their examination of the Kerstetter home. The family found the bullet when they went through their son's bedroom. The bullet was found in a floor board:
"If there's something that's justified let's find out. If there's something that's not, let's fix it," Sparks explains.
In the aftermath of the Kerstetter shooting---and the shooting death of Osman Abdullahi---the police department has decided to completely overhaul how it deals with mentally-ill residents.
Photographs courtesy of Douglas Sparks
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9:33 pm
Why the Christ didn't you put some warning at the top, near the headline, that this item contains gruesome, bloody photos of a murder scene?
That's just reckless. I was not prepared for what I saw.
10:55 pm
Hey John: David Kerstetter and his parents weren't prepared for this, either. Cherkis and CP have done an outstanding job reporting the truth, and the truth really hurts sometimes.
11:10 pm
This law suit is a joke. Those officers did exactly what they were supposed to do....go inside and verify his safety. If Kerstetter hadn't threatened the officers, he would still be alive today. In a closed environment, what are those cops supposed to do? Use pepper spray? It would effect them to. Use their baton? Yeah....swinging a baton in a small space....good luck with that. And in the mean time....this guy is coming at you with a knife?!?!! Forget that....those cops did what they had to do to make sure that they went home to their families that night. I'd rather see Kerstetter 6 feet down than either (or both) of those cops. Those officers are going to have to live with the thought that they ended a life....but they did what they had to do and that's a potential outcome when they sign up for that job. I feel for the officers who now have to relive that because of this garbage lawsuit. I only wish that the MPD, or the officers, or the city, could counter-sue for crap like this. And as far as how Cherkis writes the article.....I thought "journalists" are supposed to be impartial? The articles he's written about this is anything but. It could have been a great series of pieces pointing out a potential void of training that the MPD should fill by having officers (or a unit of officers) with a better understanding of mental health issues, but instead, it became a tainted diatribe about how he thinks cops are so low that two of them would actually just stand there and decide to execute someone....which is beyond belief. I hope you're as willing to apoligize in a follow up article to Officer Friday and Officer Glynn when it is shown (again) that they did as they were trained and were deffending themselves. If I see either of those two officers around DC, I will offer to buy them a beer when they get off duty for doing their job.
11:33 pm
dave is obviously a DC cop.
11:40 pm
Nope.....a budget analyst. Wrong again.
11:44 pm
Regardless of who dave is, he's certainly not Dave. I think we can all agree on that.
6:50 am
Jason isn't Jason Cherkis either.
7:19 am
I'm the first to admit that a lot of these "police brutality" complaints are total BS and usually come from people who were being stupid and got tazed or maced when they should have gotten more.
HOWEVER, from what I read of the availiable evidence, and in the absence of more substantial evidence about the struggle; I'd say this was definitely a legitmate case of excessive force. I've seen how DC cops like to agitate people and wouldn't be at all surprised if they said something stupid to push this guy over the edge (which might not have had to be much given he was apparently mentally ill). Even if the man did come at them wih a knife, I see no need to fire 8 shots at a person when one or two properly placed shots can easily down (without killing) a man easily. Similar thing happened in Minneapolis a few years ago to a guy I sat behind in high school--Minneapolis police shot him 12 times for "coming at [them] with a golf club"--come on like 12 shots were needed to subdue someone who was tecnical unarmed, right...
Dave I think you need to re-read the blood-spatter results it seems pretty undeniable to me that those shots were fired with the shooters standing and the victim sitting or laying down. Somehow I don't think the guy was a danger if he was already subdued, so why did they feel the need to pump a few more rounds into him? I understand the need and desire to protect ones self, but police are made aware the dangers they face going into the job; and to me, non-lethal attempts should be made and I don't ready any evidence that such was done here.
And as for the pictures and the person who felt they needed to be warned--shut up and deal with it! You watch CSI? Law and Order? FOX? You see far more grusome things on TV and movies every day--you only complain about this because it's REAL HUMAN LIFE that is involved! Sure is easier to ignore a tragic situation without the photos and I bet you'd prefer it that way...but life doesn't work that way and you can't deny the grotesque amount of violence that actually exists, and isn't nearly as glorious as the big screen makes it look.
Sad sad...
8:36 am
I agree. In future, CP should place a warning at the beginning of the story: "The following graphic suicide-by-cop story contains graphic suicide-by-cop photos." Because some readers might be expecting photos of ponys farting rainbows.
10:19 am
I see Douglas Sparks still chasing ambulances and making a living at sueing the DC Goverment, he finally found a case that didnot involve prisoners
11:09 am
Given his history of mental illness, they should have been more careful when entering. I say the officers should be at least disciplined and the family compensated by the city. Not a huge amount, but something for their suffering.
As to the pictures- we have all seen worse.
11:42 am
I knew David for over 10 years and his partner, paul, was my best friend while living in DC. Granted, David had MANY problems but for them to justify that this shell of a person was life-threatening to them is beyond comprehension!
12:22 pm
So there in a confined space of a small bedroom and someone lunges at you with a knife.....you think you'll have time to aim for the knee?! Or the shoulder? And HOPE that shot will be enough to make this unstable man stop? Did the cops know if Kerstetter was high on PCP....no. It's not news to hear about how impervious to pain someone on PCP can be. Or on crystal meth...which is quite popular in DC and in the gay community. So those officers did what they had to do to make sure they went home that night......good for them and too bad for Kerstetter's family. I did feel bad for them for their loss....until they hired that scumbag lawyer. Now it seems like a money grab.
And as far was how the officers entered carefully or not.....there was a door that had been forced open and that was what they were called for. They had an obligation to go in and see that the owner of the house was there and was not being held against his will or being harmed by a burgler. Would it really be responsible of the police to just leave the scene of a potential break-in becasue some voice yells down the stairs for the police to leave?!?!?! Come on.....really?! Think about it.
Know if the evidence shows that the cops executed Kerstetter while he was lying or sitting on the ground and they can't justify the shooting for their safety...then yes.....go after the officers. But I highly doubt that two officers are going to risk their carreers (and obvious long jail time) and just decide to start executing people.
12:43 pm
Remember Dave: the evidence points to David at the far corner of the bedroom. The cops are on the other side of the bedroom. There is a huge bed between the cops and David.
Just saying there was a) plenty of room between them; b) there was a bed between them; c) it appears that the office that fired the shots fired across the bed. The other officer was standing right next to the bedroom door. Also: Kerstetter was found in just boxers.
The evidence seems to point to Kerstetter either sitting our crouching down when he was shot.
2:53 pm
Could it have been different if MPD was allowed to carry TASERS? Maybe....those are pretty effective at stopping someone with less-than lethal force. But that's not the issue you raised. So lets say the bedroom is 12x12 and the closest officer is at the farthest point from Kerstetter...how much time do you think those officers had to make a decision that would either send them home that evening or to the hospital at best (possibly the morgue because those vests aren't knife-resistant)). How much time would it take for Kerstetter to jump accross that bed? Or run around it? As soon as he started moving towards the officers, they might have at best....2 seconds? Maybe three if you want to be generous. And during that time, a man in his boxers (I don't know what that was relevent, but Jason pointed it out) with a knife is coming at you. If that were me, I would have been pulling that trigger until he was on the ground. And how much time do you think it takes to unload 4 rounds from each officer? It doesn't take long to pull the trigger 4 times. Kerstetter had all the time in the world to make his decision....the officers probably had a second or two at best once Kerstetter started moving and it registered that the officers were in danger, yet some people seem to think it's an easy choice to make and they could have done better. Kerstetter could have chosen to put the knife down. Those officers were faced with making a horrible choice.....and they chose to make sure that they went home that night.
3:48 pm
Dave, you're defending officers who entered a home with no reason to suspect a crime had occurred and without permission from the owner to enter his home. Why? Doesn't this obvious infringement on civil liberties make you the slightest bit uneasy?
5:36 pm
The officers had plenty of time to make a decision on drawing their weapons. They waited outside Kerstetter's condo for 20 to 40 minutes--enough time to talk to a neighbor, call David's old shrink, and talk to their bosses. Then they just went in, guns drawn.
5:38 pm
So according to Campbell, a call to the police for a door that was busted open is not a reason to go inside.....I see. So if someone breaks into a house and a neighbor calls the police...what are they supposed to do? Look at the busted door and say "yup....all is clear." and leave?!?!?! No....they go in....check to see if someone is there. If there is someone there...is that the home owner? Or do they have permission to be there? Are they ok? Did someone break in and then leave? Is there possibly still a criminal in the house if it was broken in to? They need to talk to the resident and make sure that there isn't someone in there telling them to send the cops away. So I don't know where you get the idea that the had no reason to suspect a crime had occured....they had EVERY reason to suspect that a crime had occured! That's why the complex’s maintenance man and a concerned neighbor called the police in the first place!!!!! Obviously they had enough of a reason to believe a crime had occured to call the police....maybe they should be sued too! If they hadn't had called the police, maybe none of this would have happened.
5:59 pm
So once again Jason....what are the cops supposed to do....just leave becasue some guy yells down the stairs for them to go? I can only hope that if ever someone breaks into my house, that the officers would come in...guns drawn....and make sure that anyone in the house is supposed to be there and is ok before they go away. Any one who thinks the cops should just leave because some voice tells them to go....well....I don't know how anyone with an ounce of brain matter can think that is what a reasonable officer should do when they're called to check on a door that was broken open to someone's house.
6:05 pm
So Jason.....you're saying that that's what the officers were doing outside.....deciding to execute someone....I see.
7:19 pm
I am not saying that their decision was to execute someone. Not at all. Dave: they were outside the condo for 20-to-40 minutes--enough time for them to talk to the neighbor and maintenance man, and for David's mother to talk to the neighbor, for the cops to call their boss. They knew that david was in crisis. The evidence of David being in crisis far out weighed any evidence that a crime had been committed or was in progress.
The cops communicated with David. David told them to go away. There's obviously more to this. I want to know where David was in the apartment when the cops walked inside--was he already in his bedroom or was he somewhere else?
After the cops assessed the situation and realized--by their own account--that David was in crisis, they should have radioed for help, called DMH's crisis response team, etc.
I think the only thing we can say is the obvious: the police escalated the situation. Guns drawn, etc.
8:21 pm
Can I just say how much I hate the term "in crisis"? It sucks.
Just needed to say that.
9:26 pm
Why do people bother responding to "dave"? He's a guy who obstinately refuses to let facts get in the way of his preconceived conclusions. No need to consider objective blood spatter, bullet trajectory, and medical examiner findings when we have subjective statements from the cops. Right "dave"? As dave writes he would do, let's all just close this case and buy a couple rounds for the cops!! Yepper.
9:46 pm
Someone should tell dave too many ellipsis make you sound paranoid.
9:48 pm
"If they hadn’t had called the police, maybe none of this would have happened."
Thank you for making our point!
12:47 am
I'm sure you all who want to believe the officers executed Kerstetter would have done so much better when Kerstetter lunged at you with a knife in the bedroom. Maybe do a Steven Segal move and just slap the knife out of his hand. Or you would have never gone in to the house and just hoped for the best...even though Officer Friday knew that Kerstetter was suicidal.....but that's no reason to go inside after trying to get Kerstetter's therapist on the phone....just leave and HOPE that today is NOT the day that the suicidal bi-polar crystal meth user Kerstetter kills himself on the call you just showed up for....right? Or just keep waiting.....they had all the time in the world...right? Of course the officers knew that Kerstetter wasn't slitting his wrists or doing something else to harm himself....they teach these officers how to read minds at the police academy don't 'cha know! Good luck with that twisted "logic" y'all. And if anyone sees my door kicked open, please, call 9-1-1 and tell them to send the MPD right away to make sure I'm okay; I promise I'll do the same for you.
9:58 am
The police have a delima, don't go inside and check on Mr. Krestetter and his family finds him dead or injured; then we would be hearing about how incompetent DC Cops are. The family would be suing because they failed to diligently do their jobs. The Cops go in, are confronted by a man weilding a knife and respond the way they are tought when confronted by individuals armed with knives and they are vilified. Cops are not mental health experts, animal behavior experts, or any of the other things the public seem to want them to be experts in when responding to a crisis. The residents of this community need to decide what they want, clearly, they cannot have it both ways.
10:38 am
Thank you Lee. You phrased it far better than I did. And also a great point putting in the comment about not being animal control experts either. I remember when a DC cop shot a dog that wasn't on a leash and so many people were screaming about how it was the cops fault.....that was another one I had to speak up about. Another example of how so many people seem to have these unreal expectations of the police. As if the owner had no responsibility for having his dog off a leash and a cop is supposed to instantly know if a dog running at him/her is friendly or not. But that's another thread that I won't opine on again.
10:58 am
Lee: You wrote: "The residents of this community need to decide what they want, clearly, they cannot have it both ways."
The residents--or at least a band of concerned lawyers, judges, advocates, mental-health workers--decided more than a decade ago what they wanted the D.C. Police to do. They lobbied for the police department to actually train and professionalize it's response to people w/ a mental illness. Even the head of DMH lobbied for it when he first arrived.
After the Kerstetter shooting and the shooting of Osman Abdullahi, they finally decided to do something about it.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/03/04/dc-police-department-to-overhaul-how-it-handles-mentally-ill-residents-in-crisis/
11:13 am
I am by no means against giving officers more training to deal with mental health issues they come accross; I'm all for it. But you can't say that Kerstetter wouldn't have lunged with a knife at an officer trained to handle suicidal bi-polar crystal meth users. And based on a lot of the arguments...that's the impression I'm getting from the other people who have responded to these articles. And the officers knew that Kerstetter was suicidal and one of them even said that he couldn't wait to go in there. Obviously it was that he wanted to make sure Kerstetter wasn't trying to kill himself. And of course they're going to go in to a house with a potential burgler trapped inside...with guns drawn for their own safety. Like I've said, those officers did exactly what they had to do to make sure they went home that night. I think I've repeated myself enough now. I'm done.
11:19 am
Just last year a suicidal man crashed his car and was brought to GW. After a 4 hour stand off, he leapt to his death from the 3rd story window at GW Hosp The whole medical community and a special mental health crisis mediation team were unable to save him.
Obviously each case is different but just as obviously no system is perfect and it's pure speculation to get into woulda coulda shoulda talk.
11:43 am
___ is right. And that's sort of what I said early on; "It could have been a great series of pieces pointing out a potential void of training that the MPD should fill by having officers (or a unit of officers) with a better understanding of mental health issues....", but unfortunately, that's not how the article was written or the response Mr. Cherkis wanted to encourage. I wish the need for training was the focus instead of the perception that the two officers decided to execute Kerstetter and then his family using Sparks to grab some $$ from the city. If they really wanted to use the loss of their son to better others (and not themselves), they would do what the family of David Rosenbaum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._Rosenbaum) did and make the law suit examine the MPD's ability to respond to individuals with mental health issues.
11:53 am
The family and Sparks are doing exactly what the Rosenbaum Family did. All they want is for this to never happen again. The lawsuit isn't about the money.
I've been told by Sparks repeatedly that he is using the Rosenbaum case as a model.
11:54 am
I also think Dave that you are willfully ignoring Sparks forensic findings i.e. blood spatter analysis that points to Kerstetter sitting or crouching when he was killed.
12:17 pm
Officers handle mentally ill people every day. They can properly handle thousands of cases without one person acknowledging or appreciating it, and then they have to justifiably use deadly force one time, and they are accused of murder. If the blood splatter and trajectory results can not be refuted and show, without a doubt, that the officers executed Kerstetter as he sat motionless on the floor, then I hope they prosecute the officers and send them to jail for a long time. But I find it almost impossible to believe that a Master Patrol Officer with more than 20 years on the job and a rookie would decide to do that. A person who is near retirement and a young officer with his whole career ahead of him...and they're both going to decide to risk everything and execute someone? That just doesn't seem likely to me. As with all shootings, they should investigate, but this forum and these articles have already labeled these officers guilty of murder. Hardly objective writing Jason. As for what the family asks the city for in the settlement....we'll see. I'll be impressed if they resove it like the Rosenabum family did and use these events for the benefit of the community, but Sparks isn't really known for those kinds of settlements now...is he?
12:43 pm
Sparks is known for these kinds of settlements.Read this:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/04/09/dept-of-corrections-apologizes/
Also, officers may handle mentally ill residents every day. But enough watchdogs and interested parties believed they could do much better. The Office of Police Complaints had lobbied Chief Ramsey and Chief Lanier on that point.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=34836
Like I said above, advocates have pressed for more than a decade for D.C. Police to make this issue a priority.
3:34 pm
If you keep the focus of your articles on the latter part of your last comment, I think you'll have a much better story (who wouldn't want a police officer to be as well trained as possible?). But if you keep the Kerstetter shooting as opinionated as you've been writing it, then, I almost hate to say it, but that's no better than what Bill O'Reilly does.....and that's just low.
5:00 pm
Jason wrote: The residents–or at least a band of concerned lawyers, judges, advocates, mental-health workers–decided more than a decade ago what they wanted the D.C. Police to do. They lobbied for the police department to actually train and professionalize it’s response to people w/ a mental illness. Even the head of DMH lobbied for it when he first arrived.
That does nothing for the officer in the street making life and death decisions in split seconds. All the Monday morning quaterbacking will not change the fact that officers must act, they do not have the time to do all the things you keep writing about.
5:07 pm
They do have the time. Dozens of police departments have adopted what advocates in this city wanted. It's called the CIT Model.You can read about it here:
http://www.memphispolice.org/Crisis%20Intervention.htm
And here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0aqB_6tyM-IC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=CIT+or+Memphis+Model+in+community+policing&source=bl&ots=VmKqidD73z&sig=4ik13P1LEgMJgPYAUTHAxWxRfg4&hl=en&ei=8YcMSp-dJIyw8ATf3_zRDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA36,M1
And guess what? Lanier has moved toward adopting the CIT model as well. Even she thinks her own police officers can handle it.
2:29 pm
This wasn't a murder. This was a suicide; a 'successful' suicide after numerous recent failed suicide attempts. And a very sad event for all involved, including the police officers who tried to help.
David was sick and crazy and on drugs. He hadn't really worked for 15 years and had been totally dependent on his partner Paul who passed away a year earlier. Without Paul, he went from one tail spin to another - and took his friends, neighbors and loved ones with him.
People are judging the situation based on what they hear form the attorney, the author and his parents - none of whom were there. Those people who were there know what happened - and it wasn't murder.
3:02 pm
I was Paul's partner for several years after he moved to D.C. Although we had not been in contact for many years before his death in 2007, it still came as a shock. I was particularly saddened to learn that his years with David were so stressful. Paul was a sweet, wonderful man and deserved so much better. I would like to hear from anyone who would like to share any reminiscences they have about Paul at raysmithva(at)hotmail(dot)com.
5:40 pm
Jason, you say officers have the time. I take it you are making this statement based on your vast experience handling armed mentally ill individuals who are trying to stab you with knifes for other edge weapons, and your overwhelming success employing this fantasy program your write about all the time.
The facts is, you don't know what you are talking about. You should restrict yourself to rendering opinions on subjects you are an expert in, and qualified to give opinions on. As I see it you are qualified to give professional opinions on print journalism nothing else. By the way, how about reporting the facts and letting the reader draw his or her own conclusion. Your writing in this and most of your artilce about policing protray officers negatively.
9:56 pm
Lanier thinks her rank and file have the time. That's why she's decided to change how officers respond to people with mental illness.
Lee--see above.
5:33 pm
Lanier has done nothing to support her officers as they try to police this city. All she does is give in to pressure from the press, instead of doing what she knows is right.
2:05 am
Первые два комментатора говорят правду :)