ROOKIE COPS KILL FELLOW OFFICER BY MISTAKE

Officials Probe Circumstances Of Shooting

OAKLAND -- Oakland police officers, black bands wrapped around their badges
Friday, mourned the loss of their colleague William "Willie" Wilkins Jr., a
veteran narcotics undercover officer who was shot and killed in the line of
duty late Thursday night by two rookie officers in a tragic case of
mistaken identity.

Investigators were still trying to figure out just what happened that night
in the driveway of a house at 9021 B St. near 91st Avenue in the Elmhurst
district.

It was unclear whether the two young, uniformed officers -- who fired 11
rounds at Wilkins -- mistook Wilkins for a suspected car thief they had
been chasing. Or whether they thought they had come upon an unrelated
robbery in progress, and saw Wilkins, in plainclothes, pointing a gun at
another man.

It has also not been determined why the two officers -- who had been on the
force for less than a year -- were not aware there was a plainclothes
detective on the scene, or why Wilkins did not make it clear to them he was
a policeman.

Whatever the details of this fatal confusion, Wilkins, a seven-year veteran
of the department, became Oakland's first homicide of the year and the 46th
Oakland police officer to die in the line of duty since 1867.

Wilkins died from his wounds at Highland Hospital early Friday morning. He
lived in Brentwood with his wife, Kelly, and their 11-month-oldson. Funeral
services will be held Thursday.

Most recently, Wilkins had been part of the Alameda County Narcotics Task
Force. Fellow members of that team said Friday that Wilkins "loved being a
cop" and shined in his role as an undercover officer.

A shaken Alameda County Sheriff's Deputy Steve Angeja, who mentored Wilkins
on the task force, called him a "great undercover officer."

"He loved his job," Angeja said. "If he could work 24 hours a day, he would."

The two young officers, whose names have not been released, were
immediately put on administrative leave. They were so distraught they have
not been able to provide statements, said homicide commander Lt. Paul Berlin.

"We really feel that we've lost three officers today," Berlin said.

The two had been on the force less than a year. One is 29 and had been an
Oakland officer since February. The other is 23 and started on the job in
June. The investigation will continue, officials say, and events will
become clearer as the officers' statements are taken.

The latest information Friday came from Mike Rains, an attorney for the two
officers, who said the two had been patrolling together in the same marked
police car at about 11 p.m. Thursday and were called to the neighborhood to
help on a car theft call.

They stopped when they saw Wilkins and another man.

"They did not believe it was the same auto theft incident, but another
incident that involved an altercation," Rains said.

Wilkins, dressed in jeans, boots, a brown jacket and knit cap, had been
working on a special operations surveillance for the Crime Response Team --
not a unit he was normally assigned to, but working on it as a favor to
other officers.

"That's no surprise," Angeja said. "If another agency needed an undercover
officer, he'd be over there in a minute."

Police believe Wilkins had finished his other assignment and was driving
back to the station, Berlin said. "We believe he saw a car traveling at
high speed, called in the license plate and discovered it was a stolen
vehicle," Berlin said.

Wilkins apparently gave chase, but it is not clear whether other marked
cars were also involved. The suspect apparently bailed out of the car near
91st Avenue and D Street and started running through front yards. Wilkins
followed on foot and caught up with the man two blocks away in Kim Davis'
driveway on B Street.

That's when the two uniformed officers came along.

"As they drove into the area, they saw two males," Rains said. "One was
backing up out of the yard area of a home and another male was walking
toward him at a fast gait, more of a pursuit-type thing."

They got out of the police car about 100 feet away from Wilkins, saw him
approaching the other man with his gun drawn and making a "kicking motion"
toward the man, according to Rains.

As they got closer, Rains said, "One of the officers screamed, 'He's got a
gun.' And both saw a chrome-and-blue steel handgun that was not like a
regular police weapon."

Rains said at least one officer did yell "Police, put the weapon down."

The two officers thought he was ignoring them and was about to shoot the
other man, Rains said. "Believing the other man's life was in jeopardy,
they both fired several rounds at (Wilkins)."

Both rookie officers fired their standard-issue 40-caliber Glocks, striking
Wilkins in the left side and chest. Two others struck the foundation of the
house. Two more went through the wall and into Kim Davis' living room, one
ending up in a blanket on a couch, where her 21-year-old son had been
watching TV just a few minutes before.

Davis, 42, and her daughters Brigitte, 18, and Taylor, 5, had been sleeping
in the back bedrooms. Her son had just left for his own home. She was
jolted awake by the snapping sounds of rapid gunfire.

She ran out into the living room and peered out the front window, where she
was met with a surreal scene.

It was a cold, still night. Her motion-sensor security light had kicked on.
She saw Wilkins upright, but in a strange stance at the edge of her
driveway, knees bent, leaning to one side, a uniformed officer's gun still
trained on him from about 20 to 30 feet away, Davis said.

Wilkins stayed on his feet for just a moment, she said, then slowly
crumpled to the ground. Within seconds other plain-clothes officers
approached and recognized their comrade, shouting, "It's Willie. Oh my God,
it's Willie!" Davis said.

Several more officers quickly appeared on foot and gathered around him,
some in uniform, some in plainclothes. They started giving him CPR, saying
"Breathe, man. Hang in there man." Some were crying, Davis said.

Wilkins was still conscious. Davis said she heard him-scream at them to get
off him. He didn't say anything more after that, she added.

The ambulance arrived quickly, she said. Paramedics removed Wilkins' bloody
clothing to get at the wounds. Davis said Wilkins wore a navy blue
jumpsuit-type police uniform under his street clothes, but no bullet-proof
vest. She saw bullet holes in the left side of his body.

Wilkins was taken to Highland, where trauma doctors and nurses worked
vigorously to save his life. He had been shot five times, said a hospital
nurse.

A shaken Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb spent several tense hours in the
hospital with Wilkins' wife, his brother, and about 50 officers, waiting
for news. A priest and a police chaplain were there. Wilkins' 11-month-old
son was not.

"It was a very sad and stressful several hours," Bobb said. "The family
members were so traumatized, the members of the law enforcement family were
so traumatized.

"He appeared to have lost a lot of blood," he said. "The physicians came
out once and said they'd closed at least one of the areas. We felt a small
sigh of relief. Then they brought a hospital bed to the waiting area, the
kind they use to take someone out after surgery, and it was another sigh of
relief. The entire ER worked so hard."

Wilkins was pronounced dead at 2:22 a.m. No other officers witnessed the
shooting. The car theft suspect was taken into custody and may be able to
provide other details, police said. Wilkins' gun will be examined to see
whether it had been fired.

It has been two years -- almost to the day -- since the last Oakland
officer was killed. It was Jan. 10, 1999, when Officer James Williams Jr.
was shot and killed by a sniper firing from a freeway overpass.

STAFF WRITERs Jason Bono, Laura Counts and Jill Tucker contributed to this
report.