I haven't reread the whole thread but this is where I got my info. My quote may be technically inaccurate but I think was in effect correct. Here is the readers digest version for those who don't want to wade through the whole thread. And
here is the whole enchilada.
Officer claims self-defense in shooting of tribe member
Friday, April 07, 2006
BY ANA M. ALAYA
Star-Ledger Staff
A State Park Police officer who shot and critically wounded a member of the Ramapough Le nape Indian Nation last weekend was defending himself as the man tried to take his gun, the officer's lawyer said yesterday.
Rookie officer Chad Walder was running to the aid of a fellow officer who was allegedly being beaten by a tribe member, when he got into a violent encounter with the alleged attacker's cousin, 44-year-old Emil A. Mann, said the attorney, Robert Galantucci.
"Mr. Mann was attempting to take Walder's gun, and he had to use the force reasonably necessary to protect himself as well as his colleagues," Galantucci said in defending the filing of assault charges against Mann.
The comments are the first public explanation of Walder's actions since the shooting, which oc curred last Saturday on county parkland in Mahwah.
The state Attorney General's Office is investigating the actions of Walder and three other State Park Police officers in the wake of last weekend's confrontation. Local and Bergen County authorities have criticized the park officers for improperly going out of their jurisdic tion and for failing to notify local police that they were in the area.
Those issues appeared to weigh heavily in a judge's decision yesterday to reduce the bail of 44-year-old Otis Mann, the Rama pough tribe member accused of as saulting Lt. Kelly Gottheiner after she tried to arrest him for illegally riding an all-terrain vehicle.
Rejecting the state's argument that Mann is a flight risk, Superior Court Judge William C. Meehan, sitting in Hackensack, reduced bail for the Monroe, N.Y., resident from $100,000 to $20,000, making it easier for the tribe to bail him out of jail.
Meehan noted the ongoing criticism of the park police and questions about whether they followed protocols.
"Obviously, this whole episode spun out of control," he said. "There's a very unusual fact pat tern in this case."
The events involving Otis and Emil Mann have sparked allega tions of wrongdoing on all sides. The Ramapough tribe, which maintains an insular community in the Stag Hill section of Mahwah, claims the shooting was racially motivated, that the response was extreme and the emergency response slow.
"Nothing on this level has ever happened up here," said Anthony Van Dunk, Ramapough tribal chief. "We want to know why they used deadly force for this type of situation."
Emil Mann, who was shot in the leg and the chest, remained in critical condition last night at Hacken sack University Medical Center. Relatives said he was improving.
As more details of the events leading up to the shooting emerged yesterday, Galantucci and others defended the park police officers.
Walder, 34, of Franklin Lakes, "feels terrible" about the incident, Galantucci said.
Rejecting accusations the officers targeted the Ramapoughs for racial reasons, Galantucci said Walder believed he was in his juris diction, and that the officers had stopped a number of ATV riders earlier in the day without incident, taking addresses so that sum monses could be sent to them.
"They weren't trying to be heavy-handed in any way," Galan tucci said. "It started out as not being a big-deal day. It was almost like they (the park officers) were lured into the situation."
In court yesterday, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi said Walder and the other officers were on patrol Saturday in the vicinity of an abandoned goat farm when they spotted the Manns and others drinking and rid ing ATVs.
At around noon, Walder and another officer arrested Harold Den ninson of Mahwah, a tribe member who was on an ATV, carrying a knife, a gun and hollow-nosed bullets, Fantuzzi said.
After the officers booked Den ninson at Mahwah police headquarters, they made their way back to nearby Ringwood State Park, Fantuzzi said.
At around 3:45 p.m. Gottheiner spotted Otis Mann on an ATV and asked him to stop, Fantuzzi said. Mann allegedly drove away, she said. About 20 minutes later, Got theiner against spotted Otis Mann, this time standing next to his ATV. She told Mann she was going to ar rest him and he resisted, Fantuzzi said.
"Otis Mann grabbed the lieutenant by her ponytail and proceeded to smash her head into the rack of the ATV," Fantuzzi said, adding that Mann also went for Gottheiner's baton.
At that point, another officer, Kenneth Kriete, got into a tussle with Mann's 14-year-old daughter, but drew his gun on Otis Mann, who relented and was handcuffed, Fantuzzi said.
As Walder ran to help Got theiner, he encountered and shot Emil Mann, Fantuzzi said without releasing details about what led to the shooting.
Emil Mann has been charged with assaulting a police officer, disarming a law enforcement officer, obstructing justice and hindering apprehension.
Steven Schefers, the attorney for Otis Mann, said his client "fully contests" all of the charges against him.
He said Mann stood in handcuffs for an hour after his cousin was shot, and walked down Stag Hill alone. At one point, he said, a truck full of park police officers traveling up the hill refused to give him a ride.
"This is a very unfortunate inci dent," Schefers said. "These people have used this land for many years and they consider it their right to be there."
Staff writer Brian T. Murray contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Star Ledger
© 2006 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.
The point is that if he was unarmed it's not a justifiable shooting. It also seems that the police are swaying that way too. If you have some new information that says he was armed please present it as there is nothing as of yet to say otherwise.
What I'm saying is how is the officer to know? It seems at least one of them was or had been.
