Chief Defends Policeman Who Shot Youth 11 Times

Seventeen-year-old Robert Scriven took at least 11 gunshots in his body in his fatal struggle with an Escondido police officer, Police Chief Vince Jimno said Thursday.

But Jimno said he found no fault with Officer Martin Hewlett’s handling of the situation, especially given that Hewlett had lost the upper hand in the struggle, was pinned to the ground and was fighting to retain control of his handgun.

Hewlett had chased Scriven into a brush-and-bamboo thicket just before midnight Monday after Scriven was seen running a stop sign in a stolen sports car, police said. They said Scriven was fleeing Hewlett and another officer in a chase on the north side of Escondido before he lost control of his vehicle, jumped out and took off on foot into the darkness.

Officer Taller and Heavier

Hewlett caught up with the Escondido teen-ager in the dense vegetation, and the two began struggling, according to official police reports. Although Hewlett is taller and heavier than the boy, he found himself pinned on his back and “feared for his life,” Jimno said Thursday, elaborating on the incident after having talked to Hewlett.

The 26-year-old officer, a four-year veteran of the Escondido Police Department, is on routine administrative leave pending an investigation.

“In my mind I don’t feel anxious about it at all,” Jimno said of the pending investigation, which will be conducted by both his department and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department before being turned over to the district attorney’s office for evaluation. Jimno’s department will then conduct an internal review of the shooting, as is customary whenever an officer fires his weapon.

“This forces us to think about our procedures and practices, whether we are doing it the right way,” Jimno said. “Each time we have (a shooting), we review it in detail to see if there’s anything we can do differently so this won’t occur again.”

Incidents Create Tension

Such incidents create tension for the entire department, he said. “The officers watch very closely to see how the department responds to the innuendo, the allegations or whatever else occurs in the media, to see if the department will be supportive of them and stand by them,” he said.

Jimno said officers are especially concerned about public reaction to the shooting of the teen-ager, who was unarmed.

“They’re not rooting,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘Thank God Hewlett is OK.’ They’re quiet. They’re not real excited about this. The concern they have now is, what will people think of us again?”

Department morale plummeted in 1983 when an officer mistakenly shot and killed Leslie Landersman, an office secretary who had been taken hostage by a bank robber. The gunman kidnaped her after escaping in a shoot-out with police and forced her to be his getaway driver in her own vehicle. Landersman was slain by police fire when she lunged to free herself from her captor after they found themselves trapped on a cul-de-sac and surrounded by officers. The robber was also shot and killed.

The department also suffered from the fallout publicity on the way officers handled the situation. During a 13-minute stretch, 10 officers fired their shotguns 12 times and their handguns 35 times. Five officers were disciplined for actions contrary to department policies; the most severely punished was a lieutenant whose own gunfire hit the door of another police car, behind which another officer had taken cover.

But Jimno and others say no parallels should be drawn between the 1983 shoot-out and what occurred Monday night. In the more recent incident, Jimno said, an officer’s own life was on the line because of a criminal suspect who not only resisted arrest but also tried to wrest the officer’s gun from him.

“It’s a shame it was a 17-year-old, but a 17-year-old can kill you as easily as a 27-year-old,” Jimno said.

No Sense in Second-Guessing

Nothing will be gained by trying to second-guess why Hewlett fired off as many shots as he did, Jimno said.

“People will question that, but they haven’t been through something like this,” the chief said. “Hewlett really thought he was going to die. He was fighting for his life.”

Jimno said Hewlett and Scriven had been struggling for nearly two minutes, and the officer was having little success against the teen. Scriven had recently been released from the California Youth Authority for stealing a car, and had done body building while in custody. Scriven was 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighed 170 pounds; Hewlett is described by police as taller than 6 feet and husky.

Jimno said this was the situation Monday night as he understood it:

“It’s extremely dark, the guy (Hewlett) isn’t getting any help (because other officers hadn’t arrived yet), he’s getting whipped now, the guy’s right on top of him, he’s very tired and the other guy is getting the upper hand.

“The officer reaches for his gun, the other guy tries to grab it out of his hand, so the officer shoots while the guy is on top of him, and when the guy gets off of him, he (Hewlett) doesn’t know if he’ll come back after him again. He shoots some more. It’s human nature to shoot until the attacker stops, whether it’s one shot or 15.”

Not Keeping Track

Jimno said it was unlikely that Hewlett tracked in his mind how many shots he fired.

“Most people in these kinds of life-and-death struggles have no idea how many shots they’ve fired,” he said. “An officer will swear he only shot his revolver once, yet all six shots of his revolver have been fired.”

Jimno said his department received word from the county coroner’s office Thursday that 11 bullets had been taken from Scriven’s body. It was unclear, however, whether Scriven had also been struck by bullets that passed through his body.

The department uses soft-nose, hollow-pointed bullets designed to mushroom on impact and remain in the body, to reduce the risk of striking someone in the background.

“We don’t have a philosophy of shoot to wound,” Jimno said. “You shoot to stop completely.”

Deputy Coroner Max Murphy said Thursday that Scriven died of “multiple gunshot wounds,” but said other details, including how many times Scriven had been shot, will not be disclosed until the final autopsy report is released in about a month.

That report will include toxicology findings that will show whether Scriven’s body contained any drugs.