Teen's death spurs Washington County Sheriff change

from The Oregonian, Dana Tims

Glenn: Sheriff doubts Tasers would have helped

The police shooting death last September of an angry, drunken teenager near Tigard is triggering changes in how the Washington County Sheriff's Office responds to crises involving distraught people.

Annual crisis intervention training, formerly voluntary, will be mandatory; Tasers, previously carried only by some deputies, will be issued to all uniformed deputies; and longer-range, nonlethal weapons are being tested, the sheriff's office said Thursday.

In a key finding of the department's exhaustive review of the death of 18-year-old Lukus Glenn, officials determined that the two county sheriff's deputies who fired the fatal shots acted appropriately and that none of the changes being enacted now would have made a difference.

"Mr. Glenn's intoxication and anger toward his family were proximate causes in this tragedy," said Pat Garrett, the department's chief deputy.

Attorneys representing Glenn's family welcomed the changes but challenged officials' version of the Sept. 16 shooting. "We've got some revisionist history at work here," Lake Oswego attorney Larry Peterson said.

For instance, Peterson said, the final review states the officers were farther away from Glenn than what they and witnesses said in the days after the shooting. Peterson has claimed that the officers were close enough to use Tasers. Tigard police Officer Andrew Pastore, called to the scene because he carried a nonlethal beanbag shotgun, was 27 feet from Glenn, according to the final review, but witnesses had placed him at 15 feet.

Peterson, acting on the family's behalf, has called for a public inquest and in the past month filed notice of intent to sue Washington County, the city of Tigard and the officers involved.

Among changes announced Thursday were that all patrol deputies will be equipped with Tasers, Washington County Sheriff Rob Gordon said. In addition, the department will require crisis intervention training aimed at dealing with emotionally distraught people.

Deputies Mikhail Gerba and Tim Mateski, who responded to the Glenns' Tigard-area home, did not have Tasers. Yet even if they had the weapons, Gordon said, they probably would not have used them because they were standing outside the 21-foot range in which Tasers are considered most effective.

Washington County's new hires all undergo an initial four-hour training session, but annual 24-hour classes updating the training are voluntary. Gordon said that, in his opinion, more crisis intervention training would not have helped save Glenn's life.

"This is because deputies were dealing with a subject who was armed, violent, angry and uncommunicative and fueled by severe intoxication, versus a mentally ill subject," he said.

Toxicology tests found no evidence of illegal drugs in Glenn's system but did show a blood-alcohol level of 0.18 percent. That's more than twice the amount at which a person is considered under the influence when driving in Oregon.

Hope Glenn, Lukus Glenn's mother, had phoned 9-1-1 early that morning saying her son was out of control and threatening her and other family members. Deputies arrived four minutes later and confronted Glenn, who was walking back and forth outside the home's front door.

Audiotapes of the brief confrontation indicate that deputies repeatedly yelled at Glenn to drop a knife he was holding. He repeatedly yelled that they would have to kill him.

Pastore fired six beanbag rounds at Glenn. Five struck the teen.

Seconds later, when Glenn tried to run back into the house where his mother, father and grandmother were, Mateski and Gerba opened fire, killing Glenn almost instantly.

A Washington County district attorney's office investigation, released shortly after the shooting, determined the deputies and officer were "legally justified," finding no cause for taking the case to a grand jury.