Marine Vet Had Hands Raised When Shot by Police


BigSlick

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What the hell was this cop thinking! Glad he is off the street.

Former Marine Had Hands Raised When Shot

June 11, 2010
Baltimore Sun

The unarmed former Marine fatally shot by an off-duty Baltimore police officer outside a Mount Vernon bar early Saturday had his hands in the air when the officer fired 13 rounds, striking him nine times in the chest and groin, according to department sources.

Two top police commanders said Thursday that four witnesses -- two friends of victim Tyrone Brown and two bystanders -- corroborated that version of events in taped interviews with homicide detectives and prosecutors.

The commanders acknowledge that three other witnesses who were with Gahiji A. Tshamba said that he identified himself as a police officer and that Brown shoved Tshamba, events that would be more favorable to the officer's case. But police say the version of events described by those witnesses is inconsistent with evidence recovered at the scene and other findings of the investigation.

Police sources with knowledge of preliminary autopsy findings said the medical examiner found a heat imprint from a muzzle blast on Brown's shirt, a condition known as stippling. Such an imprint is created when a weapon is fired from as close as five inches away. The finding could be used to show that Brown was executed at close range, but it could also indicate that he was shot while advancing on the officer.

Police officials, who requested not to be identified in part to distance themselves for now from a highly sensitive case, have taken the unusual step of releasing details of an investigation as part of an effort to defuse public anger that Tshamba has not been charged with a crime.

They say they are frustrated that prosecutors might extend the investigation into next week, delaying the arrest of the 15-year veteran officer.

Officials with the Baltimore state's attorney's office declined to comment on the investigation. State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy said during a radio appearance Thursday that her department was "moving forward expeditiously."

Police worry that further delays will add to mounting public suspicion that authorities are protecting one of their own. The unusually harsh criticism, shrouded behind anonymous sources, appears designed to shift public anger over Tshamba's not having been arrested to the prosecutorial arena.

"We handed prosecutors our case Monday morning," said one top police official, who spoke on the condition he not be named. The lead investigator on the case "has slowly interviewed everyone and went to the crime scene. That's fine, but our position is we would like to proceed as soon as possible."

Said another commander: "In this case, the best we can see, there is no reason for this man to have been shot as many times as he was. Homicide is convinced that the evidence is very clear. This is not a complex case. ... There was no physical confrontation. He had his hands up when he was shot."

Speaking with Clarence M. Mitchell IV on WBAL radio, Jessamy said she planned to meet with prosecutors Friday to discuss the case. But she cautioned that doesn't mean charges are imminent.

"I'm not the general public," Jessamy said. "I can't offer opinions. I have to make decisions based on the law, the facts and the evidence. ... We will be moving forward expeditiously."

Despite a swift police investigation, prosecutors say they are awaiting the autopsy report and want to talk with officers who responded to the scene. They have already reinterviewed the seven witnesses.

Privately, officials in the prosecutor's office note that because this is Tshamba's second off-duty shooting of a civilian in five years, they want to make sure the case is handled properly.

In 2005, Tshamba was driving under the influence of alcohol when he got into a confrontation with a group of young men in a sport utility vehicle who he said shouted racial epithets at him. Tshamba followed the car into a residential neighborhood, where the other driver turned his vehicle and rammed the officer. Tshamba chased the men into a wooded area, firing his weapon. A juvenile was hit in the foot.

Tshamba received an eight-day suspension for the incident but avoided criminal charges and dismissal. Prosecutors now privately question whether top police administrators were too lenient in allowing him to remain on the force. As one official said: "They expect us to clean up their mess."

Officials in both the department and state's attorney's office say the pressure from the public, the news media and within their own offices has made the investigation complex and politically charged. One official in the prosecutor's office cautioned that many cases "are not as easy and cut-and-dried and slam-dunks as people want us to believe."

Andrew C. White, a former federal prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, said the state's attorney's office should proceed slowly to build a solid case.

"I think the prosecutors are trying to strike a balance between speed and accuracy," White said. "In the immediate aftermath of a shooting, oftentimes it is not clear if a person acted in self-defense. ... Public opinion has no bearing. You put yourself in a box if you arrest too soon."

White said that when a shooting involves a police officer "who is trained to recognize situations that are rapidly unfolding, you have to give some credit to what the officer says in defense of why he discharged his firearm. ...He gets the benefit of the doubt. Whether it's appropriate or not is a question, but he gets it."

Tshamba remains on desk duty without his gun and badge. Meanwhile, Brown's family has hired an attorney, Andrew D. Freeman, and have announced the funeral for 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Morgan State University auditorium.

The shooting involving Tshamba occurred early Saturday after he and Brown found themselves in an alley off Eager Street and near the back door to Club Hippo.

Brown, a former Marine, touched the officer's female companion, who took exception to what Brown apparently thought was a joke. Brown sister, who witnessed the exchange, said her brother apologized and tried to walk away but Tshamba challenged him.

Police said the officer took out his department-issued Glock and fired 13 rounds from feet away, hitting Brown nine times. Detectives are trying to determine whether Tshamba was impaired by alcohol. The officer has declined to talk to homicide detectives, and he refused to take a breath test.

Once detectives heard from some witnesses that Tshamba might have identified himself as a police officer, investigators treated the probe as a police-involved shooting, meaning any charges would be left for prosecutors, who take all such cases before a grand jury, which adds time before an arrest is made.

One police commander said arresting Tshamba on the spot would have been irresponsible. They didn't know whether he had consumed alcohol, needed to review recordings from a surveillance camera near the shooting scene (later found to be inoperable) and listen to 911 calls, he said.

Tshamba, like any citizen being investigated in a possible crime, does not have to speak to detectives. Unlike a civilian in the same predicament, he cannot be detained and is free to leave to consult an attorney, a right afforded him under his labor contract.

And not every civilian involved in a homicide is arrested immediately. The Johns Hopkins University student who killed an intruder with a samurai sword in the fall of 2009 was questioned by detectives but never arrested or charged. Prosecutors later ruled the killing self-defense. Similarly last year, a dry cleaner and a gas station attendant were never arrested after they shot robbers, and both were later cleared.

Jessamy's office has feuded with city police for years on a variety of issues, including arrest policies, the creation of a list of officers deemed too untrustworthy to testify in court and the thoroughness of police investigations.

Prosecutors have lost or dropped several criminal cases against police officers because of botched probes or missing evidence, including two rape cases in 2007 and a misconduct case in 2001 involving an officer accused of planting drugs on an innocent man.

"There is a reason we are going carefully," one official in the state's attorney's office said of the case being built against Tshamba, "and it's because if we get to trial a year from now, we want to make sure this is right."
© Copyright 2010 Baltimore Sun. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 

Sounds like there are more questions than answers on this one. It will be interesting to see what the investigation turns up.
 
Shot thirteen times from point blank and hit him nine times. I wonder where the other four rounds ended up. It is a wonder he did not hit a bystander. I can pretty much tell you what would happen if he was a citizen.
 
Shot thirteen times from point blank and hit him nine times. I wonder where the other four rounds ended up. It is a wonder he did not hit a bystander. I can pretty much tell you what would happen if he was a citizen.

Yea, if that were you or I we would be GONEZO! I hate the double standards between cops and us. If there are police on this forum I feel sorry for them. The divide between 300,000,000 citizens and them seems to be getting wider. If this kind of stuff, like this shooting, gets out of hand then I am afraid the police and the government would end up on the short end of the stick. Sad everyone just can't get along.:fie:
 
Being that I am a resident of MD and live near Baltimore, I have heard of this story since the day of the shooting.

This officer should have had his ability to carry a weapon on duty or off duty after his first incident as reported in the original post:
"In 2005, Tshamba was driving under the influence of alcohol when he got into a confrontation with a group of young men in a sport utility vehicle who he said shouted racial epithets at him. Tshamba followed the car into a residential neighborhood, where the other driver turned his vehicle and rammed the officer. Tshamba chased the men into a wooded area, firing his weapon. A juvenile was hit in the foot."

So in 2005 he broke the law by driving under the influence, and while he was breaking that law he broke a police department regulation while carrying his duty weapon while under the influence. During this incident he chased someone and shot a juvenile in the foot. There are so many things wrong with this.

As a resident of the state of MD, I can't get a CCW but yet we have police officers, breaking the law and department regs who are allowed to carry weapons. After this incident he was allowed to continue this behavior and 5 years later he killed someone by shooting him 13 times. I don't recall seeing it in this article, but local reports are that he was again drinking at a night club with his weapon on him, and this incident happened outside the night club while the officer was under the influence.

This could have been prevented 5 years ago by taking the proper corrective action against the officer in the 2005 incident by terminating the officer or putting him behind a desk with no ability to carry a weapon on or off duty.
 
That cop in my opinion straight up executed that Marine. He should be tried for 1st degree murder like other criminals and if they have the death penalty, he should get a first class ticket!

I am a vet, and I am going law enforcement as a career. No excuses for a crooked dirt bag cop. :mad:
 
EMOTIONS, Booze, Drugs, and GUNS never mix well together... Guns, Discipline, and Tactics are a better formula.

If only someone just walked/drove away...
 
Its too bad there weren't any other armed citizens around who could have eliminated the treat of the loser with the gun.
 
Update

Baltimore Officer Arrested on Murder Charge

BY JUSTIN FENTON, JESSICA ANDERSON and PAUL WEST
The Baltimore Sun

Baltimore police said Officer Gahiji A. Tshamba surrendered to authorities early Sunday after a warrant was issued for his arrest for the first-degree murder of an unarmed man outside a nightclub last week.

Tshamba arrived with his lawyer at Central Booking Intake Facility in Baltimore around 1:30 a.m., according to police, The surrender came after more than 24 hours of fruitless searching and an intensified search by Baltimore police, which included mobilizing dozens of officers to comb city streets and distribute fliers to locate one of their own.

A first-degree murder warrant was issued Friday afternoon, charging Tshamba in the killing of Tyrone Brown, 32, a former Marine who was unarmed when he was shot nine times at close range outside a Mount Vernon club. Police had hoped to negotiate Tshamba's surrender with his attorney, but no one had been able to contact the 15-year veteran as the search entered a second day.

Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said late Saturday afternoon that it was "only a matter of time" before Tshamba "pops up on the grid," perhaps through use of a credit card or telephone. By the evening, commanders had additional detectives fanning out across the city to step up the search.

"These charges are an aberration," Guglielmi said at a news conference Saturday night. "They're an affront to all of us that work for the BPD and an affront to the officers that work hard to make this city safe."

As detectives passed out fliers with Tshamba's picture describing him as a "dangerous/high risk apprehension," about 100 people gathered on the green in front of City Hall to remember Brown. Wearing T-shirts with Brown's photo and clutching candles, they prayed before releasing about a dozen heart-shaped balloons into the air.

"We should have locked [Tshamba] up that night," said Reginald Dargan, Brown's father. "I pray that they catch him. I leave it in God's hands."

Tshamba's attorney, Adam Sean Cohen, said before the surrender that Tshamba "is definitely troubled by the allegation but looks forward to fighting the case in court."

Police distributed fliers in neighborhoods such as Federal Hill and Fells Point, areas where sources said Tshamba was believed to frequent. As two Southern District detectives handed fliers to a sandwich shop owner Saturday night, an apparently intoxicated man walked up to an officer sitting in a parked car with his hands raised and said, "Don't shoot. Don't shoot."

The search for Tshamba capped a week of drama that began in the early hours of June 5, when the off-duty Baltimore police officer fired 13 rounds from his Glock service pistol at Brown during an alley confrontation in the Mount Vernon neighborhood, according to police and eyewitnesses.

Brown touched a female companion of Tshamba's inappropriately, witnesses said, angering the off-duty officer, who withdrew his weapon and challenged Brown to "do it again." Witnesses and police sources said Brown's hands were raised in the air as Tshamba began emptying the weapon.

Within two days, police handed off their investigation to prosecutors and said they had found no credible evidence to justify Tshamba's actions. The Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday that Tshamba had been involved in a prior off-duty shooting in which he had been driving with a blood-alcohol level of .12, over the legal limit of .08 percent.

As police stepped up efforts to publicly pressure prosecutors, Tshamba continued to check in at the Eastern District station and was said to be screening potential attorneys.

Though criminal charges were expected, Tshamba was never placed under surveillance, which some observers found troubling.

Veteran Baltimore trial attorney Andrew C. White said he found it "troubling" that Tshamba hadn't been located more than 24 hours after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

"They should definitely be able to find somebody as publicly available as a police officer in 20 minutes," said White, who has no involvement in the case. He said police should have placed Tshamba under surveillance by one or two fellow officers, "so they could be sure they knew where he was."

White noted that police in Connecticut kept Yale University animal lab technician Raymond Clark III under close watch last year while they weighed evidence against him in the slaying of 24-year-old graduate student Annie Le. Clark was eventually arrested and charged with her murder.

Former Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris, who now hosts a radio show, said, "If you're planning to charge someone with a capital crime, you would want to keep them under surveillance." But he said that Tshamba's apparent decision to flee could not necessarily have been anticipated.

"In terms of policemen charged with crimes like this, very few, if any, can I remember fleeing," Norris said.

Guglielmi said Baltimore police had to "treat this like any other homicide suspect. If you put somebody under surveillance, that could become an issue at trial." He said "all of Tshamba's weapons" had been seized, and police had no inkling that he would flee. He was believed to be staying with friends, and his family was cooperating with police.

He chastised the media, saying that word of the search for Tshamba might have given the officer a chance to disappear.

But Cohen said leaks from the department about the investigation had deeply troubled his client, saying he was being "served up on a silver platter." He said Tshamba is eager to tell his side when the appropriate time comes. He refused to take a breath test to show whether he had been drinking and has not given any statement to investigating officers.

He also said Tshamba was startled by a death threat reported to police earlier in the week. Police received a call from someone claiming to be a relative of Brown, who said a young cousin was intent on revenge. Sources say that the call was ultimately deemed to be a hoax, but Cohen said that message never got back to Tshamba.

"As soon as I have a dialogue with him, I will tell him 'You have to turn yourself in,'" Cohen said. "If I have to pick him up somewhere, I will."

Tshamba, whose past includes lawsuits over paternity, child support and unpaid rent, had a history of late-night episodes involving alcohol and gun violence that predated last weekend's fatal shooting. He was said to be a regular at upscale clubs in the city, but was generally low-key.

He was suspended for eight days but allowed to remain on the city police force after a 2005 incident in which he shot a man in the foot after an off-duty altercation that included driving under the influence of alcohol. In 2006, he was disciplined again after losing control of his car on Pulaski Highway just before 2 a.m.

Outside City Hall, friends and associates of Brown who gathered for the vigil, shared memories of the East Baltimore resident, whose Marine service included four years of combat duty in Iraq.

"Justice is still out there to be served," said Brown's sister, Chantay Kangalee, who was with him when he was shot. She organized the vigil, choosing the spot in front of City Hall because, "It's too hard to go back to the scene of everything."

Several Marines from Brown's unit attended, with some driving from as far away as St. Mary's County.

Marine James Maguire called Brown "outgoing, honest and friendly," and called what happened "an injustice."

"It's so sad," said Dargan, "that he went through all of that [serving in Iraq,] and now he had to come here to get killed by someone who is supposed to be upholding the law."

McClatchy-Tribune News Servic


http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/Baltimore-Officer-Arrested-on-Murder-Charge/1$52878
 
I don't know the facts of this case but it certainly appears that he is guilty as charged. I always find it interesting that whenever there is a shooting such as this, especially involving a LEO there will always be some witness saying that the person that got shot was totally innocent with his hands in the air. Locally we had a Deputy outside a "joint" order a thug to put down his weapon several times before shooting him. Witnesses came forward telling about how the poor fellow still had his gun in his pocket and was doing everything he could to obey the Deputy's orders before being shot in cold blood. Even our local city counselman idiot held a press conference organized on the court house steps to call for the arrest of the Deputy. All this even though survelance camers clearly show that the good boy who happend to be at the wrong place at the wrong time was holding his gun in his hands at the time of the shooting.

But in the case of the Baltimore officer it sounds as if hew should have been culled from the ranks of officers long ago.
 
Why was this guy still on the force after all the other incidences? Shooting a person in the foot and driving while intoxicated should have been enough to put him in jail for a while! I see a big civil suit against the Department and rightly so.

The Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday that Tshamba had been involved in a prior off-duty shooting in which he had been driving with a blood-alcohol level of .12, over the legal limit of .08 percent.
 
"These charges are an aberration," [Baltimore police spokesman Anthony] Guglielmi said at a news conference Saturday night. "They're an affront to all of us that work for the BPD and an affront to the officers that work hard to make this city safe."

These charges are a pattern of misconduct! Tshamba is one of the influences in Baltimore contributing to the lack of safety. All unions suck. Public servant unions doubly so.
 
Meanwhile in Ohio, we have cops arresting cops. In the last 6 months there have been two that were drinking while driving in full uniform, one so high on whatever his choice of drug was, that he got smacked around a little first before put in cuffs. And the coup de grâce...An Ottawa Hills Police officer/ Rambo wannabe shoots a motorcyclist in the back. Oh and I almost forgot this one: Link Removed
 
Ottawa Hills was a year ago, wasn't it?

Yes, I believe it was. That cop was convicted. He will be sentenced this month for his crimes. I watched the youtube video of the stop and it was freaking scary. He basically just pulled his gun and shot the guy in the back while still on the motorcycle. The bullet severed his spine and paralyzed him instantly, then the bike fell over pinning him to the ground. In court the cop tried to defend his actions that he was in fear of his life because the guy turned his head around. He had several LEO's testify against him during the trial.
 
Yep, one year ago last month. LEO was convicted and awaiting sentence. I live a block from where it happened. The Ottawa Hills Police have always had a bad reputation, everything from profiling to just being complete a$$'s. This has been a long time coming. Link Removed
 
Senseless tragedy.

I see Tshamba was charged. Baltimore City is being sued by the deceased's family for $250,000,000(!). Expensive choice to keep him on the force.

Allegedly he shot another unarmed civilian in the back during a routine traffic stop and has a long history of alcohol, DUI and other red flags.

Lots of great LEOs out there who deserve praise. This guy sounds like a guy who got hired then lived one step away from full-out gangbanger.
 
This sounds like an all around spooky deal. :fie::mad: Anyone legally intoxicated while involved in a prior shooting would sound off major red flags, but to leave him on the police force to "enforce" laws that he himself can't seem to follow?
Sounds like Tshamba isn't going to be the only policeman on that force with some explaining to do. :hang3: $250 Million :hang3:

Also, how do you miss 4 out of 13 shots from 5 feet (or less) ?
 

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