Portland Copwatch to DA’s Office: Consider Assault Charges in Monroe Shooting

Portland Copwatch has sent an open letter this morning to Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schrunk, asking the DA’s office to consider assault charges against Officer Dane Reister as it prepares a grand jury investigation into the shooting late last month of William Kyle Monroe.

Monroe, a 20-year-old man from Washington reportedly dealing with mental illness, was hospitalized with buckshot wounds in his hip after Reister fired a less-lethal “beanbag” shotgun that had been mistakenly loaded with live shotgun rounds. Monroe was reported bothering children at a park in Southwest, with one 911 caller saying he had a pocketknife. After cops caught up with him a few blocks from the park, he apparently failed to listen to their commands, tried to run—prompting Reister to shoot four times, rapidly enough that no one initially realized he had fired the wrong ammunition.

The incident prompted an astonishingly quick apology from Chief Mike Reese and Mayor Sam Adams, and an investigation into how the mix-up happened. Copwatch, however, is concerned not only about the mix-up, but also with whether even shooting beanbag rounds was appropriate under police bureau policy.

It is particularly of concern that the shotgun is being fired multiple times when its purpose is to knock a person down or incapacitate them without using lethal force. Multiple shots were also fired at Aaron Campbell. As we all know, Mr. Monroe is just lucky to be alive today.

The bureau and the city attorney’s office have been spending time studying court precedents and meeting with community groups as it considers expanding its use of less-lethal weapons. Read the full letter after the jump.

District Attorney Mike Schrunk
Multnomah County Courthouse
1021 S.W. Fourth Avenue, Room 600
Portland, OR 97204

July 8, 2011

OPEN LETTER: Grand Jury in William Monroe case should consider assault charges

District Attorney Schrunk:

We are writing in hopes that your office will hold a fair grand jury hearing in the police shooting of William Monroe.

While much of the police response and media coverage has been that Mr. Monroe was inadvertantly shot by live shotgun pellets instead of beanbags, he was not shot accidentally.

Officer Dane Reister deliberately used the orange-painted shotgun five times in close succession— so fast, apparently, that he did not have time to notice that his intended target was bleeding rather than reeling from being hit by a nylon sack full of buckshot (“beanbag”).

The intended ammunition, the “beanbag”, is called “less lethal” rather than “non-lethal” precisely because it can cause death in some circumstances.

So regardless of whether Reister fired live rounds or “beanbags,” the grand jury should be considering whether he had any legal right to shoot Mr. Monroe at all.

If not, your office and the grand jury should be filing some sort of criminally negligent assault charges.

The public still has not learned whether another officer loaded the shotgun with live rounds and Reister merely fired it, or whether it was his own mistake in loading the gun. Regardless, it is his responsibility to know the gun is properly loaded, and to only use the weapon within the bounds of the law (and as a matter for Internal Affairs, within Bureau policy).

It is particularly of concern that the shotgun is being fired multiple times when its purpose is to knock a person down or incapacitate them without using lethal force. Multiple shots were also fired at Aaron Campbell. As we all know, Mr. Monroe is just lucky to be alive today.

We appreciate your attention to this matter. We continue to advocate that our officers be held to the strictest standards as they are given the power of life and death over the community.

Sincerely

Dan Handelman
and other members of
Portland Copwatch