Kathy Hedberg of the Lewiston Morning Tribune reported today:
NEZPERCE - Saying that reasonable people would react the same in similar circumstances, Magistrate Stephen J. Calhoun dismissed a felony charge of voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon against Nez Perce Tribal Police officer Robert S. Wall.

Wall, 31, has been on paid administrative leave since the Nov. 12, 2011, incident in which Jeffrey A. Flinn, 46, of Lewiston, was shot to death following a highway chase. A preliminary hearing was held Monday at the Lewis County Courthouse to determine whether the state could produce enough evidence to bind the case over to 2nd District Court.    Calhoun noted that "hindsight is wonderful," and the situation looks different from the comfort of a courtroom than it did that snowy evening along U.S. Highway 95. Flinn led officers on a chase from Waha to the Camas Prairie near Ferdinand after allegedly stealing a pickup truck hours after being released from the Nez Perce County Jail on a drunk driving arrest.  "Looking at this situation," Calhoun said, "I don't see anger. I see fear, I see somebody being pumped up on adrenalin. Any reasonable person in the same situation would feel fear." Evidence in the hearing included two videos recorded from the Nez Perce Tribal Police officers' vehicles.

 

 One of the videos showed Flinn driving erratically and swerving into the northbound lane toward oncoming traffic while driving south on U.S. Highway 95. After driving over a spike strip placed near Craigmont that flattened his vehicle's tires, Flinn eventually veered off to the left side of the road and stopped.

The video then shows the barrel of a shotgun protruding from the driver's window and a flash from a shot being fired.

According to testimony in the hearing, officers then fired back several rounds. Flinn emerged from the vehicle and the rifle dropped to the ground at his feet. The video shows Flinn raising his hands above his head. The shots momentarily paused and Flinn appears to have relaxed a bit, according to testimony from Lewis County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jason Davis.

Then a lone, final shot rings out and the video shows Flinn dropping to his knees and then to the ground, fatally wounded.

Wall's attorney, Peter C. Erbland of Coeur d'Alene, however, pointed out that the second video shows Wall at an entirely different angle than the video that showed Flinn being shot. The second video, shot from Wall's vehicle, shows the officer's position and his actions of ducking and firing during the gunfight.

Other officers at the scene, Erbland said, could not know what Wall saw, heard or perceived of the situation.

Sirens from at least two police vehicles were deafening, witnesses testified, and officers were not sure whether Flinn was firing back at them.

All of the evidence, Erbland said, shows that Wall "was under tremendous stress he's (acting) like a man who said, 'Yeah, I'm afraid I'm going to be killed.' He was clearly under the threat of deadly force himself."

FBI agent Justin Newsome of Lewiston, who conducted part of the investigation into Flinn's death, said during an interview with Wall, "he said he fired the last shot. He stated that he kept firing until the suspect went down. He couldn't understand why somebody would have their hands in the air" during a gun fight, Newsome said.

"He always knew it was him and he's been kind of wrestling with it since that time," he said.

Another Nez Perce officer in the case, Trevor M. Garrett, is scheduled for trial July 23 at U.S. District Court in Coeur d'Alene. Garrett has pleaded innocent to making false statements to two FBI agents who investigated the Flinn shooting.

My response to this article was the below letter to the editor:

   Magistrate Stephen J. Calhoun just made it a lot more dangerous for police officers and the public in his dismissal of voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon against Nez Perce Tribal police officer, Robert S. Wall. Any hopes that the bad guys in our society will surrender to police will surely be second guessed now since you just gave the go ahead to shoot surrendering suspects. Whether the officer had improper training or a flaw in his personality the basic principle is not everyone is cut out to be a police officer. We expect our police officers to be highly trained and morally upright servants to our citizens. Judge Calhoun you just made it profoundly more dangerous for police to bring a peaceful resolution to dangerous situations and allowed absolutely no accountability to officer Wall's misjudgment.  Officer Wall's statement to FBI agent Newsome that he couldn't understand why someone would have their hands in the air during a gunfight shows a total lack of the "shoot, don't shoot" judgment needed to be a police officer. It will be interesting to see and the public will be watching on the charge of lying to the FBI by police officer Trevor M. Garrett in this case. All to often, police officer's lie to help cover up fellow officers misbehaviors. I think the FBI got it right in the investigation of officer Wall and hope there case against officer Garrett gets a fair hearing.

 

UPDATE: May 21st, 2013 The Lewiston Morning Tribune posted the footage of the police cam in the Nov. 11, 2011 shooting death of a surrendering, Jeffrey A. Flinn, 46 of Lewiston.

                                                 WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

 

http://youtu.be/668cSYtIrrE

 

 

 

The N.R.A.

                                          The N.R.A

  Back in the days when I was a police officer working for the city of Ft. Lauderdale we had to qualify with our pistol annually and the N.R.A was the qualifying agent for our department.  The N.R.A. had set the standards for police combat shooting and in fact set the standards for most departments for the State of Florida.  My weapon was a Colt Python 357 magnum revolver, yes I am dating myself as an old-timer using a revolver instead of the semi-automatic pistols that the police carry today. Carrying a revolver back then was a lot more challenging then the firearms the police carry today. First of all, when you carry a revolver you are limited to just 6 shots at a time compared to 17 with a semi-automatic pistol. In our training  we had to use "speed loaders" to reload and most officers carried two speed loaders, that's 18 rounds total. Today's police officer can carry up to 49 rounds, 17 rounds in a loaded firearm and 32 rounds in two magazines.  It required some skills under combat simulations to reload quickly with a revolver.  Part of the combat course was that we had to run (timed) around the shooting course and then take up a position to shoot at a silhouette target. The running was to simulate the stress of a shootout with rapid heart rate and breathing, of course this made it a lot harder to shoot accurately. We would have to shoot right hand barricade, 6 shots, reload, shoot left hand barricade, 6 shots, reload and then shoot 6 more kneeling.  All of this was timed. This was a lot more challenging then the qualifying I had done previously in the U.S. Army as a military policeman and I qualified, "Expert" then. I took my shooting skills very seriously as they were important tools in my line of work and would later save my life and the life of others.  To become a "Master Shooter" you had to qualify on the N.R.A police combat course with a score of 97 out of 100 three times in a row.  I became a "Master Shooter" for the City of Ft. Lauderdale Police Department.

       I joined the N.R.A. and proudly displayed my membership sticker on my vehicle. I always felt that the N.R.A stood by law enforcement and provided firearm safety education for citizen's and young people.  My training came in to play on July 14th, 1985 when I drove up on a situation of a man holding a Ruger 44 magnum pistol pointing it at the head of a women.  The bad guy saw me and took a shot at me and my police training kicked in and I returned fire striking his firearm and knocking it out of his hand. Now I wish I could say that I aimed at his pistol but I actually was aiming at his chest trying to kill him, lucky for him my angle was such that his pistol was in front stopping the bullet from hitting him.

    
    This would be one of several shootouts in my career that I would be involved in and I was always grateful for my training that the N.R.A. was apart of. 

    Then around 1995 Wayne LaPeierre of the N.R.A. made the following statement in a
solicitation letter:

"If you have a badge, you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens." The letter signed by, N.R.A. Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and went on to state, "Not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helments and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens. Not today."

                                                       N.R.A.'s  Wayne LaPierre

    Wayne Lapierre went on to use the term, "Jack-Booted Government Thugs" in describing federal A.T.F. officers.  Another N.R.A. member who just happened to be the President of the United States at the time, George Bush, resigned his lifetime membership to the N.R.A. stating, "Your broadside against federal agents deeply offends my own sense of
decency and honor, and it offends my concept of service to country,
"Bush wrote to NRA president Thomas Washington in a letter. "It indirectly slurs a wide array of government law-enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their
lives on the line for all of us."

    I too felt the same way and never renewed my N.R.A. membership.  Since this time I have learned that the N.R.A. is nothing more then an advocate for the firearm industry and this can be proven by the fact that Mr. Wayne LaPierre went on record before a House Committee stating that he and the N.R.A. were in favor of comprehensive background checks for the purchase of firearms only to now be against comprehensive background checks to purchase a firearm.  LaPierre's past thoughts and statements are a threat to all law enforcement officers and provoke this anti American government fever to take arms up against our government. The only "Jack Booted Thug" I see, is Wayne LaPierre...

The Good Ole Days

Bill O'Reilly

          The 1950's & 1960's

I recently watched the Fox News cable show, "The Factor" with it's host Bill O'Reilly. I know your wondering why I would watch such a show, but there is an old saying, "Keep your friends close and keep your enemies even closer." I sat in amazement on Mr. O'Reilly's lamenting on how good America was back in the 1950's and he even stated, "White America was kind of unified" in the 1950's.  Mr. O'Reilly's selective memory of this Leave It To Beaver kind of America is quite revealing.  Since I was a young boy in the segregated South during the 1950's & 1960's I have different memories of that then Mr. O'Reilly. TV shows like "Leave It To Beaver" "Father Knows Best" "Ozzie & Harriet" and "Make Room for Daddy", all portrayed the subservient housewives as possibly the best-dressed housekeepers ever seen. They wore elegant dresses, high heels, jewelry (the pearl necklace), and smiled as they dust and vacuumed. Women were to be subservient to there husbands and expected to be housewives or at the very most secretary's, nurses or teachers. You never would have heard of a women CEO, a women astronaut, a women on the Supreme Court or even a women reading the nightly news. A women in the 1950's didn't have near the opportunity's that woman have today.

It was even rougher for American Blacks or Negro's as they were called, even though they were called worst. My contact with American Blacks in the 1950's & 1960's was, they picked up our garbage, they served us our food at the cafeteria and they lived on the other side of the railroad tracks separate from our White communities.  Blacks had there own movie theaters and If they didn't they had to sit in the balcony separate from us White folks. Blacks even had separate public bathrooms and even separate water fountains.

 

 

 

 

The bathrooms and water fountains were commonly in bad shape compared to us White folks bathrooms and water fountains. I can remember going to the drive in theater where there was two movie screens, one for Whites and one in the back for the Blacks. This was all enforced under the rule of law. 

Anyone that can look back to this time and opine like Mr. O'Reilly and wants to travel back in time  aboard his ship to the past, has boarded a ship of fools.

           Martin Luther King Jr.

Many of us remember the big events in our lives by remembering what we were doing at the time of that event.  When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated I was in school in the 3rd grade. I remember the principle coming in to our class and dismissing us and telling us to go home that our president had been shot. I remember the sadness that prevailed and seeing my Grandfather cry, this was the first time that I had ever seen a man openly weep. I didn't know anything about politics at that age and seeing this through a child's eyes was like seeing a family member had died. Since we were Catholic's at the time our family was very proud to have a Catholic president and he was very popular with my Mom, Grandmother and Grandfather. My dad voted for Nixon but even he seemed stunned over the assassination.  Our family seemed to be glued to the television over the weeks to come watching Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin, being assassinated himself on live television. We watched the funeral and I remember asking why the boots were in the stirrups backwards on the horse, my Grandfather explained that it was to honor our presidents death. I remember everyone crying when the slain presidents little boy saluted, it was just a very sad time.

The assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I also remember very vividly of where I was at that time but the mood and reaction was far different. I was eleven years old and it was in the evening hours and our family had gathered around the television to watch tv.  I was laying on the floor watching when the tv program was interrupted with a news bulletin. The news bulletin announced that Martin Luther King had been shot.  I was then startled by my dad who had jumped up from his chair and yelling a lot of disparaging words. The "N" word was used and my dad seemed to be over joyed with this news. My dad was so over joyed that he wanted to light off some fireworks in the front yard but my mom quickly talked him out of that.  That was the night I think the foundation of bigotry became clear to me. I loved my dad and still do but at that time I so idolized him and when I saw that this made my dad so happy it was confusing to say the least. To somewhat understand this is to know that living in Miami at that this time period (the sixties) was culturally very different from now.  Segregation was the law, separation of the races. If you ever saw the movie, "The Help" it portrayed exactly how I remember the South at that time. Everything and everyone lived separate lives. "Colored people" one of the terms used back then would have separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, schools and even movie theaters were segregated. Signs almost everywhere you looked designated the separation of the races. Like most communities they were divided by railroad tracks, "Colored people" living on one side and whites on the other. It was even unlawful for any African American to be on the white side of the tracks after sundown and it was unlawful for "mixed" dating. I can even remember a show, Star Trek and how it made the news and stirred up a big controversy, mainly in the South when the white actor, William Shatner kissed a black actress, Nichelle Nichols. Looking back then the world seemed so surreal now and makes me wonder how did humanity justify all of this. The road to break all of this up was a very turbulent time and to this day we still have remnants of systemic racism. Try to declare that Black Lives Matter and you literally can face death threats. My career in law enforcement exposed me to a nasty underbelly of racism that was diabolical and secretive. We still have this cancer in society and with the advent of cell phones with video cameras has exposed this beast. Yes we have come a long way from the old Jim Crow, but the underground racism is still alive and it's still very dangerous for our African American friends.

The good news is the racism that I was taught and exposed to was rejected and all that it implies. I will quickly call you out if you or anyone in my presence uses the "N" word or states anything racist. I still love and miss dad and my dad was a product of the times he lived in and the culture of the South. I know that that's not an excuse but I choose to share my story as a learning tool for breaking the teaching of racism. Your kids learn most of what they know from you and my parents showed me love and provided for me, I can only wish that my parents had showed love for humanity. We all have flaws, the trick is to learn from these experiences and make the adjustments in our lives to be better human being. 

*** My Three Stars ***

                                                           

    In May of 2011 I learned that I have throat cancer and before I could even get my head wrapped around this I realized that I would have to undergo chemo and radiation therapy immediately.  Since I would be receiving radiation to my throat it also involved me getting a feeding tube put in since the radiation would eventually preclude me from swallowing.  Now this is pretty scary stuff.  After the feeding tube was put in I had to face seven weeks of intense chemo and radiation treatments.   From the very beginning starting with my first dose of chemo I quickly realized I was in over my head.  The sickness I felt from my first chemo was almost unbearable, and I truly felt I was going to die.  I expressed several times that I could not go through with this and to think I had to endure seven weeks was unimaginable.   I quickly received words of support from my family and friends but to me they were just words how can words help me.  There is an old metaphor, "There is a light at the end of the tunnel" well for me there was absolutely no light at all.   Then a friend, Brittney Davis wrote to me on Facebook, "When there is no light at the end of the tunnel remember that not all tunnels are straight and the light is around the corner which you have yet to turn".   I had never thought of it like that before and I started to use that notion that I would be in the dark for sometime.  I am now in my 6th week of treatment and it continues to be a tremendous struggle for me but for once I can now see a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel.  I am hear to tell you that this has been the most defining moment in my life, to endure such pain can not be put into words.  Even though I have not completed my treatments I feel now for the first time, I'm going to make it!   I certainly would not have made it to this point without the help of My Three Stars.  My Three Stars who with more then just words showed me that I was dear to them and had the need for me to survive probably more then myself.  Just as this ordeal was the most defining moment in my life, so too was my Three Stars that shined for me.

    To Mary my wife of 33 years thank you for being there for me.  You comforted me and took care of all my physical and emotional needs.  You worked two jobs and would come home without complaining a bit and did the house work that I could no longer do.  You helped me in preparing all my meds and making sure I took them all, you attend to my comfort and consoled me often.  Thank you for rubbing lotion on my neck everyday and preparing my mouth rinse. You never complained about losing sleep those nights I was up throw up disturbing your sleep even the days you had to work a 11 hour shift.  Thank you for all the back and foot massages.  I will never forget the moments that we cried together. 

    To Richard my oldest son thank you for being there for me.  Your many, many visits that you made driving down from Spokane to be with me was a great help even though you too worked very long hours.  You even had to endure sleeping on couch cushions.  You being there for me when Mary was at work all day helped to keep my mind clear of emotional pitfalls.  Thank you for your understanding when we would go out together and I would have to cut it short due to fatigue and go home.  Thank you for all the unbelievable gifts that you brought all of which distracted greatly from my  dilemma.  I well never forget all the yard sale that we went to together.

    To Melissa my favorite daughter thank you for being there for me.   For being so far away your impact on me was tremendous.  Thank you so much for all the calls and even when I couldn't talk for all the text messages.  Our talks always lifted my spirits and always seemed to come at the right time.  Thank you for all the cards, pictures and home videos they too seemed to always come when I needed a pick me up.   Thank you for the hand painted picture frame that you and Chris did and putting your family picture in it, I have it placed next to my bed and see it every day. Thank you for the tribute video that you put on Facebook, it touched my heart.  Thank you for making plans to visit in September giving me something to look forward to, one of which is seeing my Grandson Shane for the first time.

    Thanks to My Three Stars not only do I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I am sprinting towards it.