There is an interesting case out of Orlando that raises questions about the use of felony murder charges by prosecutors whenever there is a fatality in the commission of a crime. Kody Roach was charged with felony murder even though he never fired a shot and the victim, Maria Fernada Godinez, 22, was actually killed by a police officer.
According to reports, three officers were dispatched to the Vixen Bar after a bouncer reported to a 911 operator that “I have a gun-wielding maniac. He set it on the bar top and he wielded it many times. I had to throw him out.” While the bouncer was unarmed, he was able to remove Roach from the bar but when the first two officers arrived, Officer Eduardo Sanguino and a fellow bicycle officer, Jeff Angel, they said that Roach was at the bar’s locked door.
News reports state that “surveillance video obtained by Vixen Bar shows Roach dropping his gun after he was kicked out of the bar for carrying a gun.” However, that does not appear to be the account of the officers.
They say that Roach walked to the street “pointing his right hand at the officers,” and ignored commands to get on the ground. Instead, he began to walk back toward the bar. Angel fired his Taser but said that the taser had little effect due to Roach’s loose clothing. They say that Roach went for his waistband with his right hand, and according to the affidavit in the case:
“In order to prevent an armed individual from causing harm to any members of the public or to any of the surrounding officers, Ofc. Sanguino discharges his firearm nine times striking Roach at least five times.”
They say that when he fell, Roach dropped a .40 caliber Ruger handgun from his right hand — a stolen gun that was later found the gun to be unloaded. Only Sanguino appears to have fired any shots.
It was then that the officers learned that one of their bullets had passed through a hole and hit Fernanda Godinez.
The use of the felony murder charge has long been controversial in such cases, particularly because some have questioned why an unarmed bouncer could remove Rouch but three officers had to fire multiple shots to subdue him. We have previously discussed the sharp statistical difference between officer shootings in this country as opposed to other countries.
Roach however has not been charged in the stolen-gun case — a charge stemming from the disappearance of a weapon from a friend’s apartment after an argument. Notably, Roach has a criminal history dating back to 2009 that includes charges of battery on a law-enforcement officer, grand theft, violating probation and driving with a suspended license.
The Florida felony murder statute (like virtually all such statutes) does not require that the perpetrator pull the trigger or even know of or support the ultimate act. He is only required to have been engaged in a felony during which a life was taken. However, the law was designed with murders in mind that were caused by co-conspirators like a partner shooting a convenience store clerk. Here it was the police who killed the woman and Rouch had an unloaded weapon. Ideally, such cases are handled by prosecutorial discretion but prosecutors today radically inflate charges to force defendants to take tough plea agreements or face life in prison.
The officers clearly have a right to defend themselves and they may indeed be cleared of any wrongdoing. However, there remains the question of whether the death of this young lady should be charged as murder against Rouch. He is by no means blameless of course but the case raises the question of the reasonable limits (or any limits) in the charging of felony murder in such cases.
What do you think?
Kudos: Michael Blott
Thank you Darren for the story about the fire. My position has been there are plenty of good officers, but there is absolutely a portion that is bad. There is a portion that seems to view the progression of force continuum as a circle, or a flat line, and not a bunch of steps before you get to the top. This is why you get SWAT raids at 3am for selling drugs, when it would be much safer and easier to grab the guy when he goes for Taco Bell. Or why you have snipers sitting on top of armored personnel carriers when there haven’t been any shots fired, and on the very next street you have officers in regular uniforms wondering what the hell happened on the street next to cause the armored calvary to roll in.
My complaint about law enforcement is largely that they protect their own at all costs. Only when it crystal clear that an officer is in the wrong (or worst of all, turned his back on his/her brothers, see the FL State Trooper who pulled over the Miami cop) will police finally admit there MIGHT have been a slight problem. Requests for information are stonewalled, information is lost, deleted, lied about. Police want to uphold the laws, but want exemptions when it comes to their behavior. And in some cases, that’s fine. It’s even necessary to have some secrecy.
There was a story recently about lost weapons from the pentagon program. A response from on police official about lost M-16 and M-14 rifles was this: “Huntington Beach Police Lieutenant Mitchell O’Brien told Fusion. “An investigation was inconclusive as to how that occurred.” This sent me over the edge. No apology. No meaningful statement to the public about public property and weapons that have immense killing power. Just a Dilbert-esque statement that gives me the impression the police treat their weapons like office supplies. Lose a pack of post it notes? Lose a M-16 automatic rifle? That’s fine, just go grab a new one from the shelf. There is seemingly little concern or thought for accountability to the public. There is a lot of “an investigation is underway” and a lot more of grousing from cops about those pesky civilians quarterbacking when they have no clue. That’s right, I don’t. How about police try to enlighten us by being open?
Police officers ask us to just trust them, but don’t give us many reasons to do so. This taints the good officers who are doing the right thing with the stink of the bad ones that are being protected and hidden. And it makes us question every shooting when we are sure if the right call was made, or the guy with the violent streak showed up and was thrilled he could grease a dirtbag Dirty Harry style.
Reblogged this on sea-swoon.
As for the fourteen Taser shots in my mind that would have to be a total all out brawl between say one officer in the middle of nowhere and a suspect that that is really out of control and the officer will lose the fight unless he gets this guy taken down. Anecdotally, I haven’t been in such incidents very often.
I carried a Taser from 2007 until 2011. I can count on one hand how many times, other than training scenarios, where I had to light someone up. That is not to say I was not forced to use higher levels of force, but most of the time you can use other methods to control the person. Tasers are really good to control someone going ballistic but some cops don’t seem to realize that for centuries before, law enforcement officers did not have Tasers and they managed to control people to a degree.
I knew a LEO who it seemed went though Taser cartridges like crazy. One would think at $25.00 a pop you would for this reason alone only use them when no better option existed. But it seemed like hardly a month or so went by when he didn’t light someone up. He was a decent guy and all but when I heard he had another Tasing, I just shook my head. Get this, he even went to a house fire and everyone fortunately was out. An older man was a bit upset at what had happened and the fire department had not arrived yet. He wanted to go back inside. This LEO tried to walk him back to the street to protect him from going in but the man insisted on doing it, so he Tased him in the back.
When another LEO told me about his, all I could think was WTF.
Regarding the video of the police arresting / Tasing the man sitting down.
A couple caveats:
I am not fully familiar with Minnesota laws regarding trespassing.
I am trying to explain this generally, using typical law.
From descriptions this man was sitting in front of a business for ten minutes and the store representative wanted him to move on. The scene appeared to be within the mall. Malls usually have policies that a shop can evict a person from the mall property for any lawful reason, even if viewed as petty due to the fact that this is private property. (this might be considered differently in Minnesota). Nevertheless the police were called to attend to this matter.
If the man was told to leave by the store’s agent and the man did not, it could constitute criminal trespassing. If this actually was the case the police are allowed to demand identification as he is required to during the investigation of a crime. He could be subjected to arrest for failing to do so. If he was instructed to leave the mall that could also be evidence of trespassing. I don’t know if this was the case here.
Now for the practical. My gut feeling is that the officer could have asked the man to step to the side, out of the view of the shopkeeper, and said to him. “We got called here because the shopkeeper doesn’t like people sitting in front of her store. It might seem ridiculous but we got dragged into this because they would like you to sit somewhere else. So if you want to hang out, how about this bench here. It’s no big deal.”
I’ll be in that situation this man would have done that or simply left the area of the store and maybe walked around for a while until he could have collected his children.
Sure the police could have handled it the way they did, but for me, I would not want some cluster to go down simply by antagonizing the situation and it mushrooming out of control. The paperwork, youtube, getting tied up taking a mouthy person over to the jail; why ask for the headache?
I wouldn’t have handled it that way.
Thanks Darren.
p.s.
Good analysis of the situation they face re: East Point Taser incident.
47 seconds added up in 4 second jolts ever ten minutes increments…
Stupid question here:
If instead a patron in the bar decided to force the unruly customer out the first time by firing their gun at him and in that process, they had killed another patron in the process… who would be charged with the crime?
Max-1, In response to your question about the patron shooting the suspect. It depends on whether the suspect presented a clear and present danger to the shooter or another person within the bar. If the suspect is simply walking toward the exit door, and there is no evidence that he is going to immediately go outside and shoot another person. (such as leave). It would not be a justified shooting, as a result of this the only person liable for the shooting might be the patron.
But there are at least two caveats to this. Lets say the suspect went into the bar and began firing at customers, if the subject patron then smoked the suspect and he died the shooting would be justified. If the patron shot at the suspect, wounded him and a bullet went stray and killed another person the suspect would be guilty of the felony murder of the other patron. The shooter would then not be criminally liable (but may civilly so) for the other patron’s death because it would be ruled an “Excusable homicide.” Additionally there is the doctrine of transferred intent. In transferred intent the suspect intended to shoot the bar crowd and as a result a patron shot another patron. The suspect’s intent to kill was transferred, to an instrumentality (the armed patron) who then caused the death which is what the suspect intended to do by his actions.
Another part is if a bloodbath took place in the bar and as the shooter was leaving and the patron shot him, the shooting patron can be excused due to the totality of the circumstances. A multiple murder took place and in the height a person cannot be reasonably expected to act perfectly. Plus, the shooter can articulate he believe the shooter would go on another killing spree and shoot others in the street, a reasonable proposition, and in shooting him he would be justified in that in order to protect other lives.
Hope this helps.
Oops… Scarps of a reply found in bin… please retrieve?
Thanks in advance.
Annie
It’s a subdued police state we’re living in, IMO.
I’ve long been rhetorically asking, “who protects the people from the police” for a reason. We all know it’s supposed to be the police that protects us. But when they can kill one of us and not be held accountable is where the system shows its deep cracks. Again, IMO. I know I’m late to the convo and haven’t had time to read the wayward rant stream that I’ll review later, I’m just citing other police involved events where police put other people’s lives in jeopardy.
As far as this bar incident goes, I kicked out a rhetorical question about where was the good officer with the gun to protect the innocent woman that didn’t see her attacker shoot… If the bar was able to eject him without resorting to needing to kill an innocent stranger, why is it OK for the police to resort to such barbaric behavior? I know, I know, some people will read those harsh words and object. Sorry, this is just how I feel. As someone who’s been instructed by police after my own assault two years ago to, “we ask people to mind their business” (aka short: your fault you should mind your own business next time) I’ve learned many police organizations take an odd look at being “peace officers”.
Not to diminish the ‘good cops’ out there, but covering for the bad cops is like buying the heroin for a son/daughter because you ‘care for them’ even though you know better… If ‘good cops’ know better, then they wouldn’t tolerate these bad cops among their ranks. Oh, and the term, ‘internal investigation’ is but a formalized coverup committee. Last year over 410 ‘justified’ homicides by police officers happened and it is an extremely high number compared to other countries that actually enforce strict gun REGULATIONS (bolded for those 2nd Am. gun nutz).
Cops cleared more than 400 times each year for justified homicides
But feds don’t track how many officers get prosecuted for crimes
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/19/law-enforcement-officers-cleared-more-than-400-tim/
Max-1, I retrieved your comment at 1:38.
Max
The second video of the black man being tased, my God. What is wrong with the police in this country? Who can say that all these incidents are flukes? It’s epidemic, it’s sick and demoralizing.
Sorry, forgot link about “sitting while black” taser vid.
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/08/27/minneapolis-cops-allegedly-taze-and-arrest-black-male-sitting-public-space
St. Paul cops allegedly taser and arrest black male for sitting in public space
http://youtu.be/UWH578nAasM
Max, that video is absolutely horrifying. I’m having a difficult time tonight believing in the concept of basic human decency. Perhaps our society is close to collapse.
Attorney: East Point police fired Taser at man 13 times before death
http://www.wsbtv.com/videos/news/attorney-says-east-point-police-used-13-taser/vCprXz/
Max-1,
Regarding the comment on the East Point Taser incident.
I obviously don’t have any more information than what I have seen in the provided video but my opinion is this.
Drive stun means the probes (darts) are not fired, but instead the conductive muzzle of the Taser is applied against the body. Drive stun is used in close quarters go gain compliance by eliciting the suspect to stop resistive movement. The Police Model Taser jolts for a maximum of 5 seconds before it automatically stops. It can be stopped sooner if desired by the officer by switching the safety. I don’t know if darts were used prior to this happening.
If the suspect was handcuffed the need for Taser drops significantly but there are uses for them, such as the person gets up and begins kicking or tries to run away or if the suspect fights to get into the car. In those incidents only one or two is reasonable unless some completely, and rare situation breaks forward.
The claim of the suspect that he was too tired to stand up, at least in the arm chair quarterback sense, is reasonable considering what happened and if there was in fact a heart condition. The officers probably did not know about this, but nevertheless they had an individual who seemed to be at worse not wanting to get up.
From a practical (not bringing in ethics or use of force policies) getting a person to stand up using a drive stun is very counter productive. The body locks up and the natural tendency is to fall down due to the lack of full muscle control, the loading of nerves with false signals and the pain generated.
Now factor in department policy. As stated by this attorney, the use of a drive stun in this incident violated at least two, that I could see, department policies. The police union rep stated that both state and federal law allows for the use of a drive stun, which is true, it does not excuse abuse in the drive stun deployment.
The department did significant sanction the officers who did this. They were fired, yes? I can see this being investigated as a possible manslaughter, but not having enough information it is not apparent to me, but I would not object if it was. How it ends up in court, if it goes this far, is as you know up to a jury.
http://youtu.be/k-jc7Vj1bnk
Former Oglala Sioux Officer Charged in Taser Incident
http://kelo.com/news/articles/2014/aug/27/former-oglala-sioux-officer-charged-in-taser-incident/
Where is the “1/2 a second” coming from?..likely the same place as the “grassy knoll”
John Oliver,
Thanks. I think you’re right on the money. Some people don’t have the ability to distance themselves from their emotions. I understand the desire to spare a life. I think it’s honorable.
“Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” Thomas Jefferson
Jack,
You have been quite informative and there are just some people that simply will not accept a contrary perspective, regardless of how reasonable it is. I don’t believe you are trying to defend the police engagements other than to provide some insight into the tactical decision-making process. If that is not appreciated then they weren’t looking for reason and logic to enter into the discussion.
David,
“My previous point was that police need to be trained to treat the mentally ill and intoxicated somewhat differently.”
You really don’t seem to get that a drunk with a gun or a mentally ill person with a gun, still has a gun, and if they go for that gun, I’d drop them where they stand. (That is, unless I had you to throw in front of me. After all, you’re the one that really should be there trying to talk them down.)
All I can say is that you are seriously out of touch with reality (at least when it comes to this subject). About 95% of police officers never fire their weapon in the line of duty, but you want them to be better shots when in fear for their life or the life of someone else. Have you ever fired a shot at somebody who is shooting at you? Have you even trained for fast response shooting? If you tell me you’re just as accurate, or anywhere near it, under those circumstances, I’d call you a liar.
Isn’t it great when somebody who has no experience in anything related wants to tell those who do it for a living that they need to be better. Tell them when to and when not to shoot. The arrogance of ignorance has no limits.
Jack wrote: “You really don’t seem to get that a drunk with a gun or a mentally ill person with a gun, still has a gun, and if they go for that gun, I’d drop them where they stand.”
This is apparently the same attitude of the police. I disagree with this attitude because it shows a blatant disregard for the life and humanity of the person you want to destroy. Certainly a drunk or a mentally challenged person is dangerous if he has a loaded gun, but one should not expect that they have the same ability to respond to verbal commands as other people. The real question is what kind of real threat was he exhibiting toward the officers with an unloaded gun. Without video of the event, we don’t know that. You are ready to give the officers the benefit of the doubt. My experience in life makes me more skeptical.
The rest of your post resorts to emotional ad hominem attacks upon me. This is the typical response given when logical thinking fails to produce a cogent argument yet you feel compelled to win the intellectual dispute. Your emotional taunting is not going to work.
A young beautiful girl is dead, and the policeman who decided to unload a volley of 9 shots is responsible for killing her.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/26/us-usa-ohio-shooting-police-idUSKBN0GQ1U420140826
Ohio appoints special prosecutor for fatal shooting at Walmart.
On the hews now, the shooting of John Crawford Jr. In a Walmart by police. He was holding a BB gun looking to purchase. Beaver Creek police refusing to release video. White guy walks into Walmart open carrying, gets weird looks, black guy holds BB gun gets shot and killed. We is discussed this briefly a few days ago.