U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The Phoenix City Council has voted to pay $3 Million to settle the Ryan Whitaker police shooting lawsuit.
On 21 May 2020, Phoenix police answered an ambivalent noise complaint that was mischaracterized as a domestic disturbance. It was at about 10:53 p.m. The complainant was desperate to get some sleep. From the 9:11 call, in the 13 August AmmoLand article:
Complainant:
Yeah, and its getting really loud and they been doing it for the last hour. I gotta get it to work tomorrow, and I can’t get no sleep.
These guys have been noisy constantly… Every time I come back, these guys are noisier than hell. Always fighting.
Dispatcher:
Okay does it sound like it’s escalated to anything physical or still just sound verbal?
Complainant:
Oh. It could be physical, I..I could say yeah if that makes anybody hurry up on, get over here any faster.
Dispatcher:
Anything to indicate it might be physical?
Complainant:
I hear slamming of doors and… I don’t know. Somebody could be gettin’ thrown into a door for all I know. But I hear all kinds of banging.
The police go to the apartment. Officers take up positions on each side of the door, well separated. One officer knocks on the door, and announces “Phoenix police”, in a slightly elevated voice.
Ryan Whitaker answered the door, with a pistol held in his hand down at his side. He did so because of previous suspicious activity. It is a prudent thing to do. It would have been more prudent to determine who was outside, before opening the door. The police had moved to the sides of the door, which made them difficult to detect through the peephole.
He was unaware the knock was from the police. The Phoenix City Councilman admitted Ryan did not do anything wrong or illegal.
Ryan immediately complied with police instructions, crouching down and putting down the pistol. One of the police shot him in the back and killed him as he was complying. It happened very quickly.
Ryan’s girlfriend immediately asked the officers: Why did you shoot him!
The Phoenix City Council voted to settle the lawsuit. From azfamily.com:
The City of Phoenix city council unanimously passed a settlement connected to a deadly officer-involved shooting in Ahwatukee.
In a 9-0 vote on Wednesday afternoon, a $3,000,000 settlement was approved to go to the family of Ryan Whitaker.
Ryan might have lived if the police had immediately called for medical assistance, according to Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio. From Reason.com:
In voting to approve the $3 million settlement, Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio zeroed in on what came next: “We don’t know if he would have lived or not,” he said, according to the local Fox affiliate, “but the fact of the matter is it showed a strong callousness from those individuals that were there to not immediately call for [medical] help.” The outfit describes DiCiccio as “usually vocal on his support of law enforcement.”
Police apologists have claimed it is proper police policy to shoot any person who shows up at their door, armed, even before they have any time to comply with commands. The slightest indication the police made some attempt to announce themselves is considered sufficient to show the victim knew the police were there.
That is not the actual state of the law or of most police policy or training.
In the original story at AmmoLand, retired firearms and tactics trainer told the author the City of Phoenix would be paying a lot of money because the police officer fired too quickly. From the article:
I did not tell him any conclusions I had. First, he watched the body camera video from the officer who did not shoot. His conclusion was the video was inconclusive, because we could not see Ryan’s right hand after he stepped back.
Then he watched the video from the body camera of the officer who shot.
He said: “He shot too soon. The Phoenix PD is going to be paying out a lot of money. ”
The retired firearms and tactics trainer was prophetic.
A commenter on the AmmoLand article claimed to be a retired police officer who completed a great deal of training and conducted “some training” from the Phoenix area. He claimed the police were completely justified, that the response was “textbook”. From Gerry:
I spent over 30 years as a police officer, as if that’s anyone’s business. I’ve been to all the training. I conducted some of the training, for that matter, as an FTO. What these cops did was textbook.
If what the officers did “was textbook” in the Phoenix P.D., it is pointing toward the origin of the problem. It is not “textbook” in most police departments around the country.
The investigation continues. No charges have been filed against either police officer at this time.
Police have a difficult job. In a nation of 330 million people, mistakes are bound to occur. Large numbers of police interactions, about 50-100 million a year, mean extraordinary events are certain to occur, because of the nature of reality.
If there were no unpredicted events, there could not be free will. We would all be automatons. Only God is free from mistakes.
No one is perfect. Trust in the police makes all the difference between a civilized society and a police state.
Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
saw this when it happened and thought to myself, let’s see what will happen. now if find out nothing good happened. this was a murder. from the time the victim opened the door to the time he was shot 3 times in the back and was kneeling was 4 seconds. he was surrendering. how this back shooting cop, who was not in fear of his life is still a cop and not in prison is unfathomable. government officials cover up for government employees. this has to stop. there should be civilian oversight on all police shootings and no qualified immunity… Read more »
I watched that video something like a year ago. It smelled of a lawsuit and the officer that fired should be brought up on manslaughter charges. Both should be charged for not rendering assistance. The video simply gets worse and worse the longer it goes on. The police not only let him bleed out to death but they also prevented his girlfriend from rendering assistance.
The whole thing is clearly what not to do. People have the right to bear arms in their residences. Ryan wasn’t a threat before or after the shooting.
My father admonished me when I was a young man that the less you have to do with the Police, the better off you will be! He was a wise man.
No riots in the city after the shooting. If the deceased was not white the settlement would be 10MM.
Idiot neighbor LIED to get a faster PD response. His own words. He should be charged with false reporting and face a civil suit as well.
Oh. It could be physical, I..I could say yeah if that makes anybody hurry up on, get over here any faster.
Once again government thugs commit murder, keep their jobs, are not charged with a crime, and spend none of their own money or assets paying these settlements.
Wow, that cop shot way too fast. but the truly disturbing part of the video for me was that cop not letting his GF/wife be with him. that’s fucking horrible! can you imagine being 5 or 10 ft away, watching and listening to your BF/husband dying and told you can’t hold him? good fucking god!
Who knows. The neighbor and him could have had some kind of “beef” and was the individual banging on his door earlier and whatever else happened. They should charge the neighbor if they haven’t already. False reports obviously can lead to untrained or not so bright cops killing innocent individuals.
hope the cop who shot him gets to die a long and protracted illness..
or better lying on the side of the road in massive pain after taking a hit from a passing motorist, and dying in the dirt like a dog that got struck by a car.
“ooh, we’re just trying to do our job and go home at night”
the cops needed to be fired and charged with manslaughter, paying is admitting guilt.
Great article…like many others who support the police I don’t like to see stupid mistakes like this. Again, failure to clearly let the occupants know who is at the door could have made all the difference, especially his decision to answer the door with gun in hand. Oh well…another hard learned lesson, and I hope that is one department that will change SOPs.