{"id":10939,"date":"2010-04-13T05:11:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T09:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aroundfortwayne.com\/news\/?p=10939"},"modified":"2020-12-25T17:28:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T22:28:53","slug":"opinion-you-forgot-something-jg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aroundfortwayne.com\/news\/2010\/04\/13\/opinion-you-forgot-something-jg\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: You forgot something, JG"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After the Escobedo shooting<\/strong>: The window circled in blue is my apartment’s bedroom.
\nThe smaller window on the right and bigger picture window were Escobedo’s bathroom
\nand bedroom windows. \u00c2\u00a0The larger broken window was his living room.<\/p>\n

The Journal Gazette recently, April 10th to be exact, had an editorial piece about the 2005 Rudy Escobedo police-action shooting.<\/p>\n

Those who know me personally, know that I lived in the apartment on the other side of the wall where Rudy was shot and killed. \u00c2\u00a0I blogged about it<\/a> briefly last August.<\/p>\n

The JG article sites a recent federal appeals court ruling in the lawsuit brought about by Rudy’s family against the City titled, “Disturbing details about ’05 shooting<\/span>“.<\/p>\n

The omission I refer to, which may not have been covered in the lawsuit, but which was certainly part of the “mishandling” that day by police was the fact that the entire floor had not been cleared. \u00c2\u00a0My bedroom, which was where I’d been sleeping that morning, up until about 20 minutes before the police entered his apartment, was on the other side of the closet where they shot him. \u00c2\u00a0Only metal studs and dry wall separated me from the action<\/em>. \u00c2\u00a0It was probably the first round of tear gas that woke me up that morning. \u00c2\u00a0I’d heard loud noises all that morning, but loud noises weren’t something\u00c2\u00a0unusual\u00c2\u00a0in that building. \u00c2\u00a0My neighbor’s door – all apartment doors were old, warped, metal doors with metal frames – would stick and he usually had to give it an extra shove and bang to get it to shut properly. \u00c2\u00a0So the noises weren’t all that unusual.<\/p>\n

So a logical question you might ask, “How do you know the police didn’t try to wake you?” \u00c2\u00a0I’d asked my neighbor’s mom, who’d been in his apartment at the same time if the police had tried to get her out. \u00c2\u00a0“No,” was the response. \u00c2\u00a0I asked, “Did they knock on my door?” \u00c2\u00a0Again, “No.” \u00c2\u00a0My phone was directly connected to a call box in the lobby. \u00c2\u00a0A phone call would have definitely reached me – but no phone calls that morning.<\/p>\n

A lot of memories haunt me from that morning and the immediate days and weeks after, for instance, the memory of walking down seven flights of stairs in tear gas.<\/p>\n

At first there weren’t a lot of details available, so slowly the picture came together. \u00c2\u00a0I remember being grateful that the police were there to save me from a neighbor hyped up on cocaine. That gratitude was short lived, however, when it became apparent the situation had been going on for hours which should have allowed plenty of time to evacuate the floor and surrounding units.<\/p>\n

It became even harder when about a week later, I was able to tour one of the apartments directly above Escobedo’s whose floor plan was the same as his. \u00c2\u00a0It was at that chilling moment I learned the wall separating our bedrooms was only metal studs and drywall. \u00c2\u00a0Instantly, my thoughts turned to the fact that I’d been sleeping mere feet from the happenings next door… \u00c2\u00a0The chill turning to anger at my “saviors” not saving me, but rather leaving me in a rather perilous predicament. \u00c2\u00a0Thoughts of, “What if he’d shot through that wall? \u00c2\u00a0I could have been injured or even killed and no one would have known until everything was said and done.” \u00c2\u00a0(Those of you who know me, I think will agree that I’m not one given over easily to dramatics.)<\/p>\n

And now, almost five years later, even more chilling details about the handling of the situation. \u00c2\u00a0I’m disappointed that the JG didn’t fill in some of the blanks obviously still unanswered by this ruling.<\/p>\n

I have swayed on this issue many times in five years. \u00c2\u00a0At times, coming down on the side of the police, at other times, Rudy’s. \u00c2\u00a0I wrote last August:<\/p>\n

[…] I myself vacillated back and forth between rage and praise for the police department over the handling of the Escobedo shooting. I’ve since come to the conclusion that there was one person in control of how it was going to end. If he had put the gun down and given himself up, it would have had a completely different outcome. He did not and he forced the police action that day. You can say that he was irrational because of the drugs and therefore the police should have protected him. You can say the police response was massive. But don’t I, as a purely innocent bystander, have the right to be protected? Isn’t that their job, to protect us against the dangerous and irrational people and circumstances that occur? We can’t have it both ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Has this recent ruling affected my thinking? \u00c2\u00a0Absolutely. \u00c2\u00a0While perhaps not innocent, at this point in my thinking, my impression is that Escobedo was more incapacitated by police action than cocaine – and that’s what really makes this situation tragic and one\u00c2\u00a0which I hope I am not to be acquainted with first-hand ever again in my lifetime.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the editorial:<\/p>\n

The court ruling raises several questions about police conduct in the Escobedo shooting:<\/p>\n