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POLICE: MAN THEY KILLED IN SHOOTOUT HAD DEATH WISH

September 24, 1997

From all that Portland police have been able to learn, the Southeast resident they shot to death Tuesday evening wanted to die. He had a long history of depression and suicide threats.

In fact, the last time Bill Utton , 65, attacked a police officer, he was taken to a hospital mental health unit, not to jail.

That was in January. Police also dealt with Utton in 1995, said Lt. Cliff Madison, the police bureau spokesman, and found him to be suicidal then.

Tuesday police were called to the Viking Mobile Villa trailer park on Southeast 111th Avenue at 2:10 p.m. after Utton fired a .45-caliber handgun into the floor of his trailer, Madison said.

Utton ‘s wife, who was there with him, left unharmed. He fired six more shots inside the trailer when she left.

Police blocked off nearby streets and evacuated about a dozen mobile homes.

“There was a real danger to other people,” Madison said.

Neighbor Jean Barnes, who said she did not know Utton well, did not hear any of the shooting in the afternoon.

“I didn’t know anything about it until the cop came to the door,” she said. “They took us over to the church” across the street.

Another mobile park neighbor, Lillian Finzel, said she knew something was up when she saw two police cars near Utton ‘s mobile home. Then the evacuation began. “They told us to go over to the church because there might be some shooting.”

More than 60 officers from the East Precinct, the Special Emergency Reaction Team, the hostage negotiating team and the explosives disposal unit surrounded the home. They used a megaphone to try to talk Utton into surrendering. He came out of the trailer several times unarmed but only swore at police before going back inside.

Sporadic shots were heard later in the afternoon.

“We had the hostage negotiation team out the whole time,” Madison said. “He spoke with us, but nothing positive was gained.”

After five hours, communication broke down, and police fired tear gas into the trailer. Five minutes later, Utton fired a handgun at police through a window, hitting vehicles gathered outside. At least two officers fired back at Utton , killing him.

Utton ‘s wife told police her husband had been drinking for three days and was despondent about his failing health.

“He’d been depressed and suicidal,” Madison said Utton ‘s wife told police, “but this was the worst it’s gotten.”

Madison said reports police had written about their previous dealings with Utton said he had diabetes and was deeply depressed.

Detectives will investigate the shooting. Their findings will be presented to the Multnomah County district attorney’s office for review. While the case is under review, the officers involved will be on paid administrative leave.

Police were not releasing the officers’ names.

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OFFICERS FATALLY SHOOT MAN, 65, WHO FIRED AT THEM IN STANDOFF

September 24, 1997

Portland police killed a Southeast Portland man Tuesday evening, ending a five-hour standoff after the man fired shots out his trailer window.

No one else was injured.

Police were called to the Viking Mobile Villa trailer park on Southeast 111th Avenue at 2:10 p.m. when Bill Utton , 65, fired a .45-caliber handgun into the floor of his trailer, said Lt. Cliff Madison, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman.

Utton ‘s wife, who was there with him, left unharmed. He fired six more shots inside the trailer when she left.

Police blocked off nearby streets and evacuated about a dozen mobile homes.

More than 60 officers from the east precinct, the special emergency reaction team, the hostage negotiating team and the explosives disposal unit surrounded the home. They used a megaphone to try to talk Utton into surrendering. He came out of the trailer several times unarmed but only swore at police before going back inside.

Sporadic shots were heard later in the afternoon.

“We had the hostage negotiation team out the whole time,” Madison said. “He spoke with us, but nothing positive was gained.”

After five hours, communication broke down, and police fired tear gas into the trailer. Five minutes later, Utton fired a handgun at police through a window, hitting vehicles gathered outside. At least two officers fired back at Utton , killing him about 7:20 p.m.

Utton ‘s wife told police her husband had been drinking for three days and was despondent about his failing health.

“He’d been depressed and suicidal,” Madison said Utton ‘s wife told police, “but this was the worst it’s gotten.”

It was not the first time Utton had confronted police, Madison said.

“We had a run-in in January with him in which he assaulted a police officer,” he said.

Detectives will investigate the shooting. Their findings will be presented to the Multnomah County district attorney’s office for review. While the case is under review, the officers involved will be on paid administrative leave.

Police were not releasing the officers’ names.

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SICKNESS TORMENTED MAN KILLED BY POLICE

September 25, 1997

Bill Utton sometimes used different words, but they all meant the same thing: He didn’t want his foot cut off. He would rather die.

He was depressed, diabetic and taking a combination of medication and alcohol.

He had suffered three strokes.

And he feared doctors. They had made it clear the diabetes had so damaged his right foot that it must be amputated to save his life.

“That’s why he was mad at the police,” said Laura Riley, the friend who tried to help right through to the final minutes. “He knew they would take him to the hospital, and he didn’t want them to amputate his foot.”

It was yet another mention of going to the doctor that set Utton off on his final tirade Tuesday, one that ended after five hours of negotiations with Utton firing at officers and police shooting him to death. During the long standoff, when Utton would not talk to police on the telephone, he would talk with Riley.

Riley, manager of the Viking Mobile Villa, had tears in her eyes Wednesday and said she might have prevented it all had she taken Utton ‘s gun away when she had the chance earlier Tuesday.

And although she was the one who called the police to the mobile home park at 3441 S.E. 111th Ave., she wishes police had limited their response. Left alone, she believes, Utton would have drunk himself into a stupor, as he had before.

Utton ‘s wife, Velma, was with relatives in Vancouver, Wash., Wednesday, Riley said. She could not be reached for comment.

His stepson, Emmett Gaddis of Madras, said he often heard Utton complain of his constant pain.

“He said when it got to the point where the booze wouldn’t kill his pain, he would blow his brains out,” Gaddis said.

Mike Allen, who had known Utton for more than 10 years, confirmed that Utton would get upset when talking about seeing a doctor.

“I’m sure he wanted the cops to kill him,” he said. “He was at the point where he didn’t want to live anymore.”

Utton had previous run-ins with police. Twice, in January and again later, Utton was taken to the hospital as a possible mental health patient. Once he was hospitalized for two days, the second time for only a couple of hours. Neither stay did him any good, Riley said.

Riley said she was passing by Utton ‘s mobile home, which is directly opposite her own unit, Tuesday when he asked her to come in.

“He was sitting in his chair. He was crying. He had his gun on the chair beside him,” she said. She looked at his right foot and saw that it was in terrible condition, almost rotting off.

“There were tears running down my eyes. I asked him what I could do, and he just said, `Just sit and talk with me.’ I was patting him on the arm,” she said.

She asked Utton to remove the gun, and he put it on a shelf near him.

Velma came in about then, and Riley went home.

“I just got to my gate and — bam! bam!”

She said Utton ‘s wife came running out, saying her husband was shooting at her and through the floor and roof of their home.

When police arrived about 2:10 p.m., Utton fired six more rounds, prompting officers to call in the Special Emergency Reaction Team as well as hostage negotiators. Neighbors were evacuated to a nearby church.

By 7:20 p.m., police shot tear gas into the mobile home to force him out. Five minutes later, Utton started shooting at officers, who were behind a fence in the direction of Powell Boulevard, a block away.

Police said one round went out to the busy street. Others struck the ground and cars near the officers. At least two officers returned fire, killing Utton .

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POLICE-ASSISTED SUICIDE MORE PATIENCE MIGHT HAVE RESULTED IN A DIFFERENT ENDING FOR POLICE AND A MENTALLY DISTURBED 65-YEAR-OLD MAN

Opinion Editorial – September 27, 1997

Police who shot and killed 65-year-old Bill Utton last Tuesday were absolutely right to do so at that point.

What isn’t nearly as clear is whether they ever had to get to that point.

The shooting came at the end of a 5 1/2 -hour standoff in Southeast Portland between Utton , who was holed up in his Southeast Portland mobile home, and the Portland police. Utton started shooting at police after they fired tear gas into his home to force him out of it. Their return fire killed him.

What escapes us is why police commanders decided to force the issue. Did we learn nothing from the federal behavior at Waco? Or the Nathan Thomas shooting here?

You couldn’t exactly say the police were impatient after they waited five hours. But another hour or two, even 24, might have meant a different fate for Utton . It might have meant that two police officers would not have to live with the burden of killing a person who was mentally ill, not criminal.

Hostage negotiators said they were getting nowhere with the man and didn’t see prospects improving. But the manager of the mobile home park said that Utton had drunk himself into a stupor before and might have done so again if he had been left alone.

Police couldn’t do that, of course, since Utton had fired several shots, some of them striking a building across a street. Still, police had evacuated the area.

They knew of Utton ‘s mental health problems; he’d been taken to a hospital by them twice this year already. They also knew that he was terribly depressed and feared police would take him to a hospital where his foot would be amputated because of diabetes damage.

The standoff with Utton did take its toll in police resources. Up to 60 officers were at the scene, and that was not something they could sustain. But couldn’t the number have been reduced and the threat of a single man still contained?

Keeping neighbors evacuated was certainly an inconvenience for them. Some were elderly and required their medications. Inconvenience, though, seems a small price to pay for the chance of saving someone’s life.

We say chance, because Utton might have shot himself. Neighbors said he had threatened to do so. One also said he may have wanted the police to do the job for him.

They ultimately did, and their performance requires a public post-mortem that goes beyond the question of whether police should have returned Utton ‘s fire.

The whole operation should be examined: From the treatment and follow-up, if any, after police took Utton to the hospital earlier this year, to how a mentally ill man got or kept a gun; by leaders of the Crisis Intervention Team, which seeks to help police deal better with the mentally ill people they encounter; and particularly, the command decision to force the issue.

Police-assisted suicide is not something Portland should accept. This was a sad day for Portland, for Utton and for the police who were forced to kill him.

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SHOOTING ISN’T FIRST TIME FOR TWO PORTLAND OFFICERS

September 27, 1997

Two of the three Portland police officers who shot a suicidal man to death Tuesday night have been involved in previous police shootings.

Police released the names of the three officers Friday. They are Sgt. Larry Wooten, 45, Officer Robert King, 33, and Officer Richard Hascall, 39, said Lt. Cliff Madison, a police spokesman. All three are members of the Portland Police Bureau’s Special Emergency Reaction Team.

Bill Utton , 65, bled to death from a gunshot wound to his left leg, said Dr. Larry Lewman, state medical examiner. The fatal shot was a high-velocity rifle round that damaged several major arteries before exiting his left leg and entering his right knee, Lewman said. The rifle shot did more serious damage than a bullet from a handgun would have, and Utton probably bled to death quickly, before emergency personnel could help.

“There was nothing they could do,” Lewman said.

Another rifle round passed through Utton ‘s left hand, fragmented and hit him in the face.

All three officers fired at Utton , but no other shots hit him, Madison said.

Police were called to Utton ‘s Southeast Portland home after he fired seven shots inside his trailer home. After five hours of negotiations, police fired tear gas into the building. Five minutes later, Utton fired a handgun out his window, hitting police vehicles. Police returned fire, killing him.

Wooten, a 19-year police veteran, was involved in two fatal shootings in 1991. In the first, Wooten and other SERT officers shot Michael Lee Henry, 19, on April 13 after he had taken a teller hostage at a bank inside the Gateway Fred Meyer store. Six weeks later, Wooten and other officers shot Leonard Manuel Renfrow, 47, after he drew a gun on police when they raided a Northeast Portland drug house.

King, a seven-year veteran, fatally shot Johnny L. George, 18, in 1992 after George stabbed him in the left shoulder. George was a suspect in a convenience store theft earlier the same evening.

Grand juries ruled that each of the shootings was justified.

Hascall, a 17-year police veteran, has not been involved in previous shootings.

The three officers involved in the Utton shooting remain on administrative leave, a standard practice in shootings.

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PORTLAND’S SERT UNIT RARELY HAS TO SHOOT

Thursday, October 9, 1997

Two weeks ago, a five-hour standoff in Southeast Portland ended in bloodshed as members of the Special Emergency Reaction Team — SERT — shot and killed a despondent man who fired at them first.

Bill Utton was depressed about his failing health and on Sept. 23 fired several shots inside his mobile home at Southeast Powell Court and 111th Street. When police fired tear gas inside the mobile home to try to end the standoff, Utton shot at them. Police said they had no choice, at that point, but to fire back.

Utton ‘s death, scheduled to be scrutinized by a grand jury Wednesday, focused public attention on how police handled one depressed man who wanted to die.

At least one study shows a rise in so-called “suicide by cop,” and experts blame it in part on glamorous Hollywood images of shooting deaths and an increasing public awareness that police will almost certainly shoot and kill anyone who fires at them.

But for Portland’s SERT unit, the Utton shooting was a rare event.

It was the first SERT killing in the city since 1991, when members shot and killed three men in separate incidents. And it was only the fifth time since Portland police established a SERT unit in 1975 that its members had killed

Even though Portland police increasingly are relying on SERT to resolve barricade and hostage situations, SERT usually has been able to avoid resorting to deadly force.

“I think our SERT unit has been put in that situation many times,” said Lt. Cliff Madison, a spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau. “Fortunately, we’ve been able to, in most cases, avoid having to use deadly force on a person, which may be what the person is desiring us to do.”

Madison would reveal few details but said preparedness has made the difference.

“I really think, in their case, it comes down to training. They’ve worked hard to try and come to conclusion without injuries,” he said. “In most cases, they’re successful.”

Anecdotal evidence has hinted at an increase in suicide by cop for several years. A recent study of five years of police shootings in Los Angeles seems to confirm it.

“We think it is increasing,” said Dr. H. Range Hutson, research director at Harvard Medical School, who conducted the study.

Hutson said he could not release details until he presented the study during a national sheriff’s conference in Orlando, Fla., later this month. But he did say the public no longer believes old notions that police officers aim for the gun or leg.

In other words, suicidal people are more likely to know that the best way to assure their death is to have a trained professional do it for them.

“Law enforcement is trained to kill. They do not shoot to wound, and the public knows that,” Hutson said. “There is only one element in the general community that is trained to kill, and that’s a law enforcement officer.”

Pop culture might partially explain the increase in suicide by cop, according to Clinton R. Van Zandt, supervisory special agent for the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.

“Movies and police dramas on television have contributed to the belief that death by shooting can be a nice, clean, relatively painless process,” Van Zandt wrote in a 1993 issue of The Police Chief.

In Portland, the numbers show that police commanders dramatically have increased the use of SERT in recent years. With an estimated 21 call-outs so far this year, SERT is one deployment away from tying 1996′s record year.

Compare that with 1993, when SERT responded to six call-outs.

“I think we’re seeing a lot more barricaded situations and we’re seeing SERT called out more for suicidal situations,” Madison said.

In the past, commanders were reluctant to call SERT.

“Before, people were concerned because it takes a while to get there and set up,” Madison.

But now, the police see the value of negotiators and officers trained to use tear gas and sometimes a weapon that shoots heavy bean bags before kicking in the door with guns blazing.

Negotiators will try for hours to talk people out of violence. Tear gas and bean bags, which stun the targeted person, often allow police to defuse the situation.

“In any suicide case, we try to come to a friendly conclusion,” Madison said. But “there are going to be times (where) we may not have many options.”

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POLICE IN STANDOFFS MUST STRIKE FINE BALANCE

Thursday, January 29, 1998

As the standoff between police and a man with a gun ground slowly into its 13th hour, a passer-by summed up the unspoken frustration of most neighbors, police and the assembled media:

“Oh, why doesn’t he just shoot himself and get it over with?” the woman asked. She paused. “Oh, I don’t really mean that, but how can one person mess up so many lives?”

A short time later, the news crackled over Gresham Police Lt. Carla Piluso’s radio. “We’re 1061 with the suspect,” said a Special Emergency Reaction Team member, using the numerical code for “suspect in custody.”

Friends said the man, Larry Kay Igo, had celebrated his graduation from an alcohol-recovery program by getting drunk and then despondent. He finally surrendered by walking out of his Gresham apartment with his hands up.

But not before he had fired eight shots into the air at adjacent apartments and a police floodlight. And not before more than 100 neighbors were evacuated from their apartments, and two full shifts of SERT members had donned camouflaged gear and surrounded his apartment.

For 13 hours last week, police closed off usually busy Northeast Glisan Street between 176th and 181st avenues, disrupting bus schedules, personal schedules, meetings and local businesses. Not to mention finely tuned police roll calls and shifts, and the fair chunk of overtime officers will receive for the standoff.

All for a 42-year-old man who had rambled incoherently about God and his problems, while holding off police with a high-powered hunting rifle.

“This has not been a good month for me,” one businessman complained to no one in particular from the Albertson’s parking lot, where police had set up a media command post. “Business was already slow what with the snowstorm last week . . . now this.”

The command post consisted of Piluso’s unmarked car and a swarm of reporters who could be seen searching their pockets whenever a cellular phone went off.

The radio reporters needed constant updates; television needed sound bites and visuals; the print reporters wanted precise time lines of the events as they unfolded.

And all of it — the disruption, the tension, the stale pizza and half-eaten doughnuts, the black face paint and an armored car — for a suspect who wanted to kill police officers or have them kill him.

“Every situation is different,” said Piluso, who worked as a hostage negotiator for five years. “But in every situation the most important thing is officer safety, the safety of the public, and yes, the safety of the subject.”

Time is essential

The essential safety element in all these cases is time — the time it takes to establish a rapport with the person, who often is desperate, confused, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and armed with a gun.

Add mood swings, bright lights and fatigue and you’ve got the potential for a situation that can swing from violent tragedy to peaceful resolve in an instant.

The former occurred last September when Bill Utton, who was depressed about his failing health, fired several shots inside his mobile home at Southeast Powell Court and 111th Avenue.

Police surrounded his home, and later fired tear gas inside to get him to come out. Instead, he shot at them, whizzing bullets over neighbors and reporters standing across the street.

Police said they had no choice but to shoot Utton. It was the first time a suspect was shot and killed during a Portland SERT operation since 1991, and only the fifth time the SERT team had used deadly force since 1975 when the unit was formed.

Most SERT actions end like they did last week, when Igo, formerly of Mosier, quietly laid down his rifle and walked into the arms of waiting police.

But during the negotiations with police, Igo several times told officers that he had an overwhelming desire to pick up the gun and fire at police.

“That’s where the subject has the most control — he or she can get violent,” Piluso said. “It’s the job of a good negotiator to explain to them why that is not a good option. To do that, you have to establish a rapport — find out where that person needs to be in their head and put them there.”

Piluso said it all boils down to finding out how the person got into the situation, and an acceptable way to get out of it.

“Time is on our side,” Piluso said. “And it’s not only the questions you ask, it’s the answers you give.”

Piluso recalled that during one of her stints as a negotiator, the man refused to talk with a woman. At another, a subject was watching the incident outside on his television and became extremely angry at one of the reporter’s comments.

“It’s tough,” Piluso said. “Sometimes we have to swallow our pride to win back their trust.”

POLICE KILL WOMAN ON THE ATTACK IN GRESHAM

Gresham police shot and killed a woman in front of a house in Northeast Gresham a block from Hall Elementary School this morning.

A frantic woman called 9-1-1 shortly before 8 a.m., telling police dispatchers that a woman with a gun was in her house, threatening to kill her daughter. She said the woman had already fired shots inside the house.

The daughter, a woman in her 20s, escaped out a back window before police arrived. The woman carrying the gun left the house.

Gresham Police Spokesman Sgt. David Lerwick said that when three officers arrived in the 2400 block of Northeast Fleming Terrace, they confronted a woman in her mid-50s carrying a small-caliber handgun.

What happened next was unclear this morning, but Lerwick said all three officers fired their weapons. The woman, who has not been identified, died at the scene. Her body, covered by a gray blanket, lay in a driveway next to the curb as investigators interviewed witnesses.

Jerry Small, who lives about half a block away, said he heard six to eight shots in rapid succession.

“It sounded like a machine gun,” Small said.

Lerwick said no one else was injured. He said no schoolchildren were ever in danger. Fleming Terrace is a residential street just west of Hall Elementary School. There is also a group home for disabled children at the end of the cul-de-sac.

The last Gresham police shooting was in August 1994 when police shot and killed a woman inside the Gresham Fred Meyer Store. The woman, who had a history of mental illness, lunged at police with a large knife.

GRESHAM POLICE KILL WOMAN AFTER SHOOTING IN HOME

Three Gresham police officers shot and killed a 55-year-old Southeast Portland woman Wednesday morning after she barged into the house of her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend and tried to kill her.

The woman died from multiple gunshot wounds in the driveway of a house in the 2300 block of Northeast Fleming Terrace, a block from Hall Elementary School.

Police said the woman, whose name wasn’t released pending notification of relatives, was killed after firing at least one shot from a small caliber handgun at officers who were responding to a 9-1-1 call.

Police said the woman came to the house armed with a gun because of a relationship among the woman, her ex-boyfriend, Leroy J. Bussey, and Angela Deniece Shaw, the woman she threatened to kill Wednesday morning.

Shaw, 23, lived with her parents and her two young children in the quiet, tidy house. Bussey was the assailant’s boyfriend for several years, and the two had purchased cars and property together. Bussey’s father said the couple broke up about six months ago.

Neighbor Kim Fleming said Bussey, known as “Skip,” was dating Shaw and had lived in the house for a time.

Fleming, who said she was a good friend of Shaw’s, said she talked to the young woman after the shooting and was told this account of events:

The woman arrived at the house when Shaw was getting her 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter dressed for the day. She was let into the house by Shaw’s mother. The woman immediately started screaming, accusing Angela Shaw of stealing her boyfriend.

“Angie heard her and said `Don’t believe her, Mom. It’s all lies,’ “ Fleming said. That’s when the 325-pound intruder grabbed the 165-pound Shaw and pinned her against the wall. The woman pulled a gun and put it to Shaw’s head and tried to pull the trigger. The gun’s safety was on, so it did not fire.

Shaw ran into her bedroom and locked the door. Her attacker flicked off the safety and began firing through Shaw’s locked door.

Gresham Police Department spokesman Sgt. David Lerwick said Angela Shaw escaped out a back window and ran to a neighbor’s house to call 9-1-1.

Meanwhile, Fleming said, Shaw’s mother, Patricia Gail Shaw, herded her grandchildren out a sliding glass door and called 9-1-1 with a portable phone at 7:51 a.m.

Fleming said the woman left the house and the door locked behind her. Other witnesses said the woman reloaded her handgun outside and began walking toward her car, parked about four houses away.

The woman was confronted by three Gresham police officers and she fired at least one round at them, according to Lerwick. They shot back.

A man who lived across the street, Patrick MacQuire, said he had just opened the door for his 12- and 14-year-old daughters, who were on their way to a bus stop on Northeast 23rd Street, when he heard gunshots.

“At first I thought it was firecrackers set off by kids at the bus stop,” MacQuire said. “Then there was a bunch of shots fired in quick succession, and I knew someone was shooting . I pushed the girls back in the house.”

MacQuire said when the shooting stopped, he peered around the corner of his house and saw three officers with their guns drawn and a woman lying in a driveway.

“One of the officers walked over to her and kicked the gun out of her hand,” MacQuire said. “I could tell she was dead.”

Jerry Small, who lives about half a block away, said he heard six to eight shots in rapid succession.

“It sounded like a machine gun,” Small said.

Lerwick said no schoolchildren were in danger. Fleming Terrace is a residential street just west of Hall Elementary School. There is also a group home for disabled children on the street.

Janis L. Hardman, a Portland lawyer who worked with the dead woman at a Portland law firm and then later contracted with her for other legal work, called her “bright, but troubled.”

She said the woman worked for the large firms and did quite a bit of overflow work after hours and worked out of her home.

“She really didn’t have a lot of friends,” Hardman said. “She wore them out . . . she had a tumultuous life. She was a sad person.”

Hardman said the woman was also very close to and protective of her two sons.

Bussey, 52, drove by Shaw’s house about 30 minutes after the shooting .

Police stopped him for questioning in connection with the shooting and discovered he was wanted for violating parole on an armed robbery conviction. He faces no charges in Wednesday’s events but was booked into the Justice Center Jail.

The woman’s 22-year-old son, interviewed at his mother’s house in the 3800 block of Southeast Lafayette Court in Portland, said he was acquainted with Angela Shaw and her parents but said his mother did not know them.

Clark Bussey of Klamath Falls said the woman used to date his son, Leroy Bussey, and later befriended his wife, Katherine, even after she broke up with his son.

“They visited on the phone quite a lot,” Bussey said. “Katherine was an invalid and the calls cheered her up.”

Bussey’s wife died of heart disease last month. He said the woman was “nice” and “a real good” legal secretary who came to his house on one occasion.

Lerwick said the names of the three officers involved would be released Thursday. All three officers were interviewed by detectives and put on paid administrative leave.

Police used aircraft to photograph the crime scene from above while detectives from the East Multnomah County Major Crimes Team conducted their investigation and conferred with members of the Multnomah County district attorney’s office.

The last Gresham police shooting was in August 1994 when police shot and killed a woman inside the Gresham Fred Meyer store. The woman had a history of mental illness and lunged at police with a large knife.

WOMAN SAID SHE’D KILL POLICE OR DIE

Judy Hinch used to tell her friends that if the police ever tried to arrest her, she would take them out or die trying.

Wednesday morning, Hinch, a 55-year-old legal secretary who led a sad and troubled life, kept that promise, dying in a hail of police gunfire after she fired a .22-caliber handgun at three Gresham police officers.

“I always thought she was a great lady,” said Angela Shaw, 23, describing the woman who tried to kill her Wednesday morning.

Hinch came to Shaw’s house to have it out with the younger woman over a man — Hinch’s ex-boyfriend, Leroy “Skip” Bussey, 52.

Shaw said she didn’t think Hinch came intending to kill her. But a confrontation between the two women escalated quickly from screaming to shooting.

Shaw described her ordeal Thursday, 24 hours after Hinch arrived at her parents’ house on Northeast Fleming Terrace.

Bussey, a wanted felon who spent 13 of the past 15 years in prison for armed robbery and bank robbery, was living with Hinch in her Southeast Portland home until about a week ago.

Shaw said the romance between Hinch and Bussey had evolved into a business relationship. She said the pair bought used trailer homes together, refurbishing them and then selling them for a profit.

“She was in love with him,” Shaw said. “But he was trying to fade out of their intimate relationship. They were supposed to move to a trailer they bought together in Klamath Falls, until I said to Skip, `Hey, baby.’”

Neighbors said Bussey was a frequent visitor to Shaw’s house, where she lived with her parents and her two children.

By late last weekend, it was obvious to Hinch that she was losing her hold on Bussey. She threw him out and let another friend of Shaw’s, Mike Cordray, move in.

It was Cordray who drove Hinch to Shaw’s neighborhood Wednesday morning.

Shaw said Hinch called her last week to ask about her relationship with Bussey. During the conversation, Shaw said that Hinch seemed to be understanding and even said she had no hard feelings.

“I thought, `Great,’” Shaw said. “But she was still jealous of me.”

Soon after that telephone call, Hinch asked Bussey to move out of her house. Bussey continued to see Shaw, and for the last week he visited Shaw when Shaw’s parents weren’t home.

Bussey had just dropped Shaw and her children off at her mother’s one-story gray house on Fleming Terrace on Wednesday morning after a night at a friend’s house when Hinch showed up at her door, angry and armed.

Shaw said she heard her mother talking to Hinch in the kitchen. She dressed her son for school, and then interrupted the conversation between the two women.

Shaw and Hinch began to argue. Hinch grabbed Shaw’s face and pinned her against a wall.

“Please let her go,” Shaw’s mother pleaded.

Shaw backed into her bedroom and sat on the bed. Hinch pulled the gun, and from less than five feet away, raised it and pointed it at Shaw’s face.

Then she tried to pull the trigger.

“My heart stopped,” Shaw said.

Hinch, realizing the gun’s safety was still on, fiddled with it and said to Shaw, “What? You don’t think I’ll do it?’”

Shaw didn’t wait to see, she said. She slammed and locked her door, and then jumped out the window and ran to her next-door neighbor’s house to call police.

Hinch fired through the door; police later recovered two slugs from the wall.

Patricia Shaw — who by this time was on the back porch and on the phone with 9-1-1 — pleaded with Hinch to leave. Shaw’s two children were with her.

“She told my mom, `I have no place to go,’ “Shaw said, “but mom told her she had to leave. The police were coming.”

Hinch walked to the front door, paused and reloaded the gun, and then stepped out. She turned and tried to reopen the door, but it was locked.

So Hinch starting walking down the street, to the sound of the sirens from approaching police cars.

“She just walked down the road like there was nothing wrong,” Shaw said. “When I heard the shots, I knew she was going to die. She always told us she would. And she did.”

GRESHAM POLICE NAME 3 OFFICERS IN SHOOTING

The Gresham Police Department on Thursday identified the three policemen who shot and killed a 55-year-old Southeast Portland woman.

The officers involved in the shooting were James Kalbasky, 43, an 18-year veteran of the department; Paul Poitras, 39, a 17-year veteran; and Robert Haphey, 45, a 10-year veteran.

All three officers fired their guns at Judith Irene Hinch shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday after she shot at them with a .22-caliber handgun in the 2300 block of Northeast Fleming Terrace.

Hinch, a legal secretary who friends said had a troubled and tumultuous life, stormed into a house nearby, threatening to kill her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, Angela Deniece Shaw, 23. Shaw escaped out a back window as Hinch began shooting through a bedroom door.

The three policemen shot Hinch about four houses away when she confronted them on the way to her car.

The Multnomah County medical examiner’s office said Thursday that Hinch died of multiple gunshot wounds by “legal intervention.” Officials would not say where Hinch was struck or by how many bullets.

The three officers were placed on paid administrative leave and have the option of talking with counselors.

Sgt. David Lerwick, Gresham police spokesman, said the types and caliber of the weapons used by the officers are being withheld until the investigation is finished. Gresham police own their own weapons, but the department dictates the caliber, make and manufacturer of the handguns officers can carry. Lerwick said the city is changing its weapons policy next month when the department will issue all officers either 9 mm or .40-caliber semiautomatic handguns.

“Some officers may opt to retain their own personal duty weapons,” Lerwick said.

POLICE SHOOTING OF WOMAN RULED JUSTIFIED

Three Gresham Police officers were justified in fatally shooting a 55-year-old Southeast Portland woman earlier this month, a Multnomah County grand jury decided Monday.

Police shot Judith Irene Hinch 11 times after she pointed and fired a .22-caliber handgun at them in a driveway in the 2300 block of Northeast Fleming Terrace on Sept. 10.

The officers involved in the shooting were James Kalbasky, 43, an 18-year veteran of the department; Paul Poitras, 39, a 17-year veteran; and Robert Haphey, 45, a 10-year veteran.

“You have close ones and ones that are not so close,” said assistant district attorney Diane Rea, who presented the case to a grand jury. “This one was not so close.”

Rea said there was no way to determine which one of the 11 shots that struck Hinch was the fatal wound, but at least two of the rounds would have killed her. Ballistics tests to determine where each individual officer’s rounds struck Hinch were not completed.

Hinch, a legal secretary who friends said had a troubled and tumultuous life, stormed into a house nearby, threatening to kill her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, Angela Deniece Shaw, 23. Shaw escaped out a back window as Hinch began shooting through a bedroom door.

The three policemen shot Hinch about four houses away when she confronted them on the way to her car. The grand jury decided that the officers were justified in their use of deadly force when Hinch fired at them.

Gresham Police Chief Bernie Giusto said he talked with all three officers individually and as a group the day of the shooting. As a show of support, Giusto went to the courthouse Monday morning.

“It’s still the most unfortunate part of police work,” Giusto said of the shooting. “There is an increasing presence of firearms in the community . . . we’re seeing a lot more of it in Gresham.”

Giusto said the three officers were “amazingly composed, but visibly shaken” after the incident.

“I told them we treat these kind of things like a family,” Giusto said. “They’re not alone . . . it’s a part of the profession nobody likes but we know has to be.”

All three officers, who have been on paid administrative leave since the shooting, were anxious to be back at work, Giusto said. They were expected back on the job later this week, after some additional debriefing.

Giusto said Hinch was carrying — one of 14 guns that had been reported stolen from a Southeast Portland couple’s home over the Labor Day weekend.

Another stolen gun was found in her car, and 11 more were discovered in her Southeast Portland home, where she lived with her son, 22-year-old Collins Hinch.

Three of the stolen guns were recovered from a car driven by Leroy “Skip” Bussey, 52, a former boyfriend of Hinch. Bussey was arrested the morning of the shooting and jailed for violating his federal parole for armed robbery. He remains in the Justice Center Jail.

The last of the stolen guns turned up over the weekend in connection with a robbery in Oregon City.

Gresham police said the guns had been turned over to Portland police detectives for further investigation.

Shaw, 23, the woman police said Hinch tried to kill, was arrested and cited Friday on forgery charges. Police said someone using a stolen credit card purchased a $100 gift certificate from a local retail store. When Shaw arrived to pick up the certificate, she was arrested, cited and released.

GRESHAM POLICE SHOOTING INCIDENT ENDED A TROUBLED LIFE

From the Oregonian, January 1, 1998

No one may ever know what finally caused Judy Hinch, a troubled 55-year-old legal secretary, to point a handgun at police after she tried to kill a boyfriend’s new girlfriend.

But on that Wednesday morning, Sept. 10, Hinch was killed by at least 11 shots fired by three Gresham police officers who responded to Northeast Fleming Terrace.

Just moments before, Hinch had burst into the home of Angela Shaw, and after exchanging words with Shaw and her mother, began shooting through Shaw’s bedroom door.

Then she calmly walked down the street and confronted police, who later said Hinch was carrying a .22-caliber handgun stolen from a Southeast Portland couple’s home just weeks before.

“When I heard the shots, I knew she was going to die,” Angela Shaw said.

A grand jury later determined that Gresham Police officers James Kalbasky, Paul Poitras and Robert Haphey had been justified in shooting Hinch.

The last Gresham police shooting was in August 1994 when police shot and killed a woman inside the Gresham Fred Meyer store.

From Willamette Week, September 3, 1997

Howard Bethea killed Monica Cuenca, but many say Oregon’s mental-health system is the real culprit.

He liked to brag about his time in prison for armed robbery and assault, as if to prove he was tougher than his pudgy 5-foot-6-inch frame would indicate. He assured his Washington County parole officer that he would one day have his 15 minutes. He threatened, repeatedly, to decapitate those who made him angry.

In the waning days of 1994, when he was being held in the psychiatric ward of Portland Adventist Medical Center, he babbled about serial killers to doctors and nurses and pounded on the windows when he didn’t get his way.

Then the mental-health experts released him to the streets.

Two and a half weeks later, Howard Bethea committed murder. It was an act, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit scheduled for trial this month in Multnomah County, spurred not only by Bethea’s madness but by the twisted priorities of Oregon’s mental-health system.

On Dec. 20, 1994, fueled by quarts of coffee and running on almost no sleep, Bethea took the bus from his Hillsboro boarding house to his step-aunt’s apartment in Portland. After downing two cans of Hamm’s beer, he stole the Smith & Wesson handgun she kept in her dresser drawer. Then he hopped a bus back toward Aloha.
“I knew just what I wanted to do,” he later told police. “Get a rat back who ratted on me for nothing.”

Around 6:45 pm, Bethea barged into the Hughey House, a group home for people with mental illnesses where he had lived for two weeks prior to his stay at Portland Adventist. He marched straight toward Monica Cuenca, a 28-year-old staffer who was playing Canasta with one of her charges. He pulled the .22 revolver out of his waistband and, without a word, fired at her head. She looked up, “right inside my eyes,” Bethea later told the police, whereupon he fired once more: “Let me be honest with you,” he later told Det. Roger Mussler. “I fired a second time because I wanted to make sure I got her.”

Two days later, Cuenca died. Eighteen months after that, Bethea began serving a life sentence for murder.
That, however, isn’t the end of the story. Bethea was a “walking time bomb,” according to the lawsuit filed by Cuenca’s family and scheduled for trial Sept. 22. The family is seeking $9 million and alleging that the state Mental Health and Developmental Disability Services Division, Portland Adventist Medical Center and treating psychiatrist Dr. Glenn Ruminson failed to learn enough about Bethea’s history to assess his danger to society; failed to treat him adequately before discharge; and failed to develop a safe plan for Bethea’s release. Portland Adventist, the suit adds, was “willful and wanton” in its disregard for the best interests of the public, including Cuenca.

It’s too early to tell if a Multnomah County jury will agree. But it’s clear that Bethea’s story is just one of many tragedies that some say could have been prevented if it weren’t for the powerful forces that fuel the flawed mental-health system.

Most obvious, of course, is the inherent difficulty of dealing with people whose behavior defies logic. Then there is the matter of simple math–there are 66,000 people in Oregon who suffer from serious and persistent mental illnesses, but only 198 long-term hospital beds to help them through periods of crisis. Adding to this bleak equation is another economic truism: It’s far more expensive to keep people in the hospital than to push them into community treatment.

Perhaps most significant of these forces, though, is the principle that guides those who make daily decisions on the fate of mentally ill Oregonians–the classic liberal notion that liberty is inherently better than detention.

In short? No matter how bizarre your behavior, how untreatable your illness and how horrific your threats, it’s much easier to get out of the psychiatric ward than it is to get in.

For as long as anyone can remember, Howard Bethea didn’t get along very well in this world.

At school in Hillsboro, Bethea was a loner and a misfit. He had a normal IQ, but his teachers were puzzled when his test answers bore no relation to the questions. He graduated from Hillsboro High School in 1982, and around the same time, a psychologist said he had a “paranoid personality structure,” the first of many labels of mental illness that would follow Bethea throughout his life.

One of his diagnoses was paranoid schizophrenia, a lifelong debilitating disease exacerbated by his drug and alcohol abuse. His anti-social personality disorder also made him difficult, if not impossible, to get along with.
“Everyone in [Washington County] mental health and corrections knew Howard,” said Pat Johnson, one of his parole officers. “He was loud, demanding and narcissistic.” Steven E. Berger, another parole officer, testified in depositions that “nobody in our office has ever received a higher level of supervision than Howard Bethea.”

As documented by police and parole officers, Bethea’s mind made him do things both bizarre and criminal.

In 1984, at age 21, he threatened a couple with a knife and was sentenced to three years of probation for the crime of menacing. In 1985, he used a padlock stuffed in a sock to attack a man and was sanctioned for a probation violation. In 1986 his probation was extended after he slashed the walls of his apartment with a knife.

All told, between 1985 and 1987, he was arrested 10 times, five of them for crimes against other people.
In 1987, Bethea received his first prison term, a 10-year sentence for first-degree robbery. He had tried to steal gum, aspirin and Sominex from a convenience store and threatened the clerk with a knife. Then, while serving time at Oregon State Correctional Institution, he assaulted another inmate.

Between 1988 and 1992, he was transferred eight times from prison to the Oregon State Hospital for psychiatric treatment.

“His overall prognosis is quite guarded and probability of reoffense high,” a report from the state hospital noted.

The prison system, however, could only keep him for so long. In March 1992, he was paroled after serving five years of his 10-year sentence, as was normal at the time.

At this point in his life, Bethea straddled two bureaucracies, each with different ideas of what he needed in order to navigate his future. On one side was the justice system, which in the past decade has come under increasing voter pressure to operate with a “lock ‘em up” attitude. On the other side was the mental-health system. This sprawling hodgepodge of state and county bureaucrats and public and private treatment providers operates under another principle entirely: that of helping people with mental illnesses fit into society.

Accordingly, Bethea’s first stop out of prison was Twin Cedars, a boarding home for up to 25 mentally ill men in Washington County, where he would live and take his meals. Bethea wouldn’t behave, however, and wound up spending the next two years bouncing from one group home to the next, and sometimes to jail on parole violations in between. He paid his expenses with checks from the federal government, including Social Security and Medicaid.

Several times during his parole, he checked himself into the psychiatric ward of a local hospital for medication and stabilization. In 1994, he wound up hospitalized at least three times–in March,July and November. “It was a regular thing for Howard to turn himself in to the hospital or call the police and say he was having fantasies and he was going to act out,” explained parole officer Berger.

In November 1994, after spending two weeks in the Washington County jail on a parole violation (for drinking), Bethea moved into Hughey House. That’s where he met Monica Cuenca.

Cuenca was the eldest daughter of devoutly Catholic parents who had emigrated from the Philippines in 1971 with “three suitcases and three kids,” according to Cuenca’s sister, Aimee. Cuenca had known since high school that she wanted to care for people with mental handicaps. “I don’t think many people have that kind of calling,” Aimee said.

For reasons that only make sense in one troubled mind, Bethea did not like Cuenca. He saw her as an “oppressor of the mentally ill” who treated him like “a stepchild.”

Around midnight on Nov. 15, Cuenca called Berger to report that Bethea had been threatening to decapitate other group-home residents. Berger said in court documents that Bethea made specific threats against Cuenca as well.

“I knew I should get there real quick,” Berger said. “Prior to that, Howard’s threats had never been directed specifically…so I wanted to respond.”

The police came early the next morning and took Bethea to a hospital on what’s known as a “hospital hold.”
Under Oregon law, hospitals can keep someone like Bethea for a short period for observation and stabilization. During that time, mental-health experts determine whether the person is appropriate for a longer stay. If he is, the county can ask for a civil commitment hearing in front of a judge. Few people make it this far in the system (most of the time, the person either stabilizes or agrees to forgo the hearing and stay in the hospital voluntarily). Once in the courtroom, however, the person enters what is perhaps the most structured part of the mental-health system.

The civil commitment judge’s task is twofold: First to determine whether the person has a mental disorder; then to decide whether the person is dangerous to himself or others or unable to care for his basic needs.
On Nov. 18, Washington County Circuit Court Judge Hollie M. Pihl decided that Bethea was in fact suffering from a mental disorder and was a danger to others. He committed Bethea to the care of the state mental health division for up to six months.

Bethea was immediately whisked off to Portland Adventist, one of the four metro-area facilities that accepts civilly committed patients; these have become sort of a safety valve for the public and for mentally ill people since Dammasch State Hospital closed in 1995.

Bethea was placed in a secure section of Portland Adventist. He repeatedly complained about his medication. He was “chemically restrained”–sedated–eight out of the next 15 days, the last time four days before his release. He was acting out, and staff repeatedly ordered him to behave. He suffered delusions or exhibited grandiose behavior on and off until two days before his release.

But as with nearly all patients in Oregon’s psychiatric hospitals, there was no question that one day he would be released.

If the front end of the mental-health system, the civil commitment hearing, is the epitome of order, what goes on at the other end is more like chaos.

While a small number of judges have the power to commit someone to a hospital, potentially thousands of mental-health workers across the state, each with his or her own beliefs, have the power to decide how long it will be before the committed person is released.

The task is difficult and often emotionally grueling. In Howard Bethea’s case, it fell to Dr. Glenn Ruminson.
A psychiatrist for more than two decades, Ruminson had the experience to make tough decisions. In addition to running his own private practice since 1975, Ruminson served on the quality management and credentials committees at Portland Adventist in 1994.

Ruminson’s discharge notes and his deposition testimony give some clue as to his reasoning in releasing Bethea.

“It was my judgment at the time of the discharge that the risk factors had been addressed adequately, that [Bethea] had a good treatment program,” Ruminson testified in depositions. “His psychosis, which I considered a major factor in his threats, was improving to a point where he was recognizing that he had a disorder, that he was willing to take medication.”

Since Nov. 30, “he made no threatening comments,” Ruminson wrote in the discharge summary. “He never said that he was going to go out and kill anyone.He never indicated that he had any plans for harming anyone…. During last five days of his hospitalization, he made no references to wanting to be a serial killer.”
On Dec. 2, just four days after he was last administered a sedative, and two days after suffering his most recent delusions, Bethea was released with little more than a bus ticket and a plan: He would live once again at Twin Cedars, a sprawling boarding home without any on-staff clinical supervision. A Washington County mental-health worker would receive a report on Bethea’s progress once a month.

When he boarded the bus from Portland to Hillsboro, Bethea had been in the hospital just two weeks, a stay 51?2 months shorter than the judge’s order would have allowed. This is not unusual. Although the standard period for commitment is up to six months, most patients spend only about two weeks in the psychiatric unit of a local hospital before being discharged, according to state and county figures.

Bethea immediately began acting bizarrely, according to reports from his parole officer, but mental health workers didn’t try to put him back in the hospital. “There was an obvious conflict between Washington County mental health and community corrections,” noted Keith Walker, who defended Bethea at his murder trial. “The parole department was extremely concerned about him. They were convinced he had serious mental problems. They couldn’t get mental health to recognize that.”

By Dec. 20, when Bethea killed Monica Cuenca, it was too late.

For those who don’t know the mental health system, releasing someone like Bethea after 14 days in the hospital might seem like putting a Mack truck on the road with no brakes and no steering wheel–of course it’s going to do some damage.

So why was Bethea released so soon?

The answer is not simple. “I don’t know if you’ll find a smoking gun,” says Dr. David Pollack, medical directorof Mental Health Services West. “It’s kind of a systemic issue.”

Financial considerations may have had something to do with it. Although there is no proof that bean counters put direct pressure on Ruminson, it is clear that keeping Bethea in the hospital was an expensive proposition.

In general, under a state contract with Portland Adventist, it cost taxpayers about $600 per day in 1994 to hold people who were committed. The rooming house to which Bethea was released, however, cost the state nothing; Bethea paid for it with his federal government checks. National experts have argued that when the federal government introduced Medicare and Medicaid–which covered care of mentally ill people in the community, but not in hospitals–states began releasing mental patients from state-funded hospitals in vast numbers.

Depending on the particular circumstances at the time of Bethea’s stay, the state contract could also have given the hospital a financial incentive to release him: Under most circumstances, the state contract paid the hospital a lump sum to reserve a certain number of beds each month for committed patients, whether those beds were filled or not.

Another pressure has to do with philosophy. Like the child welfare system, which operates on the notion that children belong with their birth families, the mental-health system also has a guiding principle. According to Bob Nikkel, an assistant administrator with the state mental health department, Oregon mental-health workers are under a mandate to put clients into the “least restrictive care” possible. In most cases, this means that people with mental illnesses must live in the community.

It wasn’t always this way.

“In the old days,” explains Bob Joondeph, executive director of the Oregon Advocacy Center, “if somebody had a mental break you just sent them away and they were gone…. You went to a hospital where you would stay for the rest of your life.”

As Oregon novelist Ken Kesey vividly portrayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, mental hospitals were in effect prisons for the innocent, where men like Randle Patrick McMurphy were tortured instead of treated. “It was just a trash bin,” Joondeph says.

Several developments drastically changed that landscape. Thorazine, the first anti-psychotic drug, was developed in the 1950s and made it possible for thousands of previously institutionalized people to live relatively normal lives. Moreover, a consensus began to develop in the early ’60s that lives were being wasted. A continuing series of lawsuits by civil libertarians has fueled the movement well into the 1990s.

In the Bethea lawsuit, lawyers from the attorney general’s office even draw on the civil-liberties argument in the state’s defense: “It is fundamental as we close the 20th century in the Western world that people are not hospitalized against their will as mental patients when the hospital knows that there is no treatment it can provide for them and that they would simply be warehoused as unadjudicated convicts.”

The argument is appealing. Locking people up in the asylums of old is wrong when their only “crime” is being mentally ill. Freedom is inherently preferable to incarceration. Communities should care for their own.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work. And as Bethea’s case demonstrates, the pendulum may have swung too far–even with all the danger signs, he was still sent into the streets.

Today, there are only 198 secure long-term psychiatric beds in the entire state, down from 515 in 1988. The weight of some of that decrease has been borne by other institutions. About 190 mentally ill people sit in Multnomah County jails every day, mostly on minor charges. A Department of Corrections spokesman says that 10 percent of the state prison population is also mentally ill.

“There is a growing and seemingly intractable problem with persons…already having a diagnosis of mental illness who are in jail,” a 1997 Multnomah County report said.

Anyone in the system will tell you the promise of a community-based mental-health Utopia hasn’t materialized. The reality is that community beds are scarce, treatment is sometimes lacking and miracle drugs don’t work if you can’t make someone take them. As a result, says Bill Toomey, an administrator in the Multnomah County Community and Family Services Department, people like Howard Bethea are the least likely to receive proper treatment. “I think at this time it’s difficult to get care for people on the extreme end of the spectrum,” he says.

Judging by notes taken by the mental health and the parole departments, there was no question that Bethea was crying out for care in the days leading up to the murder. The help never arrived, making Bethea’s words to Judge Hollie Pihl at his civil commitment hearing even more haunting:

“You will never see me on death row or behind bars,” Bethea argued in his defense. “Do you know why? I was taught to use interventions…. If I have trouble, I’ll go to somebody else…. [I'll] seek help with the people that the system set up around me–my support system through the community, through mental health and through corrections. If I get in a tough jam, I’ll seek help.”