Dubose’s Widow Sues City, 8 Police Officers

The wife of Tommie C. Dubose sued the city and eight San Diego police officers Friday, contending that the officers exerted “unexcused, unjustified and excessive force” when they stormed into her home and killed her husband during a struggle over a gun.

The lawsuit, filed in San Diego County Superior Court, also raises allegations that Mary Dubose heard the roar of gunfire as the unannounced officers fought with her husband, but that she was physically restrained by police from comforting him as he lay dying in their living room.

The suit also contended that police officials repeatedly refused for the next six hours to tell her the nature of her husband’s wounds, and that it was only when she was about to be driven home from police headquarters that a deputy coroner informed her that her husband of 29 years was dead.

“I didn’t really know what had happened,” Mary Dubose said in an interview Friday. “I knew he had been shot. I saw the blood on his shirt. But I never did get any information as to how he was.”

Her attorney, James Randall of Long Beach, said she was telling a story to two of her grandchildren when the police officers burst through the front door of her East San Diego home in search of drugs and began fighting with her husband.

‘Lying in Pool of Blood’

“Mary was taken down by an officer, with her head facing the kitchen area, away from her husband,” Randall said.

“Mary could hear the gunshots go off. She tried to stand up. They put her back down again. Then she tried to stand up again, and they took her to the kitchen. She wanted to run to her husband and they took her away to the kitchen. He was lying in a pool of blood, dying, and she was never allowed to talk to her husband, to comfort him, to hold him.”

Mary Dubose said that what particularly caught the family by surprise that night of March 12 was that the front door was unlocked when the officers broke through with a battering ram and rushed inside shortly after 8 p.m.

“If they had turned the knob, they could have walked in,” she said.

In the immediate confusion, she said, she was prevented by the police officers from going to her husband’s aid.

‘Didn’t Know He Was Dead’

“I knew my husband had been shot, but I didn’t know he was dead,” she said. “They took me in the kitchen, and I didn’t find out anything. Then they took me to the Police Department.

“I kept asking the police, and they said they didn’t know. Every time I asked, the officers said they didn’t have any information. At police headquarters, I said I wanted to find out about my husband, and they said they would let me know. They never did.”

About 2 a.m., police were preparing to escort her home when a deputy coroner walked in, she said.

“He thought I knew my husband had passed,” she said. “He started to tell me what I needed to do and I just asked him how my husband was. He stopped. Then he said my husband had expired.”

Tommie Dubose, 56, was shot four times in the back and once in the face. Paramedics tried to revive him in the living room, but he was not breathing and had no measurable blood pressure. He was taken to Mercy Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Outcry From Minorities

His death has triggered an outcry from the city’s minority community. Black leaders have decried the slaying of Dubose, a black.

Although his children have been arrested on drug charges, Dubose, a Navy instructor, has been characterized as a strong opponent of drug abuse in his community.

The county district attorney’s office ruled recently that the Dubose slaying was justified because Officer Carlos Garcia reasonably believed Dubose had control of another officer’s gun when Garcia shot him.

But the district attorney also concluded that the police officers serving the warrant that night did not adequately announce themselves at the door and did not give enough time before rushing in.

Mary Dubose said she filed the lawsuit because she still wants a public airing of the case, especially since the U.S. attorney’s office and the outgoing county grand jury have declined to investigate the slaying.

‘Like a Time Bomb’

“It isn’t so much the money that I want,” she said. “I know money does a lot of things for you. But I’d just like for something to be done about the Police Department and some of the things they do. For instance, right now, Officer Garcia, if he continues in the position he’s in, he’s like a time bomb and he’ll do the same thing again.”

Police spokesman Bill Robinson said Friday that the department is prevented from commenting on the shooting now that the case is in litigation.

Assistant Chief Bob Burgreen said recently that none of the officers has been disciplined, including Garcia, who had shot three other people in separate incidents in the past.

Randall, the attorney for Mary Dubose, did not specify a dollar amount in damages in the lawsuit, but he said he believes the case to be worth $200,000 to $2 million. He filed the suit only on behalf of Mary Dubose, and not the couple’s four children.

One of their sons, Charles Dubose, was a key suspect in the drug investigation when police compiled the evidence for the search warrant. He was not at home the night that the officers burst through the door, and police have said that much of the alleged drug activity occurred during the day when the parents were away at work.

Bench Warrant Issued

On Friday, a bench warrant was issued for Charles Dubose. Superior Court Judge William J. Howatt issued the $20,000 warrant when Charles Dubose, 36, failed to appear in court for a hearing on charges that he sold rock cocaine to an undercover officer March 11, the day before his father was slain.

Authorities have said the search warrant for the Dubose home was obtained because the younger Dubose was seen going into the home shortly before the alleged drug transaction with the undercover officer, leading police to believe more might be inside. No drugs were found, however.

“When they finally get in the house, all they found were some papers and a couple of pictures of marijuana plants in the pocket of one of the kids,” Randall said. “And this is a drug house? They tore this house apart during their search. And they couldn’t find one lude, one pill, one marijuana seed. They couldn’t find anything except aspirin.”

But he said that the saddest aspect of the whole affair was that police refused to allow Mary Dubose to comfort her mortally wounded husband.

“She was right there, and yet she had no idea her husband was dead until about six hours later,” he said. “That is cold. That is what makes it so tragic. That is what makes it so damn tragic.”