ACLU URGES REVIEW OF SHOOTINGS

Citizens Panel Sought To Examine Deputies Conduct

American Civil Liberties Union of Florida leaders are asking the U.S.
Department of Justice to investigate what it calls a "pattern of fatal
police shootings by the Escambia County Sheriff's Office."

Civil rights marches, state law enforcement investigations and special
training have not stemmed what local civil rights groups believe is a
burgeoning crisis in community and police relations.

"There are issues here of policy and competence. It is the job of the
police to apprehend a person and take a person into custody," said ACLU of
Florida Executive Director Howard Simon. "When the person you are trying to
apprehend ends up dying, that's not a successful police operation."

The ACLU and LeRoy Boyd of the local civil rights group, Movement for
Change, have invited groups such as the NAACP and Escambia Sociology Center
and other community organizations to start a dialogue on creating a
citizens' review panel, Simon said.

They say forming such a panel to review police conduct is the only way to
restore trust in law enforcement.

"We want to nip this in the bud. We believe bringing the community in to
solve what is a community problem will be successful," said Susan Watson,
chairwoman of the Pensacola chapter of the ACLU. "It doesn't need to be an
'us versus them' situation. We all live here. We want our sheriff's
department to protect us. We don't want to be afraid of them."

The call for a federal investigation comes after two men were killed in
confrontations with Escambia sheriff's deputies in the past two weeks. The
deaths bring to 14 the number of fatal shootings involving Escambia
Sheriff's deputies since 1994. Three of those have occurred since Sheriff
Ron McNesby took office in 2001.

Lathern Broughton, 64, was shot and killed when an Escambia County
Sheriff's Office Special Weapons and Tactics team raided his Ensley home
June 16.

David S. Lewandowski, who was naked and bleeding after an incident on Blue
Angel Parkway and Cerny Road on June 26, was shot in the arm while
struggling with deputies. A preliminary medical examiner's report indicated
the gunshot wound did not kill Lewandowski. Cuts he received from punching
a window might have killed him, but final results of the report are pending.

Lewandowski was shot at least once with a deputy's Taser, a stun device
that pumps 50,000 volts into a person, but the shots failed to stop him.

McNesby declined to comment on ACLU's request.

Deputies Cleared In Deaths

The request includes all fatal deputy-involved shootings since 1994. The
Florida Department of Law Enforcement has investigated several of the
shootings. The FDLE forwarded its evidence to the State Attorney's Office.
In some cases, a coroner's inquest was called. But deputies were cleared in
12 of the shootings, including the shooting of 20-year-old Marvin Juan
Hudson, reportedly a drug dealer who was shot in the back of the head as he
ran from deputy Lee Perry in 1999. Hudson was unarmed.

"Thus far, all the investigations have come back as justifiable homicide,"
Boyd said. "There is no trust, and, at the same time, the law enforcement
does not appear to have a process put in place to resolve the issues about
killing someone, about going overboard with their reactions."

The FDLE is waiting on toxicology and ballistic test results before it
finishes its investigation into the Broughton shooting. In its
investigation into the Lewandowski shooting, the FDLE is conducting
numerous interviews.

Once the FDLE concludes each investigation, that information will be
forwarded to the State Attorney's Office, said Lisa Lagergren, FDLE
spokeswoman.

It should not be much longer before the FDLE finishes the Broughton
investigation, Lagergren said.

Panel Modeled After Miami

Sheriff's Office officials took steps to improve deputy training after the
rash of shootings.

In 2002, McNesby said he told deputies that lethal force was to be used
only as a last resort, and deputies who fire their weapons cannot expect
automatic support.

In 2001, sheriff's deputies and other officers in Escambia County completed
training with the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute for Non- Violence. That
training came after an April 2001 protest in which more than 250 people
marched in downtown Pensacola to protest the shootings.

Simon based the panel idea on a model in Miami, where a federal
investigation resulted in indictments of about a dozen officers after a
number of shootings there. The voters adopted a review panel by a ratio of
more than 3-1, Simon said.

"We channeled that community anger into something that was very helpful
prospectively," Simon said. "It has the capacity to engage in independent
investigations. ... It is an institution to which people in the community
can file complaints."

Nationwide, most civilian review panels review policy and recommend
changes, Simon said.

The ACLU has invited several groups to start a community discussion on the
issue before approaching the Escambia County Board of Commissioners to
approve the panel. Ideally, Simon said, the panel would be appointed by
commissioners but not politically tied to them.

The panel would be independent of the law enforcement community but might
include law enforcement members.

"It sounds like a good idea anytime you can involve citizens," said Marie
Young, Escambia County Commission chairwoman.

The panel should represent a cross section of the community, said Elvin
McCorvey, president of the Pensacola chapter of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People.

"I think that would be a good move in the right direction if structured
properly," he said.

The panel would review conduct of officers beyond arrests and violent
confrontations. It would provide a review of formal complaints and allow
simultaneous investigations of incidents, not merely waiting to be handed
the results of a police investigation, Simon said.

Past Shootings

Fatal shootings by the Escambia Sheriff's Office since 1992:

June 26, 2003: David Sean Lewandowski, 26, is shot by deputies in the woods
behind a home on Cerny Road. Lewandowski was behaving erratically in a
convenience store on Blue Angel Parkway nearby. He left the store, stripped
nude and after dodging traffic, yelling at passing drivers and dropping to
the ground in prayer in the roadway, tried to break into a house on Cerny
Road. Deputies tasered him at least three times, but he continued on into
the woods, where he was shot. A preliminary report from the medical
examiner's office indicates he may have bled to death from the cuts he
received breaking in the window of the home of Clayton and Dorothy McPhaul.
Three deputies - Jennifer Amerson, Kevin Eggleton and Christina Sudduth -
were placed on administrative leave. The Florida Department of Law
Enforcement is investigating.

June 16, 2003: Lathern Broughton, 64, is shot by the SWAT team when they
enter his house after a 2-hour standoff outside Broughton's Ensley home.
Broughton argued with his wife, who fled their house and called 911. He
shot at deputies who arrived to investigate her call, shooting out the
window of a cruiser, then barricaded himself in his house. After 2 hours of
negotiations, the SWAT team used flashbang grenades to enter the house and
were fired upon. Family members say police could have waited Broughton out.
Seven deputies were placed on administrative leave and restored to active
duty pending a psychological evaluation. They were: Mickey O'Reilly,
Stanley Reed, Kevin Eggleton, Tony Tampary, Rick Powers, Jared Seabury and
James Johnson. FDLE is investigating.

May 20, 2001: Michael Paul Robb, 57, of Pace is shot when deputies Kevin
Eggleton and Johnny Perkins enter the Cantonment house of Lance Krieger,
35, and find Robb straddling Krieger holding a knife to his chest. They
repeatedly tell Robb to drop the knife, but he does not and both deputies
open fire. It is the first deputy-involved shooting of Sheriff Ron
McNesby's tenure.

Oct. 12, 2000: Gregory Kidd is shot by deputy Kevin Coxwell. Kidd, 32,
kills a police dog and shoots deputy Mike Mayne.

July 22, 2000: David Chaussee, 31, tells deputies they will have to kill
him. When he rams a patrol car, he is shot by deputy James Guthrie.

June 8, 2000: Otto Fitts, 33, is killed by deputy Mickey O'Reilly while
inside the Escambia County Jail as Fitts holds a female sheriff's employee
at gunpoint.

Oct. 29, 1999: Deputy Lee Perry kills drug suspect Marvin Hudson, 20, as he
runs from an undercover drug sale in the Pine Forest area.

Dec. 19, 1998: Deputy Mike Workman kills Timothy Jirgens, 47, as he steps
out of a Comfort Inn room on New Warrington Road waving a .357- caliber
Magnum toward deputies.

May 14, 1998: Deputy Bart Fryer struggles with and then shoots and kills
Jerry Anthony Campbell as he runs through a Brownsville neighborhood after
robbing an 89-year-old man in his home.

June 15, 1997: Lt. Bill Chavers shoots and kills Casey Brown, 19, after
Brown tries to run over Chavers with a car on Pensacola Beach. Minutes
earlier, a 15- year-old girl had identified Brown as the man who raped her.

May 20, 1996: As Deputy Bart Fryer searches John Sexton Jr. for drugs,
Sexton grabs Fryer's flashlight and swings it at him. Fryer fires a single
bullet into Sexton's chest, killing the 36- year-old man.

Dec. 13, 1995: Deputies Demetrius Cain and Van Weeks, trying to stop an
anticipated pizza delivery robbery, kill Anthony Gee after the 15-year-old
sticks an unloaded shotgun in Cain's face.

Feb. 12, 1995: Lt. LaRon Summerlin kills Ronald Pinyan, 32, after Pinyan
grabs and fires Sgt. Tom Jones' gun during an attempted arrest.

July 21, 1994: Lawrence Gotto, a fleeing murder suspect, sprays bullets
into rush-hour traffic on New Warrington Road. He injures three deputies
before he is shot and killed.