Unjustified

The parents of a man shot dead by Oroville police officers last April believe he did not die on his feet, charging and armed with a whiskey bottle as officials claim, but that he was unarmed and sitting down when police stormed his motel room and opened fire.

Victor Coleman, a 53-year-old Bakersfield construction worker who was visiting Oroville for work, was shot 16 times at the Sunset Inn on Feather River Boulevard on April 28 during a welfare check. Officers were responding to a call from Coleman’s wife, Lori Coryell, who said the man was agitated and possibly suicidal, and arrived to find him locked inside his motel room. After attempting to talk Coleman out for about two hours, four officers broke the lock with a battering ram and entered the room.

The officers, who claim Coleman stood up and charged them wielding a Wild Turkey bourbon bottle in one hand and a knife in the other, were declared justified in shooting the man at an Oct. 1 press conference held by Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey and Oroville Police Chief Bill LaGrone (see “A fatal call,” Newslines, Oct. 9). At the meeting, Ramsey presented the findings of a five-month investigation by the Officer Involved Shooting/Critical Incident Team, a task force composed of personnel from 13 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

But Coleman’s parents, Hershel and Laura Coleman, believe Ramsey’s final report is riddled with errors and misrepresentations. They also say Ramsey has not provided them, or the public, with information they’ve requested to substantiate their own claims or the OIS team findings, including the officers’ statements, police reports, transcripts of phone calls and conversations and crime scene photos.

Contacted by phone, Ramsey said he’d already shared most of the information the Colemans are requesting when he met with them in person on Sept. 2. Other information they requested will be provided, he added. He said he believes the Colemans are relying on “amateur-ish CSI stuff” to form an alternative narrative.

The Colemans said they’re awaiting response on a petition filed July 25 with the U.S. Department of Justice requesting further investigation into the shooting.

“We don’t want our son to die without the reasons being known,” Coleman’s father, Hershel, said at a press conference held by the couple—who traveled from Tennessee—at the Oroville Holiday Inn and Suites on Tuesday (Dec. 2). “We want the people of Butte County and Oroville to know that their police department doesn’t go around shooting people sitting on the floor. And if they do, then people need to know about it.”

The elder Colemans have pictures of the motel room taken the day after the shooting by Coryell and Victor’s stepson, Max, which they say prove the officers’ shots were fired at a downward angle and hit low on the wall, indicating their son was sitting while shot. They also believe a lack of injuries to Victor’s hand and location of glass fragments show he was not holding the whiskey bottle. They further doubt the veracity of toxicology reports that show Victor had methamphetamine in his system, as he was not a meth user and no delivery device was found in the room.

Altogether, they have so many complaints and questions about Ramsey’s 10-page summary of the investigation’s findings that they provided an eight-page, point-by-point rebuttal that in some places suggests Ramsey’s report deliberately omits and invents information to protect the officers.

“There was no self defense [on the officers’ part],” Hershel said. “This was an absolute, total, brutal attack. We think there’s malicious intent, and even if we’re wrong about that, we think there was gross negligence in the way they went into the room.”

The Colemans criticize the officers’ decision to enter the room after such a short time. They also questioned why Marcus Tennigkeit, a young officer who’d only been sworn into the OPD four months earlier, led the charge, and why the sole officer equipped with nonlethal force (Sgt. Vanessa Purdy was armed with a Taser) entered behind three officers armed with guns.

The Colemans said their son’s death has prompted them to look into other officer-involved shootings and to become politically active on that front.

“We think there needs to be a federal law that says when there’s an officer-involved killing, there needs to be someone other than the top policeman in that county to investigate,” Hershel said. “Ramsey claims he’s uninvolved and unbiased, but he’s anything but. He knows the shooters and/or their families, as do other investigators.”

For his part, Ramsey stands behind his findings.

“I talked to them for quite some time, in person and by phone, and shared details of the investigation rather extensively,” he said. “They disagree, and it’s their right to disagree, but it doesn’t change the facts of the case.

“No one should lose a loved one in violence, and when it happens, people often look for an external source to blame.”