Sheriff to examine use-of-force policy

Jen Lawson

Wednesday, March 19, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.

As a Metro Police board prepares to investigate the city's most recent officer-involved shooting, Sheriff Bill Young is taking a closer look at the department's use-of-force policy with the goal of lowering the number of incidents in which a suspect is killed or injured.

A team of high-ranking officers has been reviewing the use-of-force policy, and Young said Monday that he expects their work to be completed within a few weeks.

"As a new sheriff of a large and dynamic police department, the public expects me to look at high-risk activities that cause death or injury to citizens or cops," Young said. "What I'm most looking at expanding is the use of less-than-lethal weaponry, and I'm looking at reducing the number of times we injure or kill a suspect."

He urged the public to give the department the benefit of the doubt regarding such shootings, including the most recent one, which occurred Friday and involved an officer who also shot and killed a suspected car thief six months ago.

Officer John Pelletier, 30, on Friday shot and wounded Edward Seely, a 32-year-old robbery suspect, at an apartment complex near Charleston Boulevard and Torrey Pines Drive.

Officers from the southeast area substation had been at the complex looking for Seely in connection with a robbery March 9 at a nearby 7-Eleven store in which a clerk had been shot and wounded.

Shortly after midnight Pelletier spotted Seely as he was walking away from one of the apartments. As Pelletier, who was in plain clothes, approached Seely and identified himself as a police officer, Seely pulled a handgun from his waistband and began to run back to the apartment, police said.

Pelletier fired at Seely, hitting him in the torso. Seely is recovering from his injuries at University Medical Center. When he is discharged, he will be charged with assault with a deadly weapon, felony resisting arrest, being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen handgun, police said.

Pelletier remains on paid administrative leave pending a departmental review of the shooting.

In November a coroner's inquest jury found Pelletier justified in the Sept. 19 fatal shooting of Edward Cook, 27.

Capt. Tom Lozich said each shooting is investigated on its own merits.

"We take each one of them as they come along," Lozich said. "No call is ever the same. We take each one as the facts and circumstances dictate."

In the earlier case Pelletier, who was in plain clothes, testified at the coroner's inquest that he was driving an unmarked car when he summoned a marked patrol car to stop a vehicle he noticed with a stolen license plate.

That vehicle and a second SUV drove behind Nevada Palace and stopped abruptly, according to Pelletier's testimony. Pelletier told the coroner's jury that Cook emerged from one vehicle pointing a handgun at Pelletier, and the officer shot him in the head.

Young said he'd like to expand Metro's use of less-than-lethal weaponry, which includes Tasers, or stun guns, which use electricity to temporarily paralyze a suspect.

The Phoenix Police Department equipped its patrol officers with Taser guns in December, Young said. More than 130 other police agencies, including Reno, Sacramento and Albuquerque, have given Tasers to all patrol officers.

Officers have 12-gauge shotguns that fire bean bag rounds, Young said, but they're cumbersome and often get left in the car, unless an officer knows the shotgun will be needed. Also, sometimes the bean bag rounds don't have any effect on suspects.

Young said he has confidence in the policies of former Sheriff Jerry Keller, but he said policies involving high-risk activities that could bring lawsuits against the department deserve a critical analysis.

Metro's five-page use-of-force policy says officers are authorized to use deadly force to protect themselves or others from an immediate threat of death or serious bodily harm, and to prevent the escape of a fleeing felon who may pose a significant threat to human life if allowed to escape.

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, commended Young on being proactive, but said the number of officer-involved shootings alone is cause for concern.

Metro officers shot and killed seven people in 2002 and six in 2001.

"There have been a high enough number of them that reviewing the policy is certainly warranted," Peck said.