Mesa Police shooting report has conflicting views: Latino Man Killed by Police
Thursday, December 9, 2004 at 08:36PM
TheSpook
A police report released Monday gives conflicting accounts from
witnesses in a fatal police shooting last month during a beer run and
said the 21-year-old passenger who died was shot in the head and
forearm. Mesa police released 153 pages of its initial
investigation into the Nov. 8 shooting that left Oscar Bobby Grey, 18,
injured and Kevin Olivas, 21, dead after Officer Jerald Ray fired two
rounds into a green Dodge Stratus. Patrick James, 37, and his 3-year
old son were in the back seat of the car and not injured during the
shooting in a cul-de-sac on Brown Road near Mesa Drive. Police said
they followed them to the cul-de-sac after seeing two of the men flee a
Bashas' grocery story after making a beer run. Mesa police
Detective Tim Gaffney said the investigation is ongoing. The medical
examiner's report has not been completed. The initial police report
showed Olivas, the front-seat passenger, was shot in the head and the
left forearm, according to firefighters at the scene. Ray, who has been
reassigned to the Center Against Family Violence pending the outcome of
the investigation, told police he fired twice as he tried to shoot the
driver of the green Dodge Stratus as the vehicle "lunged forward" at
Officer John Dankanich. He said he feared for the officer's life.
Police said they are awaiting ballistics tests and results from medical
examiner's office and can't confirm if the same bullet that struck
Olivas' head also struck his arm. One woman told police the
passenger of the vehicle had his hands out the door as if he were going
to surrender. After the first shot the passenger pulled his hands back
into the vehicle and she heard the second gunshot, according to the
report. Some witnesses reported the suspect car was stopped
when the shooting occurred. "They jumped out of their cars and drew
their guns on a vehicle that was coasting. I saw them (the people in
the car) open there doors and stop. At that point I heard two shots
fired," one witness wrote in his statement. [more]
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