Trevor Bothwell has the sad story of the U.S. Army veteran executed by a Maryland State Police SWAT team. Dean was despondent over being redeployed to Iraq, and wanted only to be left alone. He hadn’t threatened anyone, hadn’t taken anyone hostage, and had given no indication he was dangerous to anyone other than himself. He was contemplating suicide.

Naturally, they sent the SWAT team, which went ahead and made the decision for him.

State’s Attorney Fritz has ruled that the shooting of Jamie Dean itself was “justified,” inasmuch as the sharpshooter perceived a mortal threat to his fellow officers at the time Jamie raised his weapon. Indeed, the police have just as much right to protect themselves as we do. However, to his credit, Fritz also concluded in his report that the tactics employed by the Maryland State Police “can best be considered as progressively assaultive and militaristic in nature,” were “overwhelmingly aggressive,” and were “not warranted under the circumstances of the facts present in the case.” In other words, the situation never should have been escalated to the point where shooting Jamie Dean was necessary.

It’s a refreshingly honest and farnk report. Yet it’s unlikely that anyone will be held accountable.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 9:47 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.