© Sacramento Bee/Randall Benton
"You know, I have two very, very good police officers that are having a lot of trouble with this," Chief Mark Helms said in an audio recording of the meeting that The Sacramento Bee obtained from a source. "And nobody's thinking about them, either."
Helms asked for the meeting with Sikh leaders, according to those in attendance. He spoke for nearly two hours at the April 17 gathering, giving his first detailed public comments about the killing of Parminder Singh Shergill, a Sikh whose family has deep roots in Northern California.
During the session, Helms described the lengthy investigative process, and suggested that Shergill, 43, was "troubled" and had been violent in the past. Helms also spoke of the need for more services for mentally ill people, especially veterans, in San Joaquin County.
But the chief offered little new information about the events that led to the fatal shooting. Family members have said Shergill suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his military service during the Gulf War.
"I would love to share with you details about the investigation," Helms said. "I can't right now." He said the key information would be made public only upon conclusion of the probe being conducted by the Lodi Police Department, the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office, the county coroner and the California Department of Justice.
Family members said the meeting did nothing to reassure them that the investigation would be fair and unbiased.
"I've lost faith," said Shergill's nephew Aman Sohota, who attended the meeting. "They keep telling us that they are going to release information, but they don't do it. I think the process is corrupt. I think the DA is going to somehow end up justifying this."
Kuldeep Dhatt, president of Lodi's Sikh Temple, also attended the meeting and came away with a different perspective.
"It's not the Lodi police who let this young man down," she said. "It's the country. He was a veteran, and he didn't receive proper treatment. A young man's life is lost. It's a wrongful death however you look at it. But we have to move forward and start looking for solutions, and that was what we hoped this meeting would accomplish."
In a brief interview Wednesday evening, Helms said he was "disappointed" that the meeting was recorded and leaked to The Bee.
"We brought leaders of the Sikh community into our conference room to have an open dialogue. It's disappointing that someone violated the trust of everyone else at the table by secretly recording the meeting," he said.
Nevertheless, "I thought it was a great meeting. It was fantastic," Helms said.
On the day of the shooting, according to family members, Shergill woke up anxious and upset. He left home visibly agitated and began walking. Concerned relatives called Lodi police in hopes officers could locate Shergill and bring him home. The department had helped the family several times in recent years when they asked for assistance in getting him treatment.
Shortly after the family's call, two veteran officers shot and killed Shergill, just a few houses from where he lived with his mother and brother. The department has said that Shergill charged officers with a knife and that they had no choice but to open fire. Relatives said they counted 14 bullet holes in Shergill's body and questioned why police had fired so many shots.
At the meeting, Helms said, "I can't get into details" about that matter. But in general "you never have an officer who was in a potentially deadly encounter try and use a lesser level of deadly force, like a bean bag or Taser," he said. "It just can't happen, because we would have a whole lot more dead and injured police officers."
The officers who shot Shergill were back to work in a week, a time frame some family members have taken issue with. Helms said at the meeting that the decision "was my call," based on the initial investigation of what occurred that day and psychological evaluations of the two officers. "I was absolutely comfortable to bring them back to work," he said.
The case has sparked town hall meetings, an online petition demanding "Justice For Parminder Singh Shergill" and a civil rights lawsuit against the city and its Police Department, filed by Sacramento attorney Mark Merin. Lodi has hired two private attorneys with experience in civil rights and police liability cases to defend the city.
Helms said in the recording that he called the meeting, attended by about a dozen people, to start "a dialogue because we're not bad people, and you're not bad people, and things are going sideways."
"I just ask that you give us a chance," he said, "and let us do our jobs."
The chief said that in the near future he plans to make public disclosures about the case and "it's not going to be pleasant." He mentioned Shergill's previous arrests several years ago, which court records show include threats against his former wife and having a concealed weapon in his car. Both cases were dismissed, according to records.
Helms said he also plans to release a photo of the "tactical" knife that Shergill allegedly used to threaten officers, a transcript of the 911 call made from Shergill's home to police on the day he was killed, and recordings of police radio transmissions related to the call. "It tells a different story than what's out there already," he said. "I want to prepare you for that."
Once all of the agencies complete their reports, the DA's office will decide "what laws, if any, were broken," Helms told the group. Such investigations typically take a year, he said.
In the future, Helms said, his department "is going to have a conversation" about handling a growing number of mentally ill people, including veterans. Services are inadequate, and police increasingly have to intervene when people present a danger to themselves or others, he said.
Shergill, he said, "had a lot going on and the question that I would ask is, "Were mental health providers helping him? Was he on the right medication? Should he have been living somewhere else besides home? You know, what was his family doing for him? What was the community doing for him? What was the VA doing for him?"
Merin, the Sacramento lawyer, was not present at the meeting but said he had read a transcript. He called it "an attempt to get control of the dialogue and assassinate the character of the deceased, while at the same time building up the reputation and integrity of his officers."
"It was a tactic to try to sway public opinion," Merin said, "while at the same time refusing to produce the evidence that would allow the public to judge for itself."
Reader Comments
That will solve the problem. www.peacefulstreets.com is a site run by a WEST POINT 'educated' former U.S. Army captain. Police are nothing but the bullies, abusers, and terrorists. As Dr. Dahlia Wasfi says, 'The real terrorists are the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U. S. Government.
This came from www.informationliberation.com
Officer Safety Uber Alles: Christopher Dorner and the 'Rickoverian Paradox'
by William Norman Grigg
Recently by William Norman Grigg: Sniperism
The intrepid Captain Phillip Tingirides of the Los Angeles Police Department has come down with a sudden case of "Blue Flu." This is an oddly
selective malady, one that only afflicts police officers. "Sick-outs" are a common police union tactic in contract disputes with municipal
governments. In this case, the epidemic appears to be contained in the Tigirides household, where the bold and valiant captain is cowering in
fear of his former comrade, Christopher Dorner.
"This month, it will be 33 years on the Los Angeles Police Department," Tingirides told the Orange County Register. "I have had a number of threats
and very rarely do I take them seriously. In this case… I’m taking it very seriously…. I recognize I am susceptible to his violence."
Little in Tingirides’s official bio would suggest that danger has been his constant companion. Early in his career he patrolled such grim and
forbidding territories as Wilshire and Hollywood before being promoted to such assignments as Prostitution Enforcement Detail, Community
Relations, and the Vice Unit.
His career has been devoid of measurable peril, even by the standards of law enforcement – which is one of the least risk-laden occupations in
contemporary life. This helps explain why Tingirides has been hiding out in his home, surrounded by a phalanx of timid and trigger-happy police
bodyguards who are entirely willing to open fire on innocent people if they come within eyeshot.
"I haven’t been able for the last few days to go outside my house," whined Tingirides to the Register. "Am I afraid? Well, I hesitate to use that word –
but I saw what he did to his attorney." The attorney to whom he referred was Randy Quan, who represented Dorner during the 2008 disciplinary
hearings that resulted in Dorner’s dismissal from the LAPD for supposedly lying about abusive conduct by another officer. Lying about a Mundane
is part of a police officer’s job description; lying about a fellow officer is simply impermissible.
Dorner is believed to be the assailant who shot Quan’s 28-year-old daughter, Monica. That young woman was apparently killed for the same reason
the Obama Regime murdered 16-year-old Abdel al-Awalki: Someone habituated to criminal violence decided that the child was guilty of having an
irresponsible parent.
Tingirides was chairman of the three-officer "board of rights" that upheld the decision to terminate Dorner’s employment, and the stalwart captain
was mentioned by name in the vengeful ex-cop’s online "manifesto."
Back in August 2011, Captain Tingirides was interviewed on the beach near Torrance to promote a youth "Surf Camp" program. Despite the fact
that he had grown up within easy distance of the shore, that interview represented the first time he had ever attempted to surf.
The time devoted by Captain Tingirides to producing that PR spot for the LAPD constituted the most danger-intensive hour of his career. Surfing is
a far riskier activity than working as a law enforcement officer. The risks are particularly acute for surfers who have the misfortune of encountering police,
as David Perdue can testify.
Last Thursday, as the LAPD’s institutional panic escalated, Perdue visited a beach near the site of Tingirides’s 2011 press stunt to enjoy some early
morning surfing. He happened to be driving a pickup truck that resembled the vehicle being driven by Dorner. Two officers flagged Perdue down,
determined that he wasn’t the suspect, and then let him go. Scant seconds later, two other officers rammed their vehicle into Perdue’s truck and
opened fire.
It was Perdue’s immense good fortune that the assailants were police officers – which means that their marksmanship was poor enough to make the
typical Imperial Stormtrooper from Star Wars look like William Tell. Although he wasn’t shot, Perdue suffered a concussion and a shoulder injury.
Robert Sheahen, Perdue’s attorney, described the episode as one of "unbridled police lawlessness." The Department offered Perdue the same perfunctory
apology it had issued to two women who were shot at by another security detail guarding the home of another LAPD luminary. The LAPD has thus
established itself as a greater threat to public safety than the "rogue" cop they are pursuing: While Dorner’s alleged crime spree targeted a narrow cohort –
police officials and their families – the police have engaged in indiscriminate violence against innocent citizens.
The manhunt for Dorner has involved the deployment of thousands of police personnel and the use of unmanned aerial drones. It will cost tax victims in
Los Angeles and elsewhere millions of dollars in overtime. This means that the police involved in the pursuit – who are already trained to be risk-aversive –
will have a financial incentive to prolong the exercise as long as possible. So it shouldn’t surprise us that the police, who are preoccupied with the sacred
imperative of "officer safety," have turned to the public for help in solving the crime.
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has offered a $1 million reward – provided by private interests; all the available public money will probably be devoured by
police overtime – for information leading to the arrest and capture of Dorner.
"We will not tolerate anyone undermining the security of this community," mewled Villaraigosa. "We will not tolerate this reign of terror." LAPD Chief
Charlie Beck also characterized Dorner’s shooting rampage, as "domestic terrorism."
Who, exactly, is being "terrorized"? The productive public at large has been going about its business without facing any discernible risks from Dorner,
whose only identified would-be victims are either police officers or their families (who have done nothing to injure anybody, of course).
The only way that private citizens could collect the reward for Dorner’s capture would be for them to take risks that police aren’t willing to run. For
example: A citizen or privately employed security guard wouldn’t be able to ram an unidentified truck and open fire on its driver, or spray gunfire in a
residential neighborhood, without facing criminal charges.
In the official reaction to Dorner’s rampage, we see an unusually candid manifestation of the "Officer Safety Uber Alles" mentality that defines police
work. From their perspective, the population exists to protect and serve the police, rather than the reverse. This brings to mind the concept of Rickover’s
Paradox, which I encountered in a science fiction novel decades ago. According to author Vonda McIntyre, was used to test the moral attitudes of officer
candidates at the U.S. Naval Academy.
The most famous version of this conundrum is the following:
Two individuals, the only survivors of a tragic shipwreck, are adrift in a small, damaged lifeboat. The water is pitilessly cold and infested with ravenous
sharks. The boat itself is irreparably damaged in such a way that it will only be able to carry one of its occupants. If nothing is done, both occupants will
perish. But whichever is cast into the sea will die very quickly.
One of those aboard the stricken lifeboat is a highly trained officer with valuable – perhaps irreplaceable – technical skills. A huge sum has been spent
on his training, which makes him all but irreplaceable.
The other refugee is an innocent and law-abiding person of no particular achievements or aptitudes. Few if any would notice that person's absence,
and the community at large would be impoverished in no discernible way if he were thrown overboard.
Since only one can be saved, which of the two should it be?
The only morally sound answer to this predicament – assuming that the military is actually the institution it pretends to be – would be for the officer to
sacrifice himself on behalf of the civilian. This isn’t because there is a natural duty on the part of any individual to sacrifice himself for another, but
rather because the officer had freely chosen that duty, and refusing to carry it out would invalidate the entire stated purpose of having a military
establishment in the first place. Any other course of action would be based on the assumption that the civilian population exists to defend the military,
rather than the reverse.
Although this parable is supposed to instill an attitude of chivalry on the part of military officers, it actually underscores the uselessness of the state as
a protective institution, because human beings are not wired to sacrifice themselves on behalf of strangers – and the state is structured in such a way
that those who work on its behalf always place individual and institutional self-preservation above every other consideration.
This is why tax-subsidized cowards like Phillip Tingirides are cowering behind both their tax-funded bodyguards and the public the police supposedly
serves, while someone who was once a part of the state’s punitive priesthood carries out a mission of revenge against his erstwhile comrades in officially
sanctioned violence and plunder
If the police are reduced to puddles of panic at the thought of dealing with one of their own, why should the public trust them – or countenance their
institutional existence at all?
February 12, 2013
William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.
Copyright © 2013 William Norman Grigg
The Best of William Norman Grigg
cops are armed with, a billy club, a tazer, a gun, and a bullet proof vest but 1 charging marine with a knife (we have no clue of it's size) makes them so afraid that they have to shoot him 14 times?
why shoot once when 14 will do?