Officer's life honored as killer gets 20 years

Nov 17, 2007

Mary Jane Rivas cries while a video is shown of the life of her victim, Officer Joselito Barber. The courtroom was filled with the victim's family and fellow police officers. (MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

By Mike Carter

Seattle Times staff reporter

Mary Jane Rivas shielded her eyes and turned her head away so she wouldn't have to watch the childhood photographs of the police officer she killed flash onto a television screen Friday in a King County courtroom. In the end, Rivas couldn't help herself. She turned and watched images of Joselito "Lito" Barber as a baby; as a grinning child; in a high-school yearbook; a fresh-faced Barber in a Seattle police uniform proudly displaying his academy graduation certificate.

Rivas was then sentenced to 20 years in prison for causing the cocaine-fueled traffic collision that ended the young officer's life on Aug. 13, 2006. She apologized to a courtroom filled with his family, friends and nearly two dozen Seattle police officers.

"No amount of time they can give me will bring him back," Rivas said. "I would do all the time in the world if it would bring your son back."

Rivas, 32, had pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and possession of cocaine, and also agreed that she should serve an exceptionally long prison term.

In imposing the sentence, Superior Court Judge Harry McCarthy added a five-year "special enhancement" to Rivas' sentence based on her recent release from prison before the accident. Only 10 days earlier Rivas had been released from prison for possession of cocaine.

Rivas was one of three former prison inmates who, while under the state's version of probation, were involved in incidents that resulted in the deaths of three Seattle-area law enforcement officers in 2006. The incidents prompted Gov. Christine Gregoire to order the state Department of Corrections to review its conditional-release policies.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Hugh Barber (no relation to the officer) said Rivas had shown an "astonishing lack of respect for law and life" over her entire life, piling up 20 misdemeanor and seven felony convictions for drugs, illegal possession of a firearm, assault and prostitution.

McCarthy acknowledged that Rivas had suffered a horrific childhood of physical and sexual abuse, neglect and addiction. Still, he said, it was her decision to drive that morning.

"It is, of course, no excuse ... and I know you know that," the judge said to Rivas. "That morning, the court believes Mary Rivas was a time bomb fueled by crack cocaine."

Barber, 26, was driving through the intersection of 23rd Avenue South and East Yesler Way just after 4 a.m. when Rivas plowed through a red light at nearly 80 mph and collided with his patrol car. She suffered a broken leg and at first claimed she was a passenger in the SUV and that the driver had fled. Witnesses, however, put her behind the wheel.

News video of the accident showed the officer undergoing CPR at the accident scene, a vision that the officer's father, Ernie Barber, told the court is seared into his memory.

"I had to find a reason to not let that image destroy me," Barber told the court Friday. "The past 15 months have been spent trying to figure out how to deal with the grief."

At a loss for words, he said, he simply recited to the courtroom: "On Aug. 13, 2006, at 4:09 in the morning, my son, Joselito Barber, was killed. That is a statement no parent should have to make."

Rivas buried her face in her hands as the officer's mother, Lorna Ring, sobbed that "part of me died with him."

"He was a hero and he will not be forgotten," she told the court.

A cadre of stone-faced police officers filled the back of the courtroom. Their views were voiced by Officer Dionne Perkins, a 15-year veteran and a friend of the dead officer.

"She has been given too many chances," Perkins told the court. "For her to say 'sorry' is an insult to every one of us."

In summer 2006, Rivas served two-and-a-half months for possession of cocaine, but was released early after agreeing to enter drug treatment. She was charged with that crime after an Everett police officer pulled her over and found cocaine in the vehicle. She was driving on a suspended license at the time.

A year earlier, said Deputy King County Prosecutor Amy Freedheim, Rivas was caught on a patrol car's videotape "twitching" and rambling after being stopped while driving under the influence of cocaine. On that tape, Freedheim said, Rivas acknowledge she was a drug addict "and would always be an addict."

"She has had lots of chances to change," Freedheim said. "So what are we, as a society, to do with her?"

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com

Jasmine Rodis, with a photo in the background of her brother, Officer Joselito Barber, breaks down while telling Mary Jane Rivas how she and her family will miss the young officer who died when Rivas' SUV plowed into his patrol car. (MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES)