Police Ponder Changes in Tactics in Response to Dubose Slaying

San Diego police announced Tuesday that they are planning significant changes in how they serve high-risk search warrants--but no disciplinary action against any officers--in response to a critical report from the district attorney’s office about the fatal police shooting of Tommie C. Dubose.

In a report released by police Tuesday, the San Diego County district attorney ruled the slaying justifiable. But it also chastised the procedures police used in serving the warrant, and described the officers’ bursting through the front door of the Dubose home as an “unlawful entry” that resulted in the death of the 56-year-old man.

“At the moment Officer (Carlos) Garcia fired, he reasonably believed that he and other officers were in immediate peril of great bodily injury or death, thereby creating legal justification for his use of deadly force,” the report said.

‘Should Have Been Avoided’

“The tragedy is that the moment could and should have been avoided.”

The report, long awaited by leaders in the minority community who are upset with police conduct in the Dubose slaying, marks the third time in two months that the San Diego Police Department has been criticized by prosecutors for its actions in fatal shootings.

The district attorney ruled April 29 that Chip Doonan died in a “needless tragedy” when he was suddenly confronted by police with guns drawn in a Clairemont garage.

The state attorney general ruled April 11 that there was “legitimate cause to question the conduct and the testimony of some officers” in the Sagon Penn case, which ended with one officer dead and another seriously wounded.

With police again under fire in the Dubose case, high-ranking officers in the department announced that they will be undertaking a major review to upgrade their search warrant procedures in an effort to improve the safety of both the public and the police.

They said police served 457 search warrants for narcotics violations during the last year and that it is the single most dangerous aspect of police work.

‘Look at Everything’

“We’re going to take a look at everything we do in regard to warrants,” said Assistant Chief Bob Burgreen.

“What we have decided this morning was that this calls for us to sit down at a high level and review totally what we’re doing. We’ll get input from the officers, from our trained, high-risk SWAT people and from the district attorney’s office, and we’ll lay out the best possible procedures we can lay out.

“We’ll ensure that we’ll stay within the law. And that we will minimize exposure of officers and citizens to hazardous situations. It’s definitely something that’s a front-burner issue with us. It will be accomplished as quickly as we can do it.”

The district attorney was most critical of police for not adequately complying with the so-called knock-and-notice law, a state statute that allows police to break through a door to execute a search warrant only if they first properly announce themselves and the occupants refuse admittance.

The report also said the Police Department’s yellow jackets worn by the undercover officers were not easily identifiable to citizens. And it suggested that the search warrant should have been served during the day when the parents were away and most of the drug dealing allegedly occurred.

Burgreen said the Police Department agreed with those conclusions.

Entry ‘Not Justified’

“The officers did not allow enough time or enough notice,” he conceded. “They did not give the Dubose family enough time to answer the door adequately before they went into the house. The entry that quickly was not justified.”

But Burgreen also said that none of the officers involved in the incident at the Dubose home would be disciplined.

He said all but one of the officers are continuing to serve high-risk search warrants. He said the one officer who was transferred is now handling less strenuous investigative duties, but not as discipline. Burgreen declined to elaborate.

“The mistakes that were made were made in good faith,” Burgreen said. “We’re confident that the officers fully intended to comply with the knock-and-notice provision. They intended to do it. But, in their judgment, they felt they needed to move quickly.”

The Rev. George Walker Smith, spokesman of the Civilian Advisory Panel on Police Practices, said: “I think this report points out even more so the need for an independent grand jury investigation.”

Burgreen acknowledged that police now believe that Dubose was an active community leader who spoke out against drug abuse and that “we wish he were still alive,” a sentiment echoed Tuesday by Chief Bill Kolender.

“We sincerely regret the death of Tommie Dubose,” the chief said.

Dubose was killed March 12. He was shot in his living room during a struggle over the gun belonging to the first undercover officer to burst through the front door. Garcia, the second officer, watched the fight, heard a shot, and then shot Dubose five times, with four of the shots pounding into the left side of the man’s back.

The undercover narcotics street detail had come to the door of the Dubose home in Southeast San Diego as part of a massive drug sweep in which search warrants were being issued throughout the city for drug spots.

Armed with a search warrant, the officers believed that there was drug activity at the Dubose home, and that a police informant had recently purchased illegal narcotics there.

But Burgreen said Tuesday that it was only after Dubose was killed that police learned the drug dealing in the house was done by his children, during the day while he was at work and apparently without his knowledge.

The district attorney quoted the victim’s wife, Mary Dubose, as saying she and her husband disapproved of some of their children’s actions, but that “I closed my eyes to a lot of things.”

Regardless, officials acknowledged that Tommie Dubose, surprised to see armed men bursting into his home, struggled with them only to protect his own family, never realizing they were police officers.

“We’ll never know what Tommie Dubose thought he was doing,” Burgreen said. “I wish I could ask him. I don’t know.”

The district attorney interviewed several neighbors of the Dubose family who said police did not properly announce their presence at the home before charging in.

Franchon Wilson said she did not hear anyone yell “police,” nor any sound associated with the breaking of the front door.

Her brother, Shannon Wilson, said the only thing he heard was “one pop,” but did not hear any other noises, voices or the crashing of any doors.

Gerald Duggins said only 15 seconds elapsed between the time the police vans arrived in front of the Dubose home and the first shots sounded. Aaron Porter placed the time sequence at no more than 25 seconds.

The officers were also interviewed by investigators from the district attorney’s office.

Officer Janice M. Thornquest said she was on the walkway outside the home and heard the sound of door knocking and the words: “San Diego police. Open up. We have a search warrant.”

And Officer Miguel A. Penalosa said that, as he approached the front of the house he heard Officer Andy Rios knock several times and identify the officers outside as policemen.

Officer Timothy Long, who carried a heavy metal device designed to break through a locked door, gave this description: “We knocked on the door and identified ourselves by saying ‘San Diego police officers with a search warrant, demanding entry.’

“We waited. It’s hard to tell you how long, but I heard someone behind me say, ‘Hit it! Hit it!’ So I hit the door. It opened on the first hit.”

Inside the house, Dubose, his wife and a son were watching television. First to come rushing in was Rios, gun drawn.

Rios told investigators that Dubose threw a drink in his face, a struggle ensued and he lost control of his service revolver, which fired once at the floor, injuring neither Rios nor Dubose.

Rios said he yelled that Dubose had his gun, and then heard a series of shots.

Garcia said he ran through the hallway and pulled up in front of the fight. He said he heard the first shot, worried that his colleague had been shot, then fired five times from his own gun.

“I feared for the other officer, that he had been shot, and that I’d be next,” Garcia told investigators.

Mary Dubose said in a series of interviews with investigators that she never really heard police announce their presence, and did not at first recognize them as officers.

“They busted in the house,” she said at one point. “I don’t remember anybody knocking or anything, and they just came in. It was like something out of the movies.”

Later, she added: “I just, I don’t know why he shot my husband.”

Their son, Brent Dubose, 25, told investigators that he first saw the officers on the first porch step but “had no time to say anything to his father before the officers were through the door.”

The district attorney ruled that Garcia shot Dubose “solely out of fear that his fellow officer had been shot in the struggle over the gun, that Tommie Dubose now had the gun, and that he would now use it against Officer Garcia and the other officers.”

But the report concluded:

“In a very real sense, Tommie Dubose, a man who hated narcotics and the destruction they wreak, was killed by illicit drugs which have spread like a plague through our community, which reached into his very home and which claimed him as one more innocent victim.”