June 23, 2009 in City

Officials defend police response

But Verner, others note they haven’t seen evidence

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Spokane leaders Monday continued to defend police actions during the 2006 confrontation with Otto Zehm, despite a federal indictment of one of the officers involved in the incident.

They qualifed their support by noting that they aren’t privy to the evidence shared with a federal grand jury.

“Based on the information we have, we’ve been supportive of not only police officers but the firefighters and the other city employees involved in that incident,” City Administrator Ted Danek said Monday afternoon.

At a news conference Monday, U.S. Attorney James McDevitt announced that a grand jury indicted Karl Thompson, the officer who first responded to a complaint about Zehm.

“I don’t believe that Karl acted to willingly deprive Mr. Zehm of his constitutional rights,” City Attorney Howard Delaney said. He added, “I have not necessarily seen everything that the grand jury has.”

While calling the incident “a tragedy,” Spokane Mayor Mary Verner has defended police actions.

“In my personal opinion … I just don’t think that the behavior of the officer rose to criminal behavior,” Verner said in February.

On Monday, she noted that she wasn’t briefed by federal authorities on their evidence.

“Like the rest of the public, I’ll be watching the evidence unfold in the court system,” Verner said.

City Councilman Richard Rush attended McDevitt’s news conference. He declined to comment on the indictment, but he said he went to get a firsthand account of the charges “sans any filters” from city officials.

The city faces a lawsuit from the Center for Justice on behalf of Zehm’s family. Last week, the city sent its response to the suit to media; it says Zehm was at fault for the confrontation with police.

Councilman Bob Apple criticized the city’s defense posture, which he described as an “attitude of basically, ‘We’re not responsible and this life isn’t worth anything.’ ”

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Four comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  dick adams on June 23 at 10:40 a.m.

  Somebody please tell Mayor Verner the evidence has been in the city files for years!

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  Bob_Knows on June 25 at 10:44 a.m.

  The corrupt Mayor and her armed gang of thugs is the problem. They are the antithesis of free men. Everything they do is to rob, abuse, terrorize, destroy, and kill men who's ancestors were free men. We don't need them. We don't want them. And WE THE PEOPLE would all be a lot better off if the log of them were run out of town on a rail by an angry mob of honest citizens.

  There was a time not so long ago when armed highwaymen were caught and hung. Now they work for the government.

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  toliveanddieinla on June 25 at 12:03 p.m.

  time to clean house and get rid of all corrupt cops,mayor and etc if i didnt leave anybody out but i seen the evidence 100 million times he didnt lunge at cop ss the cop lied he should be punished end of story i sick and tired of cops getting away with murder ,gun shooting cops, and pissed off cops that dont get laid shooting there tasers at people p.s. ss about mayor but she need to be gone

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  jenny on June 30 at 4:41 a.m.

  According to Socrates “False words are not only evil in themselves but they infect the soul with evil.”
  
  Also along with this an anonymous person said, “Prefer a loss to a dishhonest gain. The one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time.”

  A Lesley Conqer quote says, “every act of dishonesty has at least two victims; the one we think of as the victims (i.e. Otto Zehm and Shonto Pete) and the perpetrator as well (i.e. the seven murderers of Otto Zehm, and the attempted murder of Shonto Pete committed by Jay Olsen the perpetrator). Each little dishonesty makes another rotten spot somewhere in the perpetrators” psyche.”

  How can a person ever be a good person anymore if they are continually dishonest.That lie will remain with them for all of their lives. “It is a sad, sad situation and it's getting more and more absurd…” says the words to one popular rock song.

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