Officers cleared in mistaken shooting

An internal Seattle Police Department review has found that three officers were justified in firing 33 shots at one another last month, injuring no one, when they thought the person in the opposite car was a young man who had stolen a police cruiser and was posing as a policeman.

But the department's Firearms Review Board has recommended that one of the officers, Rick Traverso, be investigated for possible discipline and ordered him to be retrained for using his patrol car to ram another police car, a decision that triggered the confused firefight and was a "serious violation of department policy," according to the report released yesterday.

"Current department policy says ramming should be used only as a last resort and that every other reasonable and available means of apprehension be used," says the report, authored Aug. 9 by Assistant Police Chief Dan Bryant. "It is the contention of the board that this standard was not met."

And the report goes as far as recommending that the department consider banning the practice of ramming all together.

"The potential danger to the officers and innocent citizens, in 99 percent of the cases, outweighs the need to incapacitate a suspect's car," said Capt. Tom Byers, head of the department's ethics and inspections unit and one of four members of the firearm-review panel. "You shouldn't do it unless it's the most grave situation imaginable."

Traverso and the other two officers, Tom McLaughlin and Chris Anderson, have been returned to regular duty, the department said.

The shooting-review board did not recommend a specific discipline for Traverso. Instead, as a matter of routine, the board has referred the case to the department's Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) for an independent review. Final discipline, if any, will be up to Chief Gil Kerlikowske.

"We are not judge, jury and executioner," said Byers. "We're not saying he ought to be disciplined. We're saying we identified a violation of department policy. The ball is now in the (the OPA's) court."

Meanwhile, the board decided that because each officer had reason to believe he was under attack by a criminal, they were justified in firing their guns. They had "probable cause to believe the suspect, if not apprehended, posed a threat of serious physical harm to the officers or a threat of serious harm to others," the report says.

"Considering the circumstances known to the officers at the time, it would not have been a reasonable alternative to allow the suspect to escape without resorting to the use of firearms," it concludes.

The young man allegedly posing as a police officer, however, escaped and wasn't arrested until after he returned the car to the North Precinct.

The board said the ramming was the "pivoting and initiating event which set up the scenarios to discharge their weapons."

The board agreed "this was a very confusing scenario with a series of incorrect yet understandable assumptions, conclusions and decisions made by the officers," but it disagreed with testimony by Traverso and McLaughlin that they should have used "whatever means necessary" to stop what they saw as a danger to the public.

The shootout erupted July 10 on the north end of Capitol Hill after a winding police chase from downtown Seattle, a police car chasing a police car, lights and sirens on both cars flashing and blaring.

Officer Traverso and his partner, McLaughlin, had spotted the stolen patrol car. Zach Davis, 18, the son of a police officer who was slain six years ago, had used his access with officers in the North Precinct to steal the car and parts of a uniform, police say.

Police believe he had been doing it for weeks, mostly sitting outside a dance club by Seattle Center that he was too young to get into otherwise. And officers had been notified to be on the lookout for him.

After the shootout, Davis was captured as he returned the patrol car to the North Precinct. He has been charged with auto theft and attempting to elude police and is free on bail.

During the pursuit, police didn't know who he was when they chased him at 60 mph along Capitol Hill to a freeway onramp at Harvard Avenue North.

Traverso and McLaughlin didn't see Davis veer off onto the freeway, the report said. Instead, they saw a patrol car driven by Anderson, also headed north on Harvard and searching for the stolen patrol car.

Anderson had slowed his car to about 20 mph, the report says.

But "Officer Traverso thought the suspect (actually Officer Anderson) might be trying to get on I-5 or might be slowing to jump from the car and run," the report says. "Officer Traverso stated that he felt the suspect was far too dangerous to allow him to escape so he elected to ram the vehicle."

Radio recordings show McLaughlin broadcast that they were ramming Anderson, and Anderson broadcast that he had been rammed. "Apparently, in the heat of the moment the involved officers heard neither of these transmissions," the report says.

The report also says Traverso rammed Anderson several times. "This caused Anderson to believe that the suspect vehicle had somehow gotten behind him and was now attempting to kill or seriously injure him by the ramming," the document says.

The last collision caused the airbags in Traverso and McLaughlin's car to deploy. Flying debris and burning tire rubber left none of the officers able to see who was really in each patrol car, the report says.

Anderson fired 19 rounds at Traverso and McLaughlin, the report says. Traverso returned 13 bullets at Anderson. McLaughlin fired once. No one was hit.

While bullets were flying, Traverso threw his car into reverse and backed into the concrete wall of the freeway onramp. Anderson bailed out the passenger door of his car and took cover behind a telephone pole.

The confusion didn't end until another officer, Brandon James, arrived, the report says. He saw Anderson lying prone behind the pole, his weapon drawn. He told Traverso and McLaughlin of the mistake as Anderson jogged over to reveal himself.

Traverso has been on the force since 1987. McLaughlin joined in February 1998 and Anderson in August 1999.

None of the officers had been involved in a shooting before.

Last year, Traverso and McLaughlin were cleared by a King County jury in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of Michael Ealy, a black man who died after a struggle with police and an ambulance crew in December 1998.

Ealy's family maintained that the officers used excessive force in restraining Ealy, who was high on cocaine and had a heart condition. An earlier coroner's inquest also cleared the officers.

Ian Ith can be reached at 206- 464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com.