The last turn in the life of Lukus Glenn

from The Oregonian, by Steve Duin


Two irrational forces collided in Lukus Glenn's front yard early Saturday morning.
Glenn, an 18-year-old with an attitude, was drunk on alcohol and anger.

The sheriff's deputies from Washington County, armed with an attitude all their own, were high on adrenaline and low on patience. They also had an overwhelming advantage in firepower, leading to the inevitable funeral service and a few nagging questions about the self-described "conservator of the peace in Washington County."

For the sheriff's office, "nagging" is the word. There are three distinct stages in this kind of police shooting --the incident, the community reaction and the grand jury's official stamp of approval --and this intermediate stage, fraught with shock and disbelief, is the only one that's not controlled by the guys with the badge and the guns.

Society long ago decided cops get the benefit of the doubt when they face a threat with their finger on the trigger. That decision empowers the police at the scene and requires that DAs and grand juries hold them blameless. Only in this anguished middle ground is the need for deadly force met with any degree of skepticism.

Washington County Sheriff Rob Gordon said in a statement Monday that his deputies were dispatched to Garden Home to confront a knife-wielding suspect "who was suicidal and out of control."

They ordered Glenn to drop the knife. He didn't.

A Tigard cop hit him with three rounds from a beanbag shotgun. Glenn didn't fall. Instead, he swiveled back toward his house, the night's last fatal turn. That's all the deputies needed to cut loose. To protect Glenn's family, Gordon said, "the deputies both shot the suspect."

And sent several bullets roaring into the house, and past the family members they were trying to "protect."

Said Gordon, "I always caution folks to hold their final opinion on issues such as this until all the facts are fully known." I respect that. Like the Glenn family and several other witnesses on the scene, I simply wish the two deputies had showed similar restraint.

Even those who will memorialize Lukus Glenn this week agree he was drunk and depressed when he returned home at 2 a.m. Saturday and his parents refused to allow him to take his Yamaha dirt bike out on the road. No one but the Washington County sheriff's office, however, is arguing that he ever threatened anyone but himself.

The knife Glenn held to his throat? David Lucas, 19, who arrived at the Glenn house before the deputies did and, along with several others, tried to calm his friend down, said it was a hookah knife, used to widen the holes in the tin foil through which the hookah hoses are inserted.

"That's the knife I gave him for Christmas," Lucas said. "I was working at Big 5 and they had a six-pack of knives for sale. It's a three-inch knife with a plastic handle."

The sheriff's deputies, everyone agrees, were frantically screaming at Glenn to drop that knife. "They're saying they tried to negotiate with him, which they did at no time," Lucas said. Although the deputies were supposedly trained in crisis management, neither stepped back or tried to calm Glenn down.

"They just continued to yell at him. Over and over," Lucas said. "He was getting frustrated because they wouldn't talk to him. He asked Tony (Morales) to tell them to stop yelling."

David Lucas will concede this: "Luke had a problem. When someone told him he couldn't do something, it would make him want to do it more."

After a Tigard officer, who arrived as backup, rocked Glenn with the beanbag rounds, Lucas said, the county deputies opened fire almost immediately: "It wasn't like they shot him with a beanbag and waited for him to surrender. It happened all at once."

Just what provoked the fatal shots? The sheriff's office initially said Glenn "started for the front door of the residence." Lucas said, "He took a step . . . and looked like he was going to take a second step toward the house."

But Gordon's Monday statement said Glenn "started running" toward the house. "He had made threats, was armed, and was totally out of control. You don't have to search too deeply in media archives to find events where innocent family members are hurt or killed in these type of actions."

I suppose that's true. But the deputies had reason to believe a significant barricade separated Glenn from those innocent family members. According to Lucas, when the deputies arrived, Glenn's parents were in the doorway to the house. "The cops told them to go inside and lock the doors," Lucas said.

"The doors were locked. Or they should have been locked."

That brings me to the last of my nagging questions. Sheriff's deputies were told Glenn was suicidal and out of control, yet expected him to respond rationally when confronted by two screaming strangers with guns drawn.

Stranded in his front yard, Glenn was a threat to no one but himself, yet was shot and killed when he staggered away from several beanbag rounds and toward the home he might have perceived as sanctuary.

On Sheriff Rob Gordon's advice, I'm reluctant to reach any conclusions before the facts are "fully known." But I have to ask:

The next time a local teen-ager becomes unhinged and picks up a knife, what rational parent will dial 9-1-1? After the death of Lukus Glenn, what mother or father would expect help to arrive with the sheriff's deputies of Washington County?