Grand Jury to Look Into Dubose Slaying : New Panel Will Also Study Guidelines Covering Police Officers’ Use of Firearms

The San Diego County Grand Jury announced Tuesday that it will review the slaying of Tommie C. Dubose by police and that it will investigate the entire “policies, procedures, training and supervision” relating to the Police Department’s use of firearms.

Grand Jury Foreman Armistead B. Smith also said his panel “will examine selected shooting instances which have resulted in the death or injury of police officers or citizens.”

The broad investigation comes during an increase in the number of citizens shot by San Diego police.

Questionable Episodes

Several of the cases in which civilians have been shot occurred during questionable circumstances, and three of the fatal shootings have resulted recently in sharply worded criticisms from other law enforcement agencies.

“It is the grand jury’s concern that the use of firearms and the exercise of the current San Diego Police Department’s firearm policies have led to loss of life,” Smith said.

“Wearing our watchdog hat, our hope now is to study the management of those procedures. And if we can find recommendations that may reduce that potential in the future, then we would have made a worthwhile contribution to our community.”

Acting Police Chief Bob Burgreen said he welcomes any review by the grand jury and said his department would “take under consideration” any firearms recommendations.

“Our policy already is very strict,” he said. “I think our firearms policy is as strict as any other department’s in the country. And I personally think ours is a model policy.”

Burgreen said a new internal committee of primarily rank-and-file officers held its first meeting Tuesday on a range of issues, including officer safety and what improvements, if any, should be made to the department’s firearms policy to give officers more latitude.

He said the new committee was formed at the urging of the Police Officers Assn. to follow up on recommendations from an Officer Safety Task Force of several years ago. The committee, after reviewing the firearms policy, will also make recommendations to the chief’s office on any desired improvements.

“We had numerous requests from the officers to go in and look at the situation again,” Burgreen said. “They’re the ones doing the work on the street, and they know more about what’s going on than anyone else.”

Smith declined to discuss which shootings, other than the Dubose case, the grand jury will examine before completing its review early next year.

Dubose was shot to death March 12. He died after officers charged into his home while executing a search warrant. While Dubose struggled with one officer, another officer shot the 56-year-old black man five times. Four of the bullets hit Dubose in the back.

His death was ruled justifiable by the San Diego County district attorney, but prosecutors also criticized officers for not adequately announcing themselves before bursting into the Dubose home with guns drawn.

“The district attorney made a comprehensive investigation of that particular shooting,” Smith said. “In his investigation, he determined certain police procedures had not been followed. The logical question is why weren’t procedures followed.”

Mary Dubose, the widow of Tommie Dubose, said she is grateful that the grand jury has decided not only to review her husband’s death but also to study other police shootings.

“It won’t be for just my husband,” she said, “because there have been other incidents that have happened. They need to see if they are following the written firearms policy thoroughly or if they are sometimes using their own discretion.

“I don’t really know. But I do know it would be good to see if they are going by the book.”

Former Police Chief Bill Kolender and black leaders in April had asked the 1987-88 grand jury to investigate the Dubose shooting, but the grand jury declined to investigate because, the foreman said, there wasn’t enough time. This decision was bitterly denounced by black leaders. The request was forwarded to the new grand jury, which began its task July 1.

Recent Shootings Assailed

Besides the Dubose case, two other police shootings have drawn recent criticism.

The district attorney ruled that the Jan. 9 slaying of Chip Doonan in a Clairemont garage was justifiable but also a “needless tragedy” that could have been avoided.

Doonan had been moving all day and, when police arrived, he had a gun under his arm, the district attorney said, adding that Doonan tried to show the officers it was a pellet gun but was shot before he could do so.

The district attorney said the two officers involved in the Doonan shooting unnecessarily startled the victim, who was not suspected in the crime they were investigating, when they confronted him in the garage.

The state attorney general, after a very lengthy investigation, decided against filing assault or perjury charges against officers in the Sagon Penn case. But the attorney general added that Police Agent Donovan Jacobs used excessive force in the 1985 Penn case, in which Jacobs was wounded and another agent was killed, and that there was “legitimate cause to question the conduct and the testimony of some officers” during Penn’s two trials.

The department’s firearms policy allows officers to discharge their weapons when it is “reasonably necessary” to:

- Protect themselves from death or serious bodily injury.

- Protect another officer or a citizen from death or serious bodily injury.

- Apprehend a fleeing felon “reasonably known” to be armed with a deadly weapon for a felony involving great bodily injury or the threat of great bodily injury.

According to police statistics released in the spring, there has been an increase in the number of civilians killed by police in recent years.

In 1985, four citizens were killed, compared to six killed in the first three months of this year.

Smith, the grand jury foreman, said his panel is equally concerned about a rise in the number of police officers shot in the line of duty. According to the police statistics, two officers have been killed and five wounded since 1985.

The most recent officer to die was Jerry Hartless, who was shot Jan. 9 while chasing a suspected gang member recently paroled from prison.