Mental Health Association of Portland

Larry McKinney, 37, was set to enter alcohol treatment in two weeks when he was killed by Fairview officers.

By Lynne Terry, The Oregonian, Sept. 12, 2012

The family of a man killed by Fairview police in January filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Portland on Wednesday, accusing the two officers involved in the shooting and the city itself of unreasonable use of deadly force, wrongful death and violation of the man’s civil rights.

The lawsuit comes nearly eight months after Larry M. McKinney was shot dead at age 37 by a Fairview police officer outside his mother’s apartment on Jan. 27. A grand jury in February cleared the two officers of criminal wrongdoing. Afterward, Fairview Police Chief Ken Johnson conducted his own investigation and declared the shooting justified.

It was the first fatal shooting in the department’s history.

Sandra Kelley, McKinney’s mother, accused the officers of lying and the chief of covering it up. She said she filed the lawsuit because she wanted justice for her son, who would have turned 38 this past Saturday.

“I’ve been so depressed,” she said. “I thought we would never get it filed. I want justice so bad. It’s an outrageous lie that they concocted.”

Here’s what everyone agrees on:

Late that Friday night, Jan. 27, McKinney showed up at Kelley’s second-story unit in the Wood Creek Apartments on Northeast Halsey Street near 203rd Avenue. McKinney was drunk and became belligerent. He was not supposed to sleep there. Kelley told him she would not tolerate drinking and asked him to leave. When he refused, she called 9-1-1. Veteran officers Mike Morton and Joe Kaiser showed up at the scene right before midnight. Several minutes later McKinney was shot dead while holding a large kitchen knife on the landing of the staircase outside Kelley’s apartment.

At issue is where the officers were located.

The lawsuit disputes the officers’ testimony before the grand jury, saying their statements conflict with the forensic evidence. Kaiser testified that he was nearing the top of the narrow, enclosed flight of stairs to Kelley’s apartment when McKinney darted out, looking crazed, holding a large knife and saying he was going to kill the officer. Kaiser said he was an arm’s length away from McKinney and thought he would be stabbed. Morton testified that he was a few feet behind Kaiser on the stairs, heard his partner yell “knife,” saw the glint of the blade, and fired.

The complaint puts the officers at the bottom of the stairs when McKinney came out holding the knife. It says they drew their weapons as soon as they arrived, ignored Kelley’s plea not to shoot her son, told him to drop the weapon, and fired immediately. A diagram in the police investigation of the shooting shows Morton at the bottom of the stairs. That was never shown to the grand jury, the lawsuit says.

The complaint says because of McKinney’s death his three children — ages 10, 9 and 4 — will have no father and will be deprived of his love and financial support. He had a lengthy criminal history, was unemployed when he was killed and was on probation for driving while suspended and under the influence.

Chief Johnson could not be reached on Wednesday for comment. In February, he said his officer “did what he had to do.” He said an internal review of the shooting showed not only was it justified, but it likely saved the lives of as many as three people.

No damages are specified in the complaint, but Kelley’s lawyer, Michelle Burrows, said they could be “substantial.”

Brad Lee Morgan smiles at his son, Kannon.

By James Mazzocco, on BlueOregon.com

It was January 25, and Brad Morgan wanted to die.

Maybe it was earlier. He had problems. A day, a week, or a month before — nobody can know for sure. All the same, Brad Morgan knew it was time.

A tragic event has the power to cause us to inspect it minutely. We turn it over and over in our minds, searching for meaning: a lesson, a parable, or a moral mnemonic.

The result is almost always a banal lie we tell ourselves individually and collectively. It is cheap and convenient. Whether to salve pain, gain absolution, or conveniently sop tears of shame and frustration, that lie is above all human, but the price is that we are left casting about for a reason why.

The banal lie in Brad Morgan’s death is a socially acceptable euphemism for manslaughter commonly known as “suicide by cop.” It is the same lie police spokesmen have used to describe the deaths of Aaron Campbell, Keaton Otis, Jack Collins, Darryel Ferguson, Anthony McDowell, Jimmy Georgeson, Elias Angel Ruiz, Larry McKinney, and many others. In each of these cases, a suicidal man was killed by someone other than himself. When a life is cut short by another person, it is wrong to call it suicide — especially when the man behind the trigger is a police officer.

Just 21 years old and a new father, Brad Morgan climbed an elevator tower at a downtown parking garage and used his cell phone to tell the 9-1-1 operator that he planned to kill himself.

Long before that moment, it had gone too far. Brad Morgan’s fate was sealed when he did exactly what we are all taught to do from childhood.

Every social service agency, mental health provider, church therapist, doctor’s office, and hundreds of others who provide help in crises have similar after-hours greetings. We have all heard the familiar final words without paying too much attention: “If this is a life-threatening emergency, please hang up and dial 9-1-1.”

He may or may not have heard those words, but he did exactly as they instructed.

Brad Morgan now had two problems: Not only did he want to die, but police were on their way.

When 9-1-1 is the default overnight number for hundreds of agencies that promote their ability to help in a crisis, we have effectively criminalized mental illness. We force police, at best lightly trained in mental health issues, to be all-night, ad hoc therapists — a proven poor match.

When cops learn by trial and error, our friends die.

It is not a crime to be mentally ill. It is not a crime to be drunk or high. And it is not a crime to attempt or commit suicide.

It is, however, a crime to assist a suicide. To intentionally cause or aid another person to kill himself is second-degree manslaughter.

In a more just society, the officer who fired the fatal shot would be facing six years, three months in prison.

The 9-1-1 transcript reveals that Brad Morgan told the dispatcher, “I’d actually prefer for a police officer to shoot me at this point. I am not looking forward to this jump.”

To face criminal charges as a result of assisting a suicide is rare. A prudent person would never help. Imagine a distraught man in a hardware store, tears streaming down his face, clothing torn, in obvious anguish, demanding of the bewildered shopkeeper, “Show me how to tie a noose!”

Brad Morgan told a 9-1-1 operator that he wanted a cop to shoot him. That operator passed the call to the police, along with the details of Morgan’s desire to be shot by them. Informed by this banal lie we have all unthinkingly agreed to call “suicide by cop,” and expecting that they would be tasked with ending Morgan’s life, police hurried to arrive at the scene of a foregone conclusion. As always, they were ill-trained to handle a mental health situation.

How is it that our hypothetical shopkeeper is able to refuse to give instruction in tying a noose, but our police bureau is unable to field officers capable of refraining from shooting a man who is actively seeking to be shot? Why didn’t the Morgan grand jury bring a charge against the officers involved?

Astonishingly, they could not. The wrong training is provided to our police, and the wrong charge was put before the grand jury.

The proper training would have taught our police not to facilitate “suicide by cop,” and the proper charge would have been assisting a suicide.

Desiring, attempting, or completing suicide is a lonely, broken expression of intolerable pain. It is not a criminal enterprise, but a public health matter. To effectively make suicidal thoughts criminal, simply because we have no mental health safety net, is inexcusable.

We failed Brad Morgan, and in doing so, failed ourselves.

James Mazzocco is on the Advisory Council of the Mental Health Association of Portland.

By Tom Hallman Jr., The Oregonian, Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian
Fairview Police Chief Ken Johnson reads a statement at a press conference this afternoon following the release of the grand jury verdict finding no criminal wrongdoing in Fairview's first fatal police shooting.

Saying his officer “did what he had to do,” the chief of the Fairview Police Department said Wednesday that an internal review of a January fatal police shooting shows it was not only justified, but likely saved the lives of three people.

“It’s been a difficult time,” said Chief Ken Johnson. “The grand jury cleared the officer. I agree with them.”

Just before midnight January 27 Officer Joe Kaiser and Officer Mike Morton arrived at an apartment complex at 20341 N.E. Halsey St. in response to a 9-1-1 call from a woman who said her son, just out of jail, was drunk and had attacked her.

Kaiser climbed almost to the top of a flight of 14 stairs when Larry M. McKinney darted out of the second-floor apartment, holding a carving knife in a threatening stance.

Kaiser believed that McKinney was going to stab him. Morton fired three times, fatally wounding McKinney.

A Multnomah County grand jury later cleared Morton of any criminal wrongdoing.

Johnson said an internal police review showed that deadly force was justified. He said Morton “reacted appropriately,” and “most likely” saved his life, Kaiser’s life and “possibly” the life of the woman who had called for help.

The incident was Fairview’s first fatal police shooting since the department was created in 1977.

Note: Chief Johnson can be reached at (503) 674-6200 johnsonk@ci.fairview.or.us

Read: What happened to Larry M. McKinney

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Larry McKinney

Larry McKinney, 37, was shot and killed by Fairview police Officer Mike Morton on Jan. 27.  It was the city’s first fatal police shooting.  That evening, McKinney’s mother, Sandra Kelley, called 9-1-1 and asked for assistance getting her intoxicated son out of her apartment.  At 11:52 p.m., officers arrived at the building.  By 11:55 p.m., McKinney was dead.  Multnomah County Grand Jury proceedings took place Feb. 7 and 9.  Officers were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Grand jury transcripts may be downloaded below.  As a service to media and others, we have broken the 268-page document into parts that may be downloaded individually.  The complete transcript document is also provided.

Complete transcript – 268 pages (1.38 MB)

Volume 1 – Feb. 7, 2012

• Cover Page
• Index
• Examination of Deputy Kent Krumpschmidt, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office
• Examination of Clifford Nelson, Deputy State Medical Examiner
• Examination of Melissa Arne, criminalist, Gresham PD
• Examination of Sgt. John Pemberton, Fairview PD
• Examination of Deputy Kent Krumpschmidt, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office
• Examination of Joseph Storagee, Troutdale PD
• Examination of James Seymour, Gresham PD
• Examination of Kevin Odil, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office
• Examination of Steve Smith, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office
• Examination of Nathan Hibbs, Gresham PD
• Examination of David Schmidt, Gresham PD
• Examination of Roberta Slowikowski
• Examination of Mary Mosqueda
• Examination of Walter Streete
• Examination of Colleen Hewitt
• Examination of Ryan Doern, Gresham Fire Dept.
• Examination of Ken Yohe, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office
• Taped 911 calls
• Examination of Lauren Zoebelle, paramedic, AMR
• Affidavit of Court Reporter

Volume 2 – Feb. 9, 2012

• Cover Page
• Index
• Examination of Melinda Zarn
• Examination of Sergey Ryaboe
• Examination of Sandra Kelley
• Examination of Gerald Kelley
• Re-examination of Steve Smith
• Examination of Joe Kaiser, Fairview PD
• Examination of Michael Morton, Fairview PD
• Re-examination of Joe Kaiser
• Re-examination of Mary Mosqueda
• Re-examination of Kenneth Yohe
• Affadavit of Court Reporter

Larry McKinney was scheduled to enter alcohol treatment in two weeks when he was shot and killed by police

By Anita Kissée, KATU News, Feb 2, 2012

FAIRVIEW, Ore. – Police say 37-year-old Larry McKinney attacked an officer with a knife last week and they were forced to shoot and kill him, but the family of the man say they don’t believe that’s what happened.

McKinney’s longtime girlfriend and mother of his children, Mindy Zarn, said he was trying to get help. She told KATU News that he struggled with alcohol. McKinney had also just gotten out of jail and wasn’t supposed to drink. He had agreed to go into treatment in two weeks.

Now Zarn is struggling to explain to their children why he’s dead.

“He was at my door, and he was knocking and he was saying, ‘Mamma, Mamma, let me in!’ And I said, ‘You know you’re drunk. You know I can’t let you in,” Zarn said Wednesday.

She keeps replaying the last moment she saw her boyfriend. It was Friday through her apartment door peephole.

“He wasn’t being mean,” Zarn said. “He wasn’t being verbal. He wasn’t in a bad mood.”

With three kids, Zarn couldn’t let McKinney in drunk. A cab took him to his mother’s apartment in Fairview. That’s where he was later shot and killed by police who say he attacked them with a knife.

“It is not accurate. It’s a lie, is exactly what it is,” McKinney’s mother, Sandra Kelley, said last weekend. “It’s a lie. My son did not make one move – backward, sideways, forward – he just stood there.”

“He was robbed, and my kids were robbed,” Zarn said.

She’s struggling with the guilt for not letting McKinney inside that day. And making it worse, she learned he was cremated Wednesday without her knowing.

“I gotta live with a little vial of my soul mate,” she said. “I just always figured we’d have a burial next to each other and our family and their kids and their kids. That’s what I figured. And certainly not at the age of 37.”

This is Fairview’s first fatal police shooting. Police won’t comment until the case goes to the grand jury. The two officers are on paid leave.

From The Oregonian, January 30, 2012

Fairview police released the names of the two officers involved in the city’s first fatal police shooting on Monday, saying one of the officers had been attacked by the victim “brandishing a large knife” within moments of their arrival.

Officer Mike Morton, a 15-year-veteran of the department, shot at Larry McKinney three times shortly before midnight Friday, killing him in the doorway of his mother’s apartment. His partner, Joe Kaiser, had been attacked by McKinney, according to the statement.

Fairview Police Chief Ken Johnson declined to comment about the case until it goes before a grand jury late next week. The two officers have been put on paid administrative leave.

“It is anticipated that information from the Grand Jury will be released to the public so that all the facts and circumstance of the case can be clearly understood and speculation and false rumors can be corrected,” the news release said.

Sandra Kelley, 60, the victim’s mother, said she’s had a few calls from a Portland detective but no contact with the Fairview Police Department. The shooting is being investigated by the east county major crimes team, which includes the Multnomah County Sheriff’s office and Portland, Gresham and Troutdale police.

Two and a half days after the shooting, she is wracked with guilt, feeling like she’s responsible for his death.

If only she hadn’t decided to get tough. If only she hadn’t called police.

But she’s angry, too, about their reaction. She said they panicked and fired.

“I want the truth out there,” she said.

Kelley had never called the police before on her troubled 37-year-old son, who’d recently been released from jail and had a drinking problem. But this time she decided to lay down the law. He’d been drinking. He had to leave.

She called 9-1-1.

Minutes later, two police officers showed up outside her apartment building in Fairview.

Seconds after that her only son was dead, she said.

“It wasn’t even a minute,” she said on Monday, sobbing as she talked about the events leading up to the police shooting.

It started Friday evening in her apartment in the Wood Creek Village complex on Northeast Halsey Street near 203rd Avenue. For about the past week, he’d been crashing on her couch in her second-story two-bedroom apartment that she shares with her brother. He was on parole and was not supposed to drink. He’d just seen his parole officer that morning, she said.

This time, she hoped he would steer his life straight.

But when he called, she could tell he’d been drinking. She told him to stay away. No drinking. Those were the rules.

But he hopped into a cab and turned up anyway. She tried to get him to leave, pushing him out the door, but he refused. She went into her bedroom and locked the door.

He shoved it open. She picked up her cell phone and called emergency dispatch, saying she wanted police to get her son out of her apartment. No, she said, she was not worried about her own safety. She just wanted him to leave.

The dispatcher told her to stay on the phone and go downstairs to wait for police. She walked out the door and down the 14 steps to a patch of grass below as a patrol car drove up. Officers Joe Kaiser and Mike Morton got out and immediately drew their weapons, she said.

She was shocked.

“I don’t want you to shoot him,” she said she told them as they walked towards the bottom of the stairs. “I want you to make him leave.”

She said they asked if there were any weapons in her home, and she said no.

They took a few steps to the bottom of the stairs, their guns drawn, and her son walked out onto the landing. He was holding a slicing knife with a blade about an inch wide and six inches long.

She told him to put the knife down.

The cops told him to put weapon down.

McKinney stared and said nothing, she said, and then — bam, bam, bam — the cop on her right — Morton — fired three times.

She saw her son slump into her entryway.

“They shot him so fast — it happened before I could breathe,” she said. “They didn’t Tase him. They didn’t use rubber bullets. They just shot him down.”

Gerald Kelley, Kelley’s brother, was watching television in the living room at the time. He said his nephew was shot about seven seconds after he walked out onto the landing.

McKinney has a long rap sheet dating to 1993. He has been on and off probation and in and out of jail, mostly convicted of misdemeanors though he also was sentenced for assault, harassment and drug charges.

He has three children — daughters 3 and 9 and a 10-year-old son — with his longtime partner.

“He has a family who loves him,” said Cynthia Champion, his half sister.

From The Oregonian, January 29, 2012

Detectives are investigating Friday’s shooting by Fairview police, as the mother of the man killed disputes the police account.

Larry McKinney 12.21.2012

Shortly before midnight Friday, two officers responded to a 9-1-1 call to Wood Creek Apartments near the corner of Northeast 203rd Avenue and Halsey Street. There, one or both officers fired their weapon, killing Larry M. McKinney, a 37-year-old with a lengthy criminal history who lived in an apartment with his mother, Sandra Kelley.

Fairview police say McKinney attacked them while brandishing a large knife. Kelley, who was there, said Sunday that McKinney never advanced on the officers, instead standing about 20 feet away.

“I want the truth to be told,” said Kelley, 60, adding that she stood a few feet away from police. “My son did not move an inch: he didn’t talk, he didn’t threaten no one.”

Kelley had called 9-1-1 because McKinney came home drunk, and refused to leave when asked, she said. Based on past experience, she feared he would play loud music, and she fears being evicted.

“My rule is you don’t drink at my house, and you don’t come home buzzed or drunk,” she said.

She waited outside. When the officers arrived, her son came to the door of their second-story apartment, at the top of 14-step staircase, holding a kitchen knife, 8 to 9 inches long. At the bottom of the stairs, officers unholstered weapons, she said.

Larry McKinney 10.30.2012

“I said ‘Put the knife down, Larry,’ and they go, ‘Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon,’ and then they shot him three times. It happened that fast.”

Sgt. Bernie Meyer of the Fairview Police Department confirmed Sunday that Kelley was there, but declined to name the officers, or say how many fired weapons. Nor would he address the mother’s specific claims.

“The officers felt they were threatened, and that’s why they reacted the way they did,” he said. “We are trained to stop the threat.”

Meyer said officers are trained in “the 21-foot rule” that a knife-wielding suspect can cover 21 feet before officers can draw weapons and fire.

The officers involved are on leave pending an investigation by the East County Major Crimes Team, which includes the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and Portland, Gresham and Troutdale police.

McKinney has been booked in Multnomah County jails 62 times since 1993, according to jail records. According to his mother, his early troubles stemmed from drugs, leading to a state prison sentence for assault. His more recent arrests had to do with drinking and related issues, such as probation violations, she said.

But she said he was no threat to police. “They knew him,” she said. “A lot of them liked him.”

Gerald Kelley, McKinney’s uncle, was inside the apartment watching television when he saw his nephew step outside to confront police.

Larry McKinney 10.02.2010

“I go, ‘Oh quit it, Larry put the knife down, don’t be stupid,’ because he does stupid stuff when he’s drunk. I thought he might threaten to kill himself, because you know he’s got a lot of mental problems. I thought he was just screwing around.”

“I heard (Sandra Kelley) say ‘Put the knife down, Larry!’ and it couldn’t have been more than three or four seconds,” he said. “All I heard was ‘pop-pop-pop.’”

McKinney spent some time working at Precision Castparts and on an Alaskan fishing boat, but had his fingers crushed on the boat, and has been unemployed ever since. He spent two weeks in jail earlier this month, split between a Multnomah County probation violation and a drunk-driving conviction in Umatilla. He was slated to go into a treatment program in the coming weeks, Sandra Kelley said.

He is the father of two daughters, 3 and 9, and a 10-year-old son. His children’s mother has custody, but McKinney remained close to them, his mother said. “He’s a great father. He cooks for them, he plays with them, he dances with them. He’s a big kid himself, basically.”

One man dead after officer-involved shooting in Fairview, KATU.com, January 28, 2012

Man shot, killed by officer in Fairview, KOIN.com, January 28, 2012

Police are investigating an officer-involved shooting in Fairview that left one man dead Friday night.

Police said officers responded to a disturbance call at 11:47 p.m. at the Woodcreek Apartments at Northeast 203rd Avenue and Halsey.

Officers arrived to find a 37-year-old man with a large knife, according to Police Chief Ken Johnson. The man, who has not been identified by police, attacked one officer, who opened fire.

The man died at the scene, Johnson said.

“This is the city of Fairview’s first officer involved shooting in the history of the agency, so it’s very shocking,” said Fairview Police Spokesman Bernie Meyer. “Unfortunately, that’s the type of environment we’re beginning to live in now.”

The man’s mother spoke with KATU News Saturday. Sandra Kelley says her son’s name is Larry and police lied about what happened Friday night.

Kelley says she was the one who called police because her son was drunk.

She says Larry did hold up a knife when police arrived, but he did not attack the officers.

Kelley says both she and police told him to put the knife down and the next thing she knew, officers were shooting.

“My son did not make one move,” Kelley said. “They didn’t even give him time to think before they shot him and he hadn’t even moved a muscle.”

“I started screaming, I said ‘oh my god you didn’t need to shoot him, you shot him,’” said Kelley. “It was a very bad shock, very bad shock, because I didn’t think that was going to happen.”

Kelley said officers shot Larry 3 times and pushed her to the ground, asking if she had a weapon. She’s upset police did not use non-lethal force to subdue her son.

The officers involved in the shooting are now on administrative leave, police said.

Man shot, killed by officer in Fairview, KOIN.com, January 28, 2012

Man killed in Fairview officer-involved shooting, KGW.com, January 28, 2012

Fairview police fatally shoot a man after he attacks officers with a knife, Oregonian, January 28, 2012

Fairview officer shoots man during confrontation, Gresham Outlook, January 28, 2012

Fairview police identify man killed in officer-involved shooting, Oregonian January 29, 2012