Detroit News - 9/27/00
The families of Errol Shaw and
police officer David Krupinski
reacted Wednesday to the
decision to prosecute Krupinski
for Shaw's death.
Officer David Krupinski's family and friends were in court Wednesday to show their support during Krupinski's arraignment.
Krupinski, 23, is facing the possibility of 15 years behind bars, charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of Detroiter Errol Shaw.
Krupinski and three officers were called to the Shaw home on Aug. 29 on a report Shaw was threatening family members with a knife. When they arrived, Shaw, who was deaf and could not speak, was holding a garden rake. Krupinski reportedly said he thought he was coming at them and he fired at Shaw.
Krupinski will be suspended without pay pending the outcome. He walked out of court Wednesday free on $100,000 personal bond.
Shaw's Family Reacts to Charges
Emotions are also running high for the relatives of Errol Shaw. When members of the Shaw family said they wanted justice, manslaughter is not what they had in mind. Shaw's family said the charge against Krupinski doesn't go far enough.
"Today, the prosecutor's office handed down a lesser charge of manslaughter, criminally below what eyewitness viewed as first or second-degree murder," Lavalle Shaw, Errol Shaw's brother, said.
The family's attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, said Shaw's relatives will help investigators build a case against the officer, despite their disappointment with the charge.
"We plan to cooperate with the prosecutor and family members or witnesses," Fieger said during a news conference Wednesday.
In addition to the criminal charge, Fieger said he will pursue the wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit against the officer and the city of Detroit.
Shaw's father said he is still waiting for something in addition to justice.
"I mean, they haven't been to our home to offer us condolences," Vernon Shaw, Errol Shaw's father, said.
Fieger said there are other fatal shootings by Detroit Police that should also result in criminal charges.
The Associated Press - 8/30/00
A deaf-mute man brandishing a metal-toothed rake
was shot to death by a police officer answering a call of a man
threatening his parents with a knife, police Chief Benny Napoleon
said Wednesday.
The NAACP criticized the shooting Tuesday of 39-year-old Errol Shaw Jr., calling it "horrifying and sickening." Celebrity lawyer Geoffrey Fieger called the death an execution and said he has been hired to sue on behalf of Shaw's parents.
Fieger told radio station WWJ-AM that police "literally by
firing squad executed a man with a rake."
Fieger has been contacted by the Shaw family, and plans to file a civil suit against the City of Detroit on behalf of them.
At a news conference Wednesday, Napoleon said Officer David Krupinski and three others with him did not know Shaw could not hear their calls for him to stop and drop the rake. Krupinski then fired two shots.
Krupinski has been reassigned while the department's internal affairs unit investigates, the chief said.
Shaw was shot about 4:50 p.m. Tuesday. An ambulance failed to arrive promptly, Napoleon said, and police rushed Shaw to Sinai-Grace Hospital. He died about 8 p.m.
Napoleon promised a thorough investigation and said he was determined to find out if the shooting was justified.
"I feel for the family," he said. "Certainly, I can commit to them that we will do a through, impartial and objective investigation. ... It is too early for me to either condemn this officer's actions or to defend them."
The Detroit chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People described Shaw as "another victim of deadly force."
"The fact that a rake in the hand can be equated at the same level as a pistol threatening to kill a man calls into judgment the training, patience and sensitivity of the police department," chapter president the Rev. Wendell Anthony said.
Krupinski, 23, is a 3½-year department veteran, Napoleon said. He said Krupinski has not been involved in any other shootings but does have a pending disciplinary action against him. The chief did not elaborate.
Napoleon said the 4-foot rake was a dangerous weapon, and officers are trained to shoot to kill when threatened with deadly force.
Asked whether officers could have used Mace or pepper spray to subdue Shaw, Napoleon said the spray is not intended for use against people who present a threat to life.
A family member who called 911 about Shaw threatening his parents with a knife did not tell the dispatcher that Shaw was deaf, Napoleon said.
Detroit police are seeking more training for officers in working with the hearing impaired, Napoleon said. He said he first proposed such training in 1998 but it got lost in department bureaucracy. The project is on track now, he said.
The NAACP believes the officers could have subdued Shaw without killing him, Anthony said.
"If this is not the case, then they need to go back to Day 1 at the police academy," Anthony said.
Mayor Dennis Archer said he did not know whether the officer was right to shoot Shaw.
But even if Shaw could not hear the officers, he should have known to stop and drop the rake when he saw them with guns drawn, Archer told Detroit television station WXYZ.
Asked about Fieger's comments, Napoleon said the lawyer "is interested in the economic value of this to line his own pockets."
The Southfield attorney, best known for defending assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, has filed several multimillion-dollar wrongful death lawsuits in Michigan.
He also is seeking $500 million from the city of Detroit on behalf of the families of two men killed in a Feb. 25 crash. The lawsuits claim a police chase caused the accident.
Tuesday's fatal shooting of a deaf man is currently being investigated by Detroit Police internal affairs.
Detroit Police Chief Benny Napoleon spoke out Wednesday about the deadly police shooting of a deaf man who was armed with a rake. The young officer who shot the man insists it was in self-defense.
Napoleon said officers did not know Earl Shaw was deaf when they arrived at the scene. He also said the officer who fired was not standing closest to Shaw, who reportedly was holding a rake in a threatening manner.
Napoleon said there are conflicting reports from witnesses but he wants to find the truth.
"This is tragic situation," Napoleon said. "I feel for the family of the deceased. Certainly, I can commit to them that they will do a thorough and impartial objective investigation, and the truth will be presented for everyone."
"They didn't have to shoot him," one neighbor said, adding that she thought officers could have used pepper spray to subdue Shaw.
People who knew and cared about 39-year-old Shaw were asking the same questions Wednesday. They wondered why a police officer would shoot and kill a man armed with a rake, who could not hear them and could not speak.
Attorney Geoffrey Fieger said Shaw's family has retained him and they plan on filing a civil lawsuit against the city of Detroit.
Napoleon speaks about Tuesday's shooting.
"I think it's too early for me to either condemn the officer's actions or to defend them," Napoleon said. "I am not going to do either at this point."
The confrontation happened late Tuesday afternoon at the home where Shaw lived with his parents and some of his children.
Police responded to a 911 call for help, a report of a man threatening his parents with a knife. Officers arrived, and not knowing Shaw was deaf, told him to stop. He reportedly did not, and shots were fired.
Later at Sinai-Grace Hospital, his wife and other family members stood outside crying as they heard the news that Shaw had died from his gunshot wounds.
"It's just sad," a neighbor said. "We couldn't understand why he had to be wounded the way he was."
The officer involved in the shooting is from the eighth precinct and has been on the job three-and-a-half years. The officer is reportedly upset and underwent a psychiatric evaluation, which is standard. He will be on a desk job during the investigation.
Mayor Archer Talks About Shooting
Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer said Wednesday that he will not get involved in the investigation. He is confident the internal affairs unit investigating the incident will investigate fairly and properly.
However, he said if he was just reading the headlines, the incident does not look good.
"If all I were to see reading it was 'Man with rake shot and killed by police,' I would look at that and say something is wrong with this picture," Archer said.
Archer agrees the shooting does not look good, but says all the facts are not yet known.
Police investigate the shooting.
"There was a problem at a home," Archer said. "The family in the home called the police, gave 911, I presume, sufficient information to believe that there was something going on that a police car should go in and investigate.
"They weren't driving through the neighborhood and randomly stopped and said, 'Let me go back and see if there's somebody in the back yard.'"
"When they arrived, they were advised or found out or saw the person came out with a rake," Archer said.
The mayor questioned, without placing blame, if the fatal shot could have been avoided.
"Here are officers in uniform," Archer said. "Apparently at some point with guns drawn, saying, 'Stop, put the rake down.'"
"Even if one is hard of hearing, you still have police officers who are there, and if at some point, you see police officers and a gun being drawn, that is a factual information, if one can process it and see it," Archer said. "I don't know that."
Below is the portion of the article about Fieger and the other lawyers for the family fighting over who files the lawsuits.
One of the lawyers for Shaw's family, Geoffrey Fieger of Southfield, said the shooting was unnecessary.
Fieger said he has interviewed Shaw's mother and father, who were sitting on the home's porch at the time of the incident. Fieger said they told him that of the five officers who confronted Shaw, Krupinski was the only one who had his gun unholstered. That's proof, Fieger said, that Shaw was not menacing police officers.
He said two of the officers had gone to the home in the 16500 block of Ferguson on previous occasions to help calm Shaw and knew he was deaf and could not speak.
Fieger said Shaw never chased his parents with a knife and was holding the rake when officers advanced up the driveway of the home. Fieger said the parents repeatedly urged police not to shoot.
"This was an irrational act by this one officer," Fieger said. "He executed a man who was not presenting any danger, and the others did nothing to stop him."
On Friday, Fieger criticized three other lawyers who filed papers this week to have Shaw's oldest son, Jermaine Jordan, 19, appointed special personal representative of Shaw's estate. They helped him file a $10-million wrongful death lawsuit against the officers involved in the shooting.
"I represent the wife, the three minor children, the mother, the father and the sisters and brothers," Fieger said, adding that he plans to go to court to have Shaw's wife, Donna, and mother, Annie, appointed co-personal representatives of the estate in place of Jordan.
He also said he will try to have Jordan's lawsuit dismissed, so he can file one of his own.
Jordan is a half-brother to Shaw's other three sons. His lawyers said he has legal standing to go to court and they refused to engage in a public debate with Fieger.
"We're not going to turn this into a circus," said Southfield lawyer David A. Robinson.
Excerpt from an article on ambulance response time
According to the police, after waiting more than 12 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, they took him to Sinai-Grace Hospital, where he died in surgery.
Until officers loaded Shaw into the scout car, the only care police gave him was to shoo flies from his wounds, witnesses said.
BUT...
An EMS unit did not arrive until 28 minutes after the first 911 calls for help, fire officials have said.
Geoffrey Fieger, a lawyer representing some of Shaw's family, disputes the official version of how long Shaw lay without medical help.
"He laid there 35 to 40 minutes without any medical attention," Fieger said. "The officers finally picked him up by the scruff of his neck and pant legs and loaded him into a scout car 35 minutes after he was shot.... A dying man laid there 35 minutes while police stood around and provided him with no medical care as if he was a piece of meat."