[Newspoetry] To Serve and Protect

[Mike Lehman]

Police kill man threatening
                   suicide

                   Rubber bullets meant to subdue 18-year-old
                   brandishing knife

                   By Tillie Fong
                   Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer


                   ENGLEWOOD -- A man threatening to kill
                   himself with a knife was shot to death Tuesday by
                   police using rubber bullets, which were intended to
                   subdue him.

                   Neighbors who watched the shooting said officers
                   didn't do enough to persuade the 18-year-old man
                   to surrender.

                   "He was only threatening himself," Michelle Stone,
                   28, said. "They didn't give him a chance to rethink
it
                   (the situation)."

                   The man, whose identity was not released but who
                   neighbors said lived at a juvenile halfway house
                   nearby, was pronounced dead at 12:45 p.m. at
                   Swedish Medical Center.

                   Police were called to the 3000 block of South
                   Sherman Street because the man was brandishing
                   two knives, spokesman Jim Ulrich said.

                   "He was gesturing that he was going to cut his throat

                   and stab himself in the chest," Ulrich said.

                   It was unknown whether the man made any verbal
                   or physical threats toward the police.

                   After talking to the man, the officers decided to use

                   "less lethal weapons" to subdue him, Ulrich said.

                   Such weapons are usually carried in a sergeant's
                   car, and the decision to use them is made by the
                   senior officer at the scene.

                   "This was a residential street, and a guy is walking
                   the street, shouting things and holding knives in a
                   menacing fashion," Ulrich said. "That is not
                   allowed."

                   Officers are trained to aim at the legs.

                   "I'm sure that's where they were aiming," Ulrich
                   said.

                   It was unknown how many shots were fired.

                   "They were trying to subdue the victim," Ulrich said.

                   "They did what they felt was right."

                   But neighbors who witnessed the exchange
                   disagreed.

                   "I saw the kid on the sidewalk, holding a knife to
his
                   throat," Raymond Greene, 61, said.

                   "He had at least six cops facing him with guns. They
                   were talking back and forth but I couldn't hear what
                   they were saying."

                   He said he saw the man had a weapon, something
                   that looked like a butcher knife, and that he seemed
                   agitated, because he was "bouncing up and down in
                   his knees." But Greene said the man made no
                   advances or threatening moves toward the police.

                   Instead, he said one officer approached the youth
                   with his gun drawn, at which point the man put the
                   knife to his own throat, his stomach and back to his
                   throat.

                   By the time Stone joined her father out on the
                   sidewalk, she said she didn't hear anything being
                   spoken.

                   "He was motioning the cops away with his right
                   hand, and he had his left hand holding the knife to
                   his (own) throat," she said.

                   "They wouldn't move away so he pushed the knife
                   back to his own throat harder."

                   Then, she said she heard a shot like a BB pellet gun.

                   "Then a different sounding gun went off two times,
                   and he clutched at his stomach, and the knife flew
                   backward and out of his hand," she said. "He yelled
                   and fell straight to the ground."

                   "No one tried to help this kid," Stone said.

                   "It was 'boom, you're down, let's get this over
with.'
                   They should have gotten someone to talk to him, a
                   counselor or somebody. He's only 18. You need to
                   talk to him."


                   July 21, 1999