Throwdown Guns (This post is NOT about Ramsey Orta or the Garner killing.)

[Jackpine Radical]

Well, not exactly, anyway.

http://crimespace.ning.com/profiles/blogs/throwdown-guns

In a case of life imitating art, Officer Jason Andersen, a Minneapolis police officer, is facing a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that he deliberately planted a gun on 19 year-old Fong Lee after fatally shooting him eight times in July of 2006 during a foot pursuit. Andersen claimed Lee was evading him and was waving a gun while the officer chased him after interrupting a suspected drug deal. While eight shots into the victim seems excessive considering Lee never got off a shot, and while Lee’s fingerprints were not found on the gun, a grand jury cleared Andersen of any criminal wrongdoing and the department’s IA division found he didn’t violate any procedures. Andersen was awarded the Medal of Valor for bravery.

However, evidence filed in a wrongful death lawsuit last Monday by the victim’s family alleges that the gun found two feet from Lee’s body had been in police possession for nearly two years before the shooting. The suit claims that contradictory police reports, all eyewitness accounts and a security tape from the elementary school near the playground where the shooting occurred, prove that Lee wasn’t carrying a gun.

Six days after Lee’s death, the Russian-made Baikal.380 gun that was recovered near his body was identified as the same gun that was found in a snowbank two years earlier after it was reported stolen during a burglary in North Minneapolis. The gun was never returned to the owner after the trial of the accused burglars. In the initial report after the Lee shooting, the serial number on the gun found near Lee’s body and the serial number on the gun found after the burglary were deemed a match. But another report dated several days later, claimed the gun recovered from the snowbank after the burglary was actually a Belgium-made pistol with a different serial number. Police claim that the pistol was never removed from the property room and never returned to the owner.

Court documents allege that the planted gun was taken from the evidence room at the 4th precinct, the same station Officer Andersen worked out of. Police claim the videotape appears to depict Lee carrying something in his hand. Officer Andersen said Lee had a gun in his right hand. A video expert hired by the family reviewed the tape and determined Lee never had a gun in his right hand during the chase. The gun found near Lee's body was several feet from his left hand. An expert for the city analyzed the gun and found no finger or palm prints, oils, DNA, fibers or any other trace element that could be linked to Lee. There were no bullets in the chamber.

[Scuba]

1. Why would a cop carry a "throwdown" gun ...

... if he didn't figure sooner or later he was going to shoot someone who had no gun?

We need all LEO's to wear cameras.

[derby378]

2. It's gonna hit the proverbial fan now...

About time some crooked cop was busted for this.

[Lurks Often]

3. Throw down guns are pretty much a thing of the past

and pretty much disappeared when modern forensics started being used in cases. With modern forensics able to find all sorts of evidence on both the gun and person, using a throw down became a slam dunk guilty verdict in a trial.

For Lee to have left nothing on the gun is extremely unlikely. Sounds like Andersen is not only a moron, but going to jail for quite a long time. He might have gotten away with it if he hadn't used the throw down and simply stated he thought he saw the Lee reaching for something.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. It would be helpful if you actually knew what you were talking about.

http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_12926290

As it turns out, he was cleared of the Lee Fong killing, reinstated on the police force, and--

Last year, Andersen served a stint with the scandal-plagued Metro Gang Strike Force. It was during his time with the now-defunct strike force that another man, drug defendant Quenton Tyrone Williams, accused the officer of planting a gun on him when he was arrested in March 2008.

Andersen denied the claim when called to testify at Williams' trial. A jury found Williams guilty of having drugs while in the possession of a firearm, and he is appealing his conviction and three-year sentence.

He also wiggled out of a domestic assault charge brought by his girlfriend, who subsequently declined to testify against him.

The domestic assault charge against Andersen stems from an alleged incident June 14 at the officer's home in Big Lake. He was accused of assaulting his girlfriend, Angela Lynn Nicholas, 29, of Howard Lake.

In a brief phone interview this month, Nicholas said that Andersen was "a really good dad and a really good cop" and that the events leading to the charges "just got blown way out of proportion" by police.

"We want him back on the job," the attorney, Fred Bruno, said after the hearing. "It's in everybody's interest to bring this to a conclusion as soon as possible." Andersen has been on paid administrative leave since the arrest.

[Lurks Often]

5. None of which was in the original link

Sounds like Andersen is still a moron, just a lucky one so far.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. What I just provided was from a later story, which I hunted up

in response to your post. The point is that you made some pretty bold assertions about the "way things are" that were clearly not in sync with reality. The problem is, the internal investigators don't want to find evidence contradicting the cops' stories, and don't look for it. Prosecutors don't want to prosecute cops because they depend on them, so they don't push these cases either, and tend to just accept the internal investigation reports of the police.

[Lurks Often]

7. I stated what I believe is correct

just because a single cop planted a throw down gun and got away with doesn't make it a common practice.

I also agree that internal investigators and prosecutors are very reluctant to charge police officers for anything, something I disagree with, but until we as voters start holding the politicians accountable for the people they hire and supervise, nothing is going to change. Given how rarely a police chief or prosecutor is an issue in an election, I am not optimistic.

[TorchTheWitch]

8. dredging this one up?

This suit was back in 2009, and the Lee family lost. There was a boatload of evidence that contradicted this idiot suit. Watch the surveillance video yourself. The kid clearly had a gun in his hand.

To even imagine that Andersen (who was not the only officer on the scene) just happened to have been carrying around a convenient evidence room gun just in case he decided to shoot someone that didn't have a gun is silliness. The gun by Lee's body didn't match any gun in the evidence room anyway.

Surely there is something more current to pin on the police? Perhaps even something where an officer actually DID do something heinous?