Murder or Self Defense?
Tulsa Cop Shooting Case Begins to
Dissolve Around Tulsa P.D.
Body Camera and Vehicle Videos to be Released on Monday
A horrific traffic stop ended earlier this year with the death of one officer and the other recovering from massive damage from a head shot wound and the Tulsa P.D. quickly demonized the suspect in the incident report and probable cause affidavit, unfortunately going so far to out right lie about how things went down.
The local D.A. quickly sealed the videos in an attempt to prevent them from telling the real truth about what happened. It was typical CYA response after peace officers have been caught behaving badly. The two officers were likewise deified despite the truth being out there for all to see. The dead officer for example was no saint, he was days away from a divorce settlement after he had taken up with a Tulsa County public defender and his relationship was such with the entire office that the Public Defenders office recused from the case and the job fell to a court appointed lawyer, Kevin Adams.
Oh boy, what were they thinking? Adams is a fighter and the suspect was going to be represented and the truth was coming out the second Adams was involved.
To make things worse the ADA on the case was bucking for an appointment to the bench. Kevin Gray also has a checkered reputation for an alleged long term relationship with another woman, kin to a very powerful political family in Tulsa. Both are married of course, further cementing the reputation of the Tulsa County D.A. Office as a hot bed of affairs and scandal.
Adams fought the sealing of the files and we learned that the judge never even viewed the videos prior to the sealing of the videos. After three or four filings to unseal the videos Adam won, with the judge announcing late last week that he had viewed the videos and were releasing them on Monday.
We will see a redacted version of the videos, that is almost certain, but in the filings for the release of the videos and the subsequent filing on Friday we learned a lot about what the videos depict. The Friday filing states that Adams is also going after all of the disciplinary and training records for the two officers involved in the shooting. Ouch.....
Now lets not pretend that David Anthony Ware has led an angelic life. He had a criminal past. On the court docket down at September 4th you can click on and download the motion to unseal the videos and learn how the videos are said to depict two cops brutally attacking an otherwise peaceful man. Granted, the guy wasn't obeying orders, but the caveat there is that it turns out the orders were not LEGAL orders. The guy had an expired car tag but it was no where near the required 90 days expired that would have allowed the car to be towed, it was only 67 days if I recall correctly. The poor SOB just had turned the corner a few years back and was cleaning up his life a bit but the rookie cop that survived the shootings wanted to tow the car so they could search the car.
And another reason they wanted that car impounded? There was $2400 in cash laying on the seat of the car along with a casino receipt for winning that money. This was a fishing trip and a Civil Asset Forfeiture gone horribly wrong.
Being pulled over on a traffic stop doesn't give the cops the right to search the vehicle unless they have actual probable cause and they didn't. But when vehicles are impounded, they have the right and the responsibility to search and record what belongings are present and secure those belongings. The problem being they had zero right to impound the car. Doing so was no different than them car jacking a car. We reported on this story back in July and you can re read the details there.
If the Tulsa Police Department hasn't yet heard of the filing asking for the disciplinary records and training records for the two cops the entire building on Monday is going to sound like the campfire bean skit in Blazing Saddles.
The filing makes no bones about it, moments before Ware had enough and shot the two officers he was being brutalized including two kicks to the groin by Sargent Johnson, the officer that died a few days after the shooting. These were more aptly described as stomps, door kicking in stomps, while the suspect was sitting sideways in the driver's seat with hands and arms outside the car.
To complicate matters Officer Zarkenshan, the surviving rookie officer, had posted on his Facebook page that he was employed in “Waste Management”. As in taking the trash off the street. Now that is true most of the time, that is an apt description of police work, but it will not go well in front of a jury so Adams is asking for his training records.
Adams gives a good interview in this Tulsa World story and describes the video and that the suspect was in fear for his life during the attempts to remove him from the car. Keep in mind they weren't actually “arresting” Ware, they were illegally taking his car and the $2400 in cash found with the casino receipt for the same amount on the seat of the car.
Cops can be their own worst enemies on social media and in their training. They forget that they are rightly held to a higher standard and while they are humans and have a private life, as they say, anything you say can be held against you.
If you wanted a case to expose police brutality this is the one. Yeah they guy had a criminal past for drugs and low level offenses, we make no excuses for that part of his life. But he had stayed clean for the most part in the last three years and didn't deserve to be treated in this manner nor was there any legal justification to steal the man's vehicle to go on a fishing trip. But Civil Asset Forfeiture is a powerful drug itself and the cops and D.A.s get money hungry and there was $2400 in cash right there for the taking so it got took.
As a result, one cop died and one was likely disabled for years to come if not life. This needs litigated and the surviving cop needs to be punished for his crimes and training needs to be changed so that the average citizen, even one with a criminal past, isn't treated like a sheep to be sheared and punished for disrespecting a cop.
Now getting violent with a cop, a line would be crossed, beat his Kannady. That was not the case here.
