Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Officer's records opened in Gomez case Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 16:22:11 EST Message-ID: \SE A;METROPOLITAN \HD Officer's records opened in Gomez case \BY Catherine Toups \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES A Metropolitan Police officer shot Daniel Gomez in May 1991 because she was poorly trained and carried a misfiring gun, not because he was threatening her with a knife, defense attorneys in Mr. Gomez's assault trial have argued. Yesterday a D.C. Superior Court judge gave them access to the records they hope will prove their claims. Judge Mildred M. Edwards ordered prosecutors to turn over Officer Angela Jewell's training records and local police records of any "negligent" discharges of the Glock 17, the standard weapon carried by Metropolitan Police officers. The order came after the defense yesterday produced a fourth witness who said Mr. Gomez was handcuffed and unarmed when he was shot in the chest by Officer Jewell on May 5, 1991, sparking days of rioting in Mount Pleasant. Defense attorney John Karr now hopes to show why she fired. With less than nine months on the job, he says, she was so nervous and ill-trained that when drunken, handcuffed Mr. Gomez approached, she pulled a gun that reportedly fires under slight pressure. "We will present an alternate theory that this officer . . . wasn't trained right and was using a gun that should not have been in her hand in the first place," Mr. Karr said after jurors were dismissed for the day. Officer Jewell, 27, testified in the two-week trial that she shot Mr. Gomez when he came toward her with a knife while she tried to arrest him for public drunkenness. Her story was backed up by three officers and several civilians who were in the area. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel S. Seikaly argued unsuccessfully that the records are irrelevant because the officer has said she intentionally fired the gun. The only choice for the jury, he said, is "either murder on her part or assault on his part." Even if she had poor training, he said, Officer Jewell had the right to use deadly force to protect herself from a knife-wielding man. But a Lamont Street NW restaurant owner testified yesterday that she saw Mr. Gomez being shot while handcuffed. Carmen Corado mimicked a staggering man walking toward an officer, wagging his head until he was shot. "What is certain is that the entire time he had his hands behind his back. . . . That's what my eyes saw," the Salvadoran immigrant said through an interpreter. "It is the first time since I have been Carmen Corado that I have seen such a thing in the United States, nor had I seen such a thing in my country." And three witnesses testified yesterday to Mr. Gomez's nonviolent nature. The principal of a school where he is taking English classes said Mr. Gomez is "incapable of doing violence or anything like that." His sister, Digna Daysie Herrarte, said Mr. Gomez has always been a "very quiet person who doesn't talk very much." When Mr. Seikaly asked if she knew that Mr. Gomez was put out of their uncle's house in early 1991 because he drank and caused disruptions, Mrs. Herrarte said no. "No, because [the uncle] told me my brother was a good person," she said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM