bloodrayne
07-27-2006, 06:17 PM
Police Say Mob Kept Them Away From Victim Of Shooting
California - It started out as a call about an early morning shooting in San Francisco's Western Addition, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary for an often-troubled neighborhood.
But after that, there was nothing routine about what happened.
Police say a mob prevented officers and paramedics from helping a fatally wounded man -- even engaging in a tug-of-war for his body at one point. Residents in the neighborhood deny they got in the way, but they say they were angry because officers were doing nothing for the victim and appeared to be in no hurry to summon help.
The victim, 23-year-old John Brown, whose family lives in the Western Addition, was found under a truck at 2:40 a.m. Saturday at Larch Way near Laguna Street. He had been shot several times and, police said, was motionless and bleeding heavily.
The first officers who responded said they encountered a hostile crowd of as many as 40 people on the one-way street and that some of them prevented help from getting to Brown.
"It's one of the worst situations I've seen,'' said Capt. Kevin Dillon of Northern Station, who said he based his conclusions on his officers' accounts of what happened.
The crowd pushed one officer back when he tried to feel Brown's pulse, Dillon said. When paramedics arrived, some in the crowd grabbed Brown's legs and tried to drag him away, the officer said in his incident report.
Eventually, more than a dozen officers were on the scene trying to control the crowd. Continuous threats were coming from bystanders, Dillon said. Paramedics finally were able to load Brown into an ambulance, but officers first "had to hold the crowd back to make a path," the captain said.
No officers were hurt, and it's difficult to tell whether the delay made any difference in efforts to save Brown's life, Dillon said. Brown was declared dead at the scene at 2:50 a.m.
Sgt. Mikail Ali of the gang task force, who reviewed the police report, said he was dumbfounded by the crowd's response.
"Here the officers were there to help this guy when he was shot,'' he said. "The officers went to render aid, and (people in the crowd) are pulling at the officers, creating skirmish lines and not allowing the officers to get to him.
"It's insanity," he said. "It doesn't make any sense.''
Several Larch Way residents interviewed, however, said it was the officers who had provoked an angry response from the crowd. They accused authorities of misrepresenting what happened.
Robert Williams, who had been staying with family members on Larch Way, called the police version of events bogus and said officers acted insensitively. He said one of the first officers on the scene told bystanders, "That's one for that side, zero for you.''
Williams said no one tried to grab Brown.
"Everybody was scared to touch him," Williams said. "Everybody is scared of the Police Department. There is no way anybody would get in their way.''
He said he and other residents had been angered by what appeared to be a delay in getting medical treatment for Brown.
Otis Harris, who lives on Larch Way, said it took an ambulance nearly 10 minutes to arrive from the time shots were fired. Fire Department officials said they were summoned at 2:45 a.m. and arrived two minutes later.
During the minutes before the ambulance got there, officers stood around and mingled, looking like "they were waiting for the guy to die before they get some help to him,'' Harris said.
"When some of the residents did try to get him from under there, the police told them they were messing with the crime scene," Harris said. "That got people upset -- they didn't try to do anything. When somebody did try to do something, they wanted to turn it into something else.''
Harris said neighbors' anger "really boiled over after the ambulance got there and they had seen he was dead, basically. Then, all of a sudden, (police) started moving fast. They threw him in the back of the ambulance. Nobody administered him CPR, they just put him back in and basically were trying to get him out of there."
The feeling of the community, he said, was that, "if somebody needs to get to the hospital, we need to try to get them there ourselves. We just have to protect ourselves in this alleyway.''
Harris' wife, Rochelle Terrell, conceded that "there were a lot of harsh words being said to the police officer." But she added, "People wanted to know, where is the ambulance? It looked like they would just stay there and let the man die.
"People get emotional about that. I guess they figure they will try to save the boy's life.''
Assistant Fire Chief Johnny Lo said he had spoken to the supervisor on the fire engine that responded to the call. "When he got there, there was a big crowd already there, and they were screaming racial slurs at the cops,'' Lo said.
The first police at the scene told the fire crew that Brown was dead, and paramedics who examined him agreed, Lo said.
Normally, the paramedics would have left Brown's body there while homicide investigators went over the scene for clues, Lo said. But in this case, "they felt the urgency to get the hell out of there" and take the body with them, he said. "They felt unsafe, totally unsafe."
The crowd accused firefighters of arriving late "because it was the ghetto," Lo said. "But we got there in 2 minutes and 16 seconds.''
The neighborhood is the one where Cammerin Boyd, an attempted-kidnapping suspect who lived in Oakland, was shot to death by police after a chase in May 2004. Several residents at the time said Boyd had his hands up, trying to surrender; police maintained he appeared to be reaching for a gun.
Williams discounted any ill will over that shooting as a factor in the events of Saturday morning. "Cammerin Boyd was more of an isolated incident. This was more personal,'' he said, noting that a lot of the residents knew Brown, but few knew Boyd.
Terrell said the larger problem is the crime racking the community and residents' sense that no one cares about it. Brown was the fifth person to be killed this year in the Western Addition out of 46 homicides citywide. No one has been arrested in his death.
"The police come through here on a daily basis," Terrell said. "We don't feel safe here. Our children don't feel safe here. The Police Department is supposed to serve and protect us. We don't feel we are protected. I can't put that all on the Police Department. It's just so scary to be living here.''
Gary Delagnes, head of the police officers union, acknowledged a tremendous disconnect between some people in the community and the police. He said many residents want more help from police. But he also said it wouldn't surprise him if there were people who would block police from helping a wounded man.
"In these high-crime areas, people have to realize that the cops are not the problem," Delagnes said. "These areas need to take a look at themselves and not be pointing fingers at the Police Department to solve their problems.''
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who represents the Western Addition and has been a vocal critic of the Police Department, said the Boyd shooting and a string of killings this year and last, with few arrests, had created tensions.
"This area is an epicenter where trust runs thin between community and police,'' Mirkarimi said. "There is absolutely no excuse for interrupting the police if they are trying to render aid. But people are upset, and I don't think we can necessarily rationalize how it avails itself.''
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/26/MNG7TK5DRE1.DTL
California - It started out as a call about an early morning shooting in San Francisco's Western Addition, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary for an often-troubled neighborhood.
But after that, there was nothing routine about what happened.
Police say a mob prevented officers and paramedics from helping a fatally wounded man -- even engaging in a tug-of-war for his body at one point. Residents in the neighborhood deny they got in the way, but they say they were angry because officers were doing nothing for the victim and appeared to be in no hurry to summon help.
The victim, 23-year-old John Brown, whose family lives in the Western Addition, was found under a truck at 2:40 a.m. Saturday at Larch Way near Laguna Street. He had been shot several times and, police said, was motionless and bleeding heavily.
The first officers who responded said they encountered a hostile crowd of as many as 40 people on the one-way street and that some of them prevented help from getting to Brown.
"It's one of the worst situations I've seen,'' said Capt. Kevin Dillon of Northern Station, who said he based his conclusions on his officers' accounts of what happened.
The crowd pushed one officer back when he tried to feel Brown's pulse, Dillon said. When paramedics arrived, some in the crowd grabbed Brown's legs and tried to drag him away, the officer said in his incident report.
Eventually, more than a dozen officers were on the scene trying to control the crowd. Continuous threats were coming from bystanders, Dillon said. Paramedics finally were able to load Brown into an ambulance, but officers first "had to hold the crowd back to make a path," the captain said.
No officers were hurt, and it's difficult to tell whether the delay made any difference in efforts to save Brown's life, Dillon said. Brown was declared dead at the scene at 2:50 a.m.
Sgt. Mikail Ali of the gang task force, who reviewed the police report, said he was dumbfounded by the crowd's response.
"Here the officers were there to help this guy when he was shot,'' he said. "The officers went to render aid, and (people in the crowd) are pulling at the officers, creating skirmish lines and not allowing the officers to get to him.
"It's insanity," he said. "It doesn't make any sense.''
Several Larch Way residents interviewed, however, said it was the officers who had provoked an angry response from the crowd. They accused authorities of misrepresenting what happened.
Robert Williams, who had been staying with family members on Larch Way, called the police version of events bogus and said officers acted insensitively. He said one of the first officers on the scene told bystanders, "That's one for that side, zero for you.''
Williams said no one tried to grab Brown.
"Everybody was scared to touch him," Williams said. "Everybody is scared of the Police Department. There is no way anybody would get in their way.''
He said he and other residents had been angered by what appeared to be a delay in getting medical treatment for Brown.
Otis Harris, who lives on Larch Way, said it took an ambulance nearly 10 minutes to arrive from the time shots were fired. Fire Department officials said they were summoned at 2:45 a.m. and arrived two minutes later.
During the minutes before the ambulance got there, officers stood around and mingled, looking like "they were waiting for the guy to die before they get some help to him,'' Harris said.
"When some of the residents did try to get him from under there, the police told them they were messing with the crime scene," Harris said. "That got people upset -- they didn't try to do anything. When somebody did try to do something, they wanted to turn it into something else.''
Harris said neighbors' anger "really boiled over after the ambulance got there and they had seen he was dead, basically. Then, all of a sudden, (police) started moving fast. They threw him in the back of the ambulance. Nobody administered him CPR, they just put him back in and basically were trying to get him out of there."
The feeling of the community, he said, was that, "if somebody needs to get to the hospital, we need to try to get them there ourselves. We just have to protect ourselves in this alleyway.''
Harris' wife, Rochelle Terrell, conceded that "there were a lot of harsh words being said to the police officer." But she added, "People wanted to know, where is the ambulance? It looked like they would just stay there and let the man die.
"People get emotional about that. I guess they figure they will try to save the boy's life.''
Assistant Fire Chief Johnny Lo said he had spoken to the supervisor on the fire engine that responded to the call. "When he got there, there was a big crowd already there, and they were screaming racial slurs at the cops,'' Lo said.
The first police at the scene told the fire crew that Brown was dead, and paramedics who examined him agreed, Lo said.
Normally, the paramedics would have left Brown's body there while homicide investigators went over the scene for clues, Lo said. But in this case, "they felt the urgency to get the hell out of there" and take the body with them, he said. "They felt unsafe, totally unsafe."
The crowd accused firefighters of arriving late "because it was the ghetto," Lo said. "But we got there in 2 minutes and 16 seconds.''
The neighborhood is the one where Cammerin Boyd, an attempted-kidnapping suspect who lived in Oakland, was shot to death by police after a chase in May 2004. Several residents at the time said Boyd had his hands up, trying to surrender; police maintained he appeared to be reaching for a gun.
Williams discounted any ill will over that shooting as a factor in the events of Saturday morning. "Cammerin Boyd was more of an isolated incident. This was more personal,'' he said, noting that a lot of the residents knew Brown, but few knew Boyd.
Terrell said the larger problem is the crime racking the community and residents' sense that no one cares about it. Brown was the fifth person to be killed this year in the Western Addition out of 46 homicides citywide. No one has been arrested in his death.
"The police come through here on a daily basis," Terrell said. "We don't feel safe here. Our children don't feel safe here. The Police Department is supposed to serve and protect us. We don't feel we are protected. I can't put that all on the Police Department. It's just so scary to be living here.''
Gary Delagnes, head of the police officers union, acknowledged a tremendous disconnect between some people in the community and the police. He said many residents want more help from police. But he also said it wouldn't surprise him if there were people who would block police from helping a wounded man.
"In these high-crime areas, people have to realize that the cops are not the problem," Delagnes said. "These areas need to take a look at themselves and not be pointing fingers at the Police Department to solve their problems.''
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who represents the Western Addition and has been a vocal critic of the Police Department, said the Boyd shooting and a string of killings this year and last, with few arrests, had created tensions.
"This area is an epicenter where trust runs thin between community and police,'' Mirkarimi said. "There is absolutely no excuse for interrupting the police if they are trying to render aid. But people are upset, and I don't think we can necessarily rationalize how it avails itself.''
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/26/MNG7TK5DRE1.DTL