A SHOT IN THE DARK

Sheriff's Bullet Turns Dancer's Dreams Into Nightmares

Jacqueline Paasch woke to the sound of heavy feet on hardwood floors,
then stampeding up the stairs, but before she could figure out what
was going on, her bedroom door was kicked in, a shot rang out and she
lay bleeding on the floor.

"It sounded like elephants were coming up the stairs," she recalls in
a recent interview. "I thought we were either being robbed or there
was a fire and someone was coming to save me."

But instead of burglars or firefighters racing through her mother's
house that early April morning, it was a seven-member SWAT team from
the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department that had been called in to
execute a search warrant.

The warrant listed Paasch and her two brothers, suspected of
possessing marijuana and possibly other drugs.

By the time the SWAT team had satisfied its search, it found a very
small amount of marijuana and a pipe. Meanwhile, Paasch was on her way
to the hospital with a severe gunshot wound in her leg, wondering if
she was ever going to walk again. She was 18 at the time of the shooting.

Police reports from April 7, 2000 show that the SWAT team was
assembled outside a house on South 54th Street in West Milwaukee just
before 6:40 a.m. They knocked on the front door, announced their
presence, but waited no longer than half a minute before a battering
ram was used to enter the home.

It's known that Jackie Paasch was shot while seated on her bed, in a
room filled with different types of novelty turtles she liked to
collect, but that's about as close to an agreement as the two sides
involved in the shooting will ever get.

Opinions from those on opposite sides of the gun differ greatly as to
what exactly happened before Deputy Scott Mathis fired his Glock-22
handgun at Jackie Paasch.

Two investigations concluded that Mathis had been justified in
discharging his weapon. In the months following the incident, however,
Paasch sued the county, questioning the validity of the investigations
and claiming that her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable
search and seizure had been violated, as well. Accusations of
excessive use of force were also made.

It's been nearly two years since the shooting occurred on an unusually
snowy spring morning in the Village of West Milwaukee, and the lawsuit
is being settled out of court this week for $700,000.

The case may be settled, but questions about the objectivity of
internal police investigations and the procedures for how search
warrants are carried out and obtained must be asked, even though the
answers are still the same.

And, more importantly, there are questions about the future of Jackie
Paasch, whose dream of being able to dance was ripped from her by a
bullet.

Barely missing her shinbone, the bullet that passed through Paasch's
leg split her calf muscle almost in half. The pain, she remembers,
created "the most incredible burning feeling, followed by my whole leg
cramping up."

In fact, the bullet caused such severe nerve and muscle damage that
when she arrived at the hospital, her foot was stuck in the downward
position. She was unable to move it or feel her toes.

Doctors told her that the situation would have been much worse had the
bullet hit the bone, but to Paasch, the $19,000 in medical expenses
and the year of physical rehabilitation has the same result: She can
no longer dance, something she had done since she was 3 years old.

"I had dreams, like any other dancer, of being in The Nutcracker," she
says.

The winter before the shooting, Paasch joined a new dance studio and
was practicing a new jazz routine every day for a recital scheduled
for May, a month after she was shot.

She was studying a combination of jazz, ballet and tap before her
injury, but she didn't want to be just a student.

"If this had never happened, I'm sure I would still be dancing, and
maybe even be teaching others how to dance. I would have been happy
with that," she says.

Career possibilities aside, dancing was also her personal
release.

"If I was sad, I could dance, and it would make me happy. No matter
what mood I was in, I could dance and be happy."

Now, she must wear a brace whenever she plans to do more than a little
walking and realizes she'll never dance again.

"It's not that I don't want to or that I won't try; it's because I
can't," she explains.

Paasch adds that she can only move her leg and ankle a fraction of
what she used to and that her doctors have told her she will become
more dependent on the walking brace as time goes on.

The fact that Jackie Paasch was shot by Sheriff's Deputy Scott Mathis
is certain. It happened while other members of the SWAT team who had
also entered the upstairs bedrooms were restraining Paasch's brother
and parents and placing them in handcuffs. Mathis kicked in Paasch's
bedroom door and shot her as she sat on her bed located in the
northwest corner of the room. The .40-caliber bullet sliced through
her leg, entering the left side of the shin and exiting through the
back of her calf muscle. The bullet then ricocheted off the floor
before coming to rest in the wall behind her bed.

After firing his weapon, Mathis pulled Paasch off her bed and onto the
floor. Hearing the shot, other deputies entered Paasch's room to
assist. A female deputy restrained Paasch while others called for an
ambulance and Mathis went outside.

Paasch was carried downstairs in a chair by medics, then placed in a
stretcher. Along the way, they dropped the stretcher. Paasch's mother
was released by police to accompany her daughter to Froedtert Memorial
Lutheran Hospital. Once there, the police registered her under the
name "Carla" in an effort to elude the media.

That was the last time Jackie Paasch would sleep in her bedroom on
54th Street.

The incident report submitted by Mathis following the shooting begins
with a search warrant briefing at the West Milwaukee Police
Department. In his report, he states that the SWAT team was "informed
that the warrant was for possession of marijuana and heroin" and that
the suspects listed on the warrant were the three Paasch children,
ages 16 through 20. He also states that the SWAT team was informed of
the criminal records of the suspects.

"The team members were given the criminal records of the three
suspects, which included sexual assaults, arson, weapons discharge,
theft and harassment threats." In fact, all of those accusations were
false. The only police records the Paasch children had were for retail
theft and disorderly conduct.

Upon arriving at the Paasch house, Mathis used the battering ram to gain
entry after no one responded to the SWAT team yelling "Police, search
warrant" repeatedly.

Mathis' report continues, "I entered the residence, going upstairs as
instructed," the whole time yelling "Police, search warrant." The hallway
at the top of the stairs had "enough lighting that I didn't need my
flashlight," his report states.

Noticing a closed door on his left, Mathis "kicked the door open,
continuing with our dynamic entry." What he says he found in the dark
bedroom was Jackie Paasch "kneeling in the bed with her arms in front of
her, partially extended, with her hands close together holding what
appeared to be a stainless-steel handgun that was pointed at me."

At that point, Mathis reports that he "turned in her direction while
yelling 'show me your hands' " multiple times. Getting no response from
Paasch, he thought, "I had walked into an ambush and was about to be shot.
I feared at any second I would see a muzzle flash and hear the loud pop of
a gun."

That fear lead him to "dash to the right while taking one shot at her,
which appeared to hit her because she cried out 'Okay, okay, okay.' " Then
he told Paasch not to move and approached her while keeping his weapon
pointed at her.

He then pulled her off the bed and onto the floor, at which time he "heard
something drop to the floor, and noticed a large gray hairbrush in the area
of the noise."

While holding her on the ground, Mathis states he yelled to other deputies,
"I got shots fired, one down."

At the time of the shooting, Mathis had five years of experience with the
sheriff's department, three and a half of which were with the SWAT team.

The only other time he fired his gun in the line of duty was to shoot a pit
bull during the execution of another search warrant. He states that the
dog's owner stepped to the side, allowing the dog to attack.

Jackie Paasch doesn't exactly see the events of her shooting as Mathis
does. Now 20, Paasch says she woke to the noise of people running through
the house. Not knowing what was going on, she began "screaming and crying
for help."

Before Mathis entered her room, Paasch was about to lean over to look out
the window, but says at that point, she remembers, "I heard a bang and
looked up and there was this gigantic figure in the doorway, and then there
was this flash. One second later he (Mathis) was in my face saying, 'That's
what you get for pointing your finger at a cop,' and then he grabbed my
arms and dragged me across the bed and threw me on the floor." On her
stomach, Paasch says Mathis was trying to handcuff her when other officers
entered the room.

Still unsure what exactly was going on, Paasch recalls that "at that point
I didn't know I had been shot or that he was a cop or who he was." Some of
the others who entered the room, Paasch remembers, were asking Mathis why
he shot. Paasch says that Mathis then began pointing to objects in the room
like a hairbrush, cordless telephone and a plastic parking meter, saying he
thought those were guns that she was pointing at him to justify the shooting.

Paasch says she didn't recognize Mathis as a cop because her bedroom light
was off.

"He was wearing all black, so all I saw was a large moving shadow." It was
6:40 in the morning.

She adds that her position on the bed was much different than the deputy
remembers.

"My hands were on the bed in front of me and I had one foot near the floor
because I was about to get up and see what the hell was going on." She says
she never pointed anything at the deputy-all of the things he says she was
holding were out of her reach.

"No brush was ever in my hand, and I never pointed anything at the officer.
My hands were on the bed and I was crying."

It wasn't until Paasch heard her mother and brother yelling that she
realized she had been shot.

"I didn't know I had been shot until I heard my mom and brother yelling and
then I saw all the blood. I couldn't feel my toes. And then I thought I was
dying."

The deputies that took over restraining Paasch wouldn't let her hold her
leg even though she was then screaming in pain. She says that at one point
there were more than five officers in her room, none of whom tried to
comfort her.

"One of the female officers was on top of me, holding me down and yelling
at me to shut up and that I would be fine. No one was nice to me, and it
felt like someone was pulling my muscle apart," she says.

She was never placed in handcuffs, she says, or told that the police were
there to serve a search warrant.

The fact that this unfortunate shooting occurred, or that a SWAT team
showed up at the Paasch house for a small-time pot warrant, raises many
questions about how search warrants are issued and how the evidence for
warrants is obtained.

One month prior to the shooting, the West Milwaukee Police Department
received an anonymous tip complaining that "numerous cars were coming and
going from [the Paasch household] at all times of the day." The caller
requested an increase in police presence in hopes of discouraging what he
suspected was drug activity.

That call, which took place just before midnight, prompted the West
Milwaukee Police to not only keep an eye on the house and its residents,
but also their trash. After receiving the first anonymous tip, police made
plans to intercept the Paasch garbage and search it for drugs and drug
paraphernalia.

Before they were able to pick up the first round of trash, however, the
West Milwaukee Police received another anonymous tip. This time the caller
said he saw two females sitting in a car outside the house and it looked as
if they were using powder cocaine. The caller was told that the house was
already under investigation.

A week after the first anonymous call West Milwaukee Police went through
the garbage found behind the Paasch house. Two of seven garbage bags
collected that day contained pieces of a leaf-like substance and a few
plant stems that tests would later show to be marijuana. Police followed up
with two more garbage searches before deciding they had enough evidence-a
few marijuana stems and seeds-to request a search warrant. They also claim
a residue that may have been related to heroin use was found but they did
not test the substance.

A Milwaukee circuit court commissioner issued a search warrant for the
residence for possession of marijuana. The warrant listed Jacqueline Paasch
and her brothers as suspects but not their parents.

West Milwaukee Police Chief Eugene Oldenburg says in an interview that he
doesn't know for sure how many garbage searches his department does in a
given year as a result of anonymous tips. The village has about 4,000 people.

"It varies on the number of tips we get," Oldenburg reasons. "We're a small
community, we don't track that kind of stuff." He insists, however, "the
basis of a search warrant is not based upon a sole garbage pick."

When asked if his department misrepresented the threat of danger by telling
the SWAT team wrong information about the Paasch children's criminal
records, Oldenburg answers, "We did not misrepresent anything. We
scrutinize each incident based on its individual characteristics."

After the shooting, deputies brought a drug-sniffing dog into the Paasch
house to search the basement. With the help of the dog, a small amount of
marijuana and some paraphernalia was found, but no heroin or cocaine.

The youngest Paasch, 16 at the time, was arrested for possession of
marijuana and paraphernalia when he returned to the house a few hours after
the shooting. He had stayed the night at a friend's house.

All charges that resulted from the search warrant, however, were dismissed.

Both investigations that took place after the shooting vindicated Deputy
Mathis' actions, despite inconsistencies between his report and physical
evidence found at the scene.

The first investigation was conducted by the Milwaukee County District
Attorney's office, and District Attorney Carol White found Mathis'
actions were in self-defense. The other investigation, done by the
Milwaukee County Criminal Investigation Bureau, concurred.

The county investigation, however, pointed out significant
inconsistencies in Mathis' report of the incident. In his report, Det.
Robert Landusky, who had never before investigated a shooting, found
that "there were some inconsistencies between certain oral interviews,
written statements and physical evidence," including "the position of
Jacqueline Paasch on the bed at the time of the shooting" and "the
position of Ms. Paasch's hands just prior to the shooting and what was
in her hands at the time."

In interviews that followed the incident, Mathis stated that Paasch
was seated in the middle of the bed with both legs underneath her body
when he entered the room. By that account, it would be impossible for
the bullet to pass through her leg without ending up in the mattress.
The bullet ricocheted off the floor after striking Paasch and ended up
in the wall behind her.

Nevertheless, Landusky's report stated, "with the absence of
eyewitnesses, only Deputy Mathis and Jacqueline Paasch can reflect
what actually occurred inside the bedroom."

Another officer from the criminal investigation department did not
sign his name on Landusky's final report.

It's those inconsistencies that lead to a lawsuit filed against the
county on Paasch's behalf by Attorney Mark Thomsen .

"The whole shooting seemed absurd and didn't make sense," reasons
Thomsen.

Thomsen charged in the suit that Paasch was the victim of unreasonable
search and seizure that resulted in personal injury.

"The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution requires that police
officers use reasonable force in making arrests and doing searches,"
he says, "and after analyzing the facts, I concluded that the officer
could not have believed his life was in danger, which meant excessive
force was used."

Thomsen also found fault in the investigations that followed the
shooting. "The county picked someone who had never investigated a
shooting before and that person disregarded the inconsistencies
between the physical evidence and the shooter's statements and never
tried to reconcile them," he explains.

"Then that person wrote a report that supported the officer's
description of what happened and sent the report up the chain of
command, but it was never looked at critically."

To prove his point, Thomsen points to a deputy inspector from the
sheriff's department, who admitted simply signing off on the earlier
reports.

"By the time it got to you," Thomsen asked Deputy Inspector Joseph
Delaney during a sworn deposition, "you were relying 100% on the
people below you and your decision was, at that point, in time to
rubber stamp [the report]?" Delaney answered, "Yes."

That kind of behavior, Thomsen continues, teaches officers that there
may be no accountability for firing their weapons.

"It became clear that the county sheriffs did not have a legitimate
defense."

Thomsen also criticizes the use of a SWAT team when only a few
marijuana seeds and stems were found.

"When an anonymous tip produces only seeds and stems, you should not
send in a SWAT team to resolve that issue," he says. "That's
unnecessary use of force."

Sheriff's Deputy Inspector Mark Stieber says that no policy changes
have resulted from the Paasch shooting and Mathis was not
disciplined.

Mathis is no longer a member of the SWAT team. He is now a court
bailiff.

"Something happened personally in his life that was investigated by
the department and I was told to remove him from the SWAT team," says
Stieber, who is in charge of the SWAT team-sheriffs that work in the
court system and the training academy.

The amount of force used by his department in executing search
warrants is always the same, no matter what kind of criminal offenses
are suspected, Stieber says.

"When we make a decision to serve a search warrant, we serve it the
same way every time."

Besides losing her ability to dance and to walk normally, the shooting
has caused Paasch to be extremely afraid of police.

"I'm paranoid all the time. I have nightmares where police are chasing
me at least three times a week and I have to sleep with all the lights
on."

Her fear of police was complicated when she encountered Mathis while
working at a bank in West Milwaukee.

"I knew some of the deputies had accounts there and I always thought
it was possible that he would come in, but never expected it." When
Mathis pulled into the bank's drive-thru, Paasch says she looked at
the name on the account and immediately froze. "When I saw his name, I
couldn't breathe and thought I was going to be sick. I ran into the
bathroom and locked myself in until the bank closed."

Paasch says she's still trying to move on in life. Now the mother of a
10-month-old girl, she has plans to get married in summer. While she
expects to have nightmares about the shooting for the rest of her
life, Paasch says that's not the most terrifying part of it all.

"The fact that this can happen to me and my family has made me realize
that it can happen to anyone. And that's really frightening because
the police are the ones you're supposed to count on to protect you."