SWAT Expert testifies: No reason [except racism] for Sniper to Shoot Unarmed Black Man Holding His Son in Fife

No Emergency. No Hostage: 30 White Cops Respond to Domestic Call w/ Tank & Snipers. Murder Black Man Holding His Son. From [HERE] A decorated former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) SWAT trainer and supervisor testified Monday there was no evidence Leonard Thomas posed a threat to anyone — not the police, not himself, and not his 4-year-old son — when he was shot and killed by a Pierce Metro SWAT team sniper following a standoff in Fife in May 2013.

Scott DeFoe, hired as an expert witness by attorneys representing Thomas’ family in a wrongful-death and civil-rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court, reviewed the actions of the multiagency team that surrounded Thomas’ home the night of May 23, 2013. The witness concluded that, while negotiators and individual team members did an exemplary job, they were failed by their leader, Lakewood Police Chief Mike Zaro, who was in charge that night.

Indeed, the often-tense situation had all but resolved — the 30-year-old Thomas had agreed to let his son, Elijah, go home with Thomas’ mother, Annalesa Thomas — and had taken the child, a car seat and a backpack to the front porch.

After a couple of false starts when Thomas balked at releasing the boy, Annalesa Thomas was brought up from the command post to call for the child from behind an armored vehicle.

Zaro, in the meantime, radioed that the SWAT team was not to let Thomas take the child back into the house and ordered an assault team at the rear of the home to set off explosives and blow down the door, flooding the house with armed men who shot and killed the family dog.

Thomas, according to witnesses, grabbed for the child at the sound of the blast, and a Lakewood Police Department sniper, Brian Markert, shot him in the pelvis with a large-caliber rifle from 90 feet away.

SWAT officers said they had to slug Thomas to get him to let go of the child, who was yelling “Daddy! Daddy.” Thomas’ last words were “Don’t hurt my boy” before he bled to death, according to testimony.

Zaro, who spent most of Monday on the witness stand, had said he gave the order because Thomas was increasingly agitated. He believed the assault team’s violent entrance would cause Thomas to freeze and give officers a chance to rescue the boy.

Thomas, Zaro said, was controlling and using the child as a bargaining chip.

But when the explosives detonated, Thomas reached for the boy, and Markert, believing Thomas was going to hurt the child, fired his rifle.

“Nobody thought he would grab his son and flee back toward the sound of an explosion,” Zaro said. [He means Thomas would not do this b/c he his Black. Protecting your son under these circumstances would be something only a white guy would do.]

The chief said Thomas had been controlling, belligerent and hostile toward police, although he acknowledged that at no time during the evening did Thomas threaten officers, himself or the child. No firearms were found in the house, and Thomas was not armed.

Police had been called to his home that night because he was drunk, had argued with his mother and had grabbed a cellphone out of her hand while she was calling 911. The decision was to arrest him was allegedly for misdemeanor domestic-violence assault - for taking the phone out of her hand. 

Zaro said Thomas’ erratic actions that night “left him no choice” but to authorize deadly force.

Attorney Tiffany Cartwright, one of the lawyers representing Thomas’ parents and his now 9-year-old son, told an eight-member jury in opening statements that nothing that the drunken, despondent, bipolar man did warranted the massive police response the night of May 23, 2013 — two armored vehicles and at least 27 officers, including the Pierce Metro SWAT team — for a misdemeanor, domestic-violence offense.

Based on photographs introduced in trial, most, if not all, of the officers were white, and attorneys for Thomas’ family hav

Thomas, 30, drunk and despondent over the sudden death of a childhood friend, had been holed up for hours with his 4-year-old son after his mother called Fife police following an argument. A police negotiator had finally convinced Thomas to let the child go home with his grandmother for the night - which is what Thomas and his mother had fought about in the first place. 

Once the child was safe, the negotiator and a SWAT commander figured officers would just let Thomas sleep off a bad night and come back later to deal with a misdemeanor domestic-violence allegation stemming from a tussle over his mother's cellphone while she was talking to 911, according to police reports.

That isn't what happened. 

As a skittish Thomas led the boy onto the front porch to send him down the sidewalk to the child's waiting grandmother, members of a SWAT assault team used explosives to blow open a back door, forcing their way in and killing the family dog with a burst of gunfire. Thomas - who was unarmed - reportedly lunged for his son, and he was fatally shot by a police sniper as he held the boy.

The assault-team leader, Lakewood police Officer Mike Wiley, announced the shooting over a SWAT frequency: "We have jackpot." [MORE]

In his testimony, Zaro acknowledged the Thomas’ SWAT call-out was his first experience as tactical commander during an incident with a hostage or barricaded subject. He also said he rarely trained with the SWAT team snipers because he had other duties.

DeFoe, a 25-year LAPD officer and Medal of Valor winner who spent more than a decade in SWAT as a supervisor, trainer and crisis negotiator, told the jury he has supervised hundreds of barricaded suspects and hostage situations, and questioned whether Elijah was a hostage at all, considering there had been no threats.

While he said it was “prudent” to have an assault team and snipers ready, DeFoe said his review of reports, transcripts, depositions and dispatch audio from that night led him to conclude there was no reason to kill Thomas, and every reason to continue negotiating with him.

There was no emergency, he said. The boy was fine and had apparently been in bed and was about to be let go. There were no weapons, no threats and there was no hurry. The two hostage negotiators, he said, had done an “excellent” job when Zaro ordered the assault.

“My criticism lies with command,” DeFoe said. “There was a departure from training and tactics in this case. I don’t think the shooting itself was reasonable.”