IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT, UNDERCOVER AGENT KILLED BY FELLOW COPS

Veteran Of Oakland Force Had Pursued Theft Suspect

Two rookie Oakland police officers opened fire late Thursday night on an
undercover drug agent who had just collared a fleeing auto theft suspect,
not realizing until after the mortally wounded officer slumped to the
ground that he was one of their own.

The death of 29-year-old William A. Wilkins -- a seven-year veteran of the
Oakland Police Department and member of the Alameda County Narcotics Task
Force, slammed a department recently tainted with scandal, and triggered a
large-scale investigation into how a tragedy of this magnitude could have
happened.

It took the two officers who shot at Wilkins just a few moments to realize
the horrible mistake they had made, according to one witness who lives next
to the scene of the shooting.

The officers, Kim Davis said, cautiously walked up, and at five feet away,
saw his face.

"They started calling out his name. 'Willie. Willie. It's Willie,' " Davis
said.

Wilkins then collapsed backward. The victim's colleagues continued to plead
with him to keep his eyes open. "Just hold on," Davis said they told
Wilkins. "Just keep breathing."

The officers tore Wilkins' shirt off and saw his navy blue police uniform.

It was a scene that Davis and others described as "hysterical," with as
many as seven officers gathered around Wilkins' slumped body in the minutes
after the shooting.

Officers cried, hugged and shook their heads in disbelief. Others gathered
around Wilkins, trying to hold him as they waited for paramedics. CPR was
attempted, but his eyes were shut.

Ambulance crews took Wilkins to Highland Hospital, where he died at 2:20
a.m. He was married and had a 10-month-old son, William.

Police officials said the two officers -- both on the force no more than a
year -- may have fired as many as 11 rounds at Wilkins. Some of them struck
the officer in the upper torso. Davis said she clearly saw one bullet hole
in his side.

Other shots struck Davis' pink and cream home. One bullet landed in a
12-inch round brass flower pot. Another ended up on the couch.

Police administrators have not disclosed whether Wilkins tried to identify
himself but went unheard.

Police Lt. Paul Berlin said officers generally do not use lethal force
unless there is a perceived threat of a life being taken, whether it's
their own or someone else's. He said he did not know whether the officers
shouted any commands before firing.

"In the perfect situation, he would identify himself and show his badge,
but it depends on the situation," Berlin said.

Other undercover officers said that in a rapidly changing situation, it's
hard to predict how an officer would react, but that they are told to
identify themselves immediately. Undercover officers usually wear their
badge inside their clothing.

"When you're in one of those life-and-death situations, that's not the
first thing on your mind," said Sgt. Fred Mestas, who worked undercover in
the narcotics unit.

Theft suspect arrested

Officers arrested one of the two auto thief suspects, who they later
confirmed was 18-year-old Demetrius Phillips. According to the Oakland city
jail booking log, Phillips lives in the 1600 block of 87th Avenue in
Oakland, not far from the shooting scene.

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office is reviewing the shooting to
determine whether Phillips could be charged with homicide in connection
with Wilkins' death.

Thursday's incident was another black eye for the Oakland department, which
became embroiled in a public relations nightmare after the revelation in
November that four officers were under investigation for allegedly
falsifying police reports, planting evidence, providing informants with
drugs and using excessive force.

Both of the officers involved in the shooting Thursday night are in their
early twenties and had been at the department for less than a year. They
were placed on paid administrative leave.

"We're giving them time to collect themselves and seek the support they
need right now," said Berlin, leader of the investigation. Berlin, who said
it was the first shooting involving Oakland officers killing a fellow
officer that he could recall in his 20-year career, said it did not appear
that Wilkins had fired any shots, nor was it clear how Wilkins knew the car
was stolen.

Officers are reviewing radio dispatch transcripts. Ideally, Berlin said, an
undercover officer would have called dispatch and identified himself as
entering a pursuit.

At a morning news conference, Oakland Police Chief Richard Word described
the incident as a tragedy and expressed sympathy for Wilkins' family. And,
at the Oakland Police Association headquarters, officers grieved.

Facing a tragedy

"This is the kind of thing that we hope never happens, but in the course of
human events, these things do happen," said Mayor Jerry Brown during a news
conference at police headquarters.

Just before the late-night shooting, Wilkins sat alone in an unmarked car,
staking out an East Oakland neighborhood, when he saw the driver of a
stolen car speed past. Wilkins took off after the car, police said Friday,
pursuing the car for just a few blocks.

An armed Wilkins gave chase as the suspects ran through yards and
apparently collared one of them in a driveway on B Street near 91st Avenue
when the two uniformed officers arrived.

At that point, shots were fired.

"The shots were so intense, I knew the shots were coming through my house,"
said Davis, who woke up to gunfire about 11:15 p.m. Fearing for herself and
her two children, the 41-year-old Oakland resident jumped out of bed and
slowly crept across the living room to peek out the front-door window.

What she saw and heard hit her like a brick, she said: An injured, bloodied
man slumped to his knees on her driveway, and officers were pointing guns
at him.

Police have released few details about the events leading up to the
shooting, and officials have said they are not releasing the names of the
officers involved in the shooting.

Many neighbors of the East Oakland neighborhood are questioning why they
had to pull the trigger.

Wilkins was described as a popular officer who also worked on a tactical
response team. The stream of officers who solemnly stood before a memorial
set up in the station lobby gave evidence of his popularity.

Wilkins began working at the department in 1991 as a cadet and became an
officer in 1993. He had been in the narcotics unit for two years.

Mercury News reporter Gil Duran contributed to this story.