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

The speeches may constitute wishful thinking considering that these agencies are under the microscope either by Colbert King or the courts. The court monitor's report issued last week on CFSA was not pretty. Judging from the breakout sessions, social workers and advocates have a lot to learn from the children they are paid to protect and nurture.

The breakout session on getting parents involved promised testimony from a young girl in the system. She took a seat in the front of the room and smiled awkwardly as the two panelists talked about her. The two panelists---Gail Avent, the executive director of the Total Family Care Coalition, and Laurie Ellington, a DMH manager---could not have been more enthusiastic or engaging on the topic of this girl's story and the importance of pulling parents into I.E.P. meetings, etc.

Certainly, parent involvement is a good thing. Inevitably, a school worker lamented that some parents didn't show up for stuff---that they could be difficult. I could not help but raise the point that often a parent's first involvement with the system was either through the police or the infamous CFSA hotline. Last year, roughly 30 percent of juveniles with pending criminal cases had been the subject of a neglect/abuse case. The hotline has long been a problem--those calls have rarely resulted in immediate action. Even before the Banita Jacks case, the agency had more than 300 cases in its backlog.

A CFSA worker in the audience jumped in and said my comments were out of bounds. He was upset that his agency had been "singled out." In other words, the man's feelings were hurt. He refused to address the points I raised.

Instead, the young girl attempted to do so. Towards the end of the session, it came time to hear from her about her own first-hand experiences in the system.

The girl opened with two complaints: After a month in the system, she stated she had not heard from her lawyer-guardian or CFSA social worker. She also had been given no money for clothes.

The girl got two-three sentences into her story. Then bam. A DCPS worker in the audience interrupted her and started to challenge the girl's experience.

The girl fled the room. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

Adults followed her outside and into the nearby ladies room. But it was too late. The girl did not finish her testimony.

It was an enlightening moment but for all the wrong reasons. You'd think DCPS and CFSA employees would be open to criticism without freaking out---without driving a girl to tears.

In the afternoon, child advocates and city employees were much more open at the youth panel expertly moderated by Jose DeArteaga, a DYRS progam manager. Six kids took turns relating their experiences. They talked about the need for more gay-lesbian-transgendered programs, credited the Peaceoholics with its outreach efforts (the group had a lot of street cred among the panelists), and praised individual mentors with getting them through tense periods in their lives. The audience responded with applause and empathetic questions.

The social workers and advocates looked at the panel for answers on how they could reach kids, how they could improve upon the work that they do. The exchanges were genuine. The kids said they just wanted respect without judgment from their social workers. They wanted them to be there, to show up in their communities if necessary.

The kids seemed particularly drawn to non-governmental groups for support. Positive Nature was praised as being like a big family. Peaceoholics saved another former criminal: "Without them I don't know where I'd be at right now."

When the kids were done, the audience gave them a standing ovation.

Our beloved photographer, Darrow Montgomery, who just biked past him, points him out.

I ask him what's wrong. He says he has asthma, that he needs help. His voice is hoarse. Another man shows up. I will learn later that this man works at Payless. The man on the ground apparently has stolen a black purse.

The Payless man tells the other man to wait---the police have been called.

The man then walks as fast as he can up to our parking deck. He then makes like he wants to jump off the deck. He mumbles about wanting to kill himself, that life isn't worth living.

He is grabbed. We get him to sit down. His name is Thomas.

I leave Darrow and the Payless employee to keep the man occupied. I run inside WCP and call the Department of Mental Health's mobile crisis unit. This is where things get annoying.

I first try and call the DMH helpline. It's busy. I call again. It's still busy. I try the main number where I am finally transferred to mobile crisis. This is the unit that responds when residents are freaking out, when their freak outs aren't necessarily criminal. [At the time, I did not know about the stolen purse].

Once on the line with mobile crisis, I am asked all sorts of questions that just don't feel relevant at the time. Who are you? What is your name? What is the spelling of your name? What is your phone number? Did you call the police?

I am then told that I should really just call the police. Should the D.C. Police really be the answer?

When the police and paramedics show up, they seem just really put out. One complains about Thomas' cigarette. They begin to check the guy out. His sugar level is fine. His heart rate is fine.

Mobile Crisis calls me back on my cellphone. They'd like me to pass their number on to the "lead" cop on the scene.

I talk to Officer Jose L. Rodriguez. He refuses to take Mobile Crisis' number. He says Thomas was only "pretending" to be suicidal.

I ask Rodriguez: How do you know he was only pretending when you were not here, did not see what we saw, did not hear the guy say he wanted to off himself?

"I've dealt with him before," Rodriguez says. "It's not the first time" that he's stolen goods from the neighborhood. This is all a big act."

Whatever brought him here with that fake-leather purse seems immaterial. The man appeared deeply troubled, near tears, and at the time really wanting to jump. Isn't that enough for mobile crisis?

Thomas is escorted down the parking deck. Rodriguez says he will be brought to Payless, photographed, and issued some kind of barring notice. He will then be released. He is homeless.

"At approximately 11:50 a.m., on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, an off-duty Metropolitan Police Department detective reportedly exited his vehicle in the area of the 1600 block of Kalorama Road, NW and was attacked by an apparently deranged man unknown to him. The detective apparently was almost beaten to the point of unconsciousness. At that point, in fear of his life, the detective was forced to draw and discharge his service handgun, striking the suspect once in the abdomen.

The detective has been with the Metropolitan Police Department for 20 years and is currently assigned to the Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries at a local hospital and released. The detective, whose name is being withheld at this time, has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of the investigation.

The identity of the suspect, who appears to be emotionally disturbed, has not yet been determined. He was transported to an area hospital in police custody on a charge of Aggravated Assault and admitted in stable condition."

This follows the shooting death of David Kerstetter in early November and yesterday morning's shooting death of Osman Abdullahi.

Update 1:36 p.m. I just talked to a police official who knows the detective involved in yesterday's shooting.

"Nothing bad to say about the guy," the official says. "Never in any trouble and does his work and does good work. All he felt was a knock in the head. He had to defend himself. He was very upset about it. He felt very concerned about the person he shot and concerned about his own safety. He had a hell of knot on his head."

“Luckily it worked out where nobody died. He could have been seriously hurt with that blow to the head," the official says.

For another version from an anonymous partial witness, read below in the comments section.

David Kerstetter, the man who police shot and killed, was familiar to officers who worked on 13th Street and officers who worked in the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.

"He had some issues in his life," says Brett Parson, who oversees all of the D.C. Police Department's liaison units. "Whether it was mental health or stress in his life, I can't tell you that....It's a sad case."

The incident may eventually be ruled as justified. But it calls into serious question the D.C. Police Department's continued refusal to adequately deal with mentally-distressed residents.

Just a few days ago, the Department of Mental Health (DMH) launched a new outreach program aimed at preventing such incidents. On November 1, the department started up its mobile crises response teams. The teams have a staff of 20 working 16 hours per day, seven days a week.

Stephen T. Baron, DMH’s director, says that mobile crises response team may not have been called over a technicality. His agency is still waiting for the police department to sign a memorandum of understanding.

“I don’t know all the details," Baron says of the Kerstetter incident. "I spoke to Chief (Diane) Groomes briefly about it. It’s a tragedy for everybody all around."

Would his new crises team have responded to such a case? “I’m sure it would have," Baron says. "I’m sure they would have shown up. But who knows where they were in the process? The police are handling it. They can’t stop.”

Baron goes on to say: "We don’t have our mou with the police in place. I think everything happened so quickly. We’re doing training of cadets. We’re doing training. We deliberately rolled out the mobile crisis slowly. They need some training. I don’t know all the details about this case to even comment on it.”