More than two months after the bizarre police shootout on Front Street and the subsequent high-speed chase across the island, Police Chief Buz Dillon has finally released a public— and quite creative— report on the incident. Of course, Dillon ordered that the report not be released to Key West The Newspaper— but we got it anyway.
If you're a regular reader of KWTN, you probably know that, about Midnight on Sunday, July 22, a Key West police officer attempted to question a couple in a pickup truck after a routine traffic stop. The couple sped away in the truck but, minutes later, was "trapped" in the A&B Lobster House parking lot. Officers used their patrol cars to blockade Front Street, but the truck was able to crash through and head toward Duval Street.
Three officers pulled their weapons and opened fire. A high-speed chase across the island ensued with as many as nine police cars involved, lights flashing and sirens blaring. The truck was finally stopped on Stock Island and the couple arrested.
Most of Dillon's three-page report is dedicated to responding to criticism by Key West The Newspaper.
"It has been suggested by certain news media that as many as 18 shots were fired by officers on Front Street, which is totally inaccurate," said Sgt. Alan Newby, commander of the Professional Standards Bureau. Newby said that "only" eight shots were fired by officers.
We don't have a clue as to why Newby is unwilling to name the offending "media", but we assume he is referring to a report we published on August 3. Here's an excerpt:
"We have talked to a witness who was at Two Friends Restaurant. `We all hit the floor when we heard the shooting,' he said. But this same witness gave us some information that may suggest that Dillon may have not exactly told the Commissioners the truth about the number of shots fired.
"A police officer from out-of-town was among the customers at Two Friends. After the cops had left the `crime scene' at the entrance to the A&B parking lot to chase the pickup truck, he walked down to see what he could see. When he returned to the restaurant, he reportedly said that he counted at least 18 shell casings, all the same caliber, probably all from the cops' weapons."
"It was also suggested that officers fired toward busy Duval Street," Newby said. "That, too, is inaccurate. Investigative reports, including a diagram of the shooting scene, prepared immediately after the incident by Key West Police detectives, reflect that a building's exterior wall was the `backdrop.'"
KWTN has requested a copy of that diagram. At presstime Thursday, it had not been made available.
In any event, a serious question is being begged here, a question left unanswered by Chief Dillon's eye-wash report: Did the three officers who reportedly fired "only" eight shots hit anything?! Did they even hit the "backdrop" wall? Are bullet holes visible?
In his report, Dillon continued to try to make a case that the man in the pickup truck had a gun and fired at officers. But Dillon's own initial police report, filed by a detective the day after the shooting after interviewing the officers involved, contained no reference to shots fired by the man in the truck. Do you think that this is something that one or more of the officers might simply "forget" to report?
Also, neither a gun nor any spent casings were found on the couple when they were arrested or in the truck. Maybe he threw the gun out the window during the chase, the cops suggest— but, then, they admit that a search of the chase route didn't turn up any gun. In essence, if there was a gun, the cops lost it!
How about a "paraffin test" to determine if either suspect had fired a gun? Newby said that such a test was conducted, but— two months later— results are still "pending". We're not making this up.
It is certainly possible that the man really did have a gun. Positive pariffin tests— if the cops ever get the results of those tests back— would suggest that. But, so far, the case has not been made.
But no matter. In an effort to suggest to under-informed readers of the report— like City Commissioners— that the man did have a gun and fired at officers, Newby wrote: "Monroe County's Chief Assistant State Attorney Catherine Vogel, confirmed that weapons charges were filed on the male suspect."
This statement might lead you to believe that the man is being charged with attempted murder, which we assume is what the charge would be if there is credible evidence that he fired a gun at police officers. But that's not the charge at all. The "weapons charge" against the male suspect is for alleged possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. But, of course, if the man did possess a gun, the prosecutors don't have it.
The report was also critical of Key West The Newspaper for criticizing the Police Department for failing to quickly inform the public about what really happened during the shootout and chase. We renew that criticism. Two months is simply too long to take to provide a public report on a shooting incident in busy Old Town!
Was our criticism of the shootout justified? Four officers have been suspended and others have been reprimanded for their actions during the shootout and chase.
Nuff said?