Self-Defense Claimed in Slaying of Simi Officer : Courts: Attorneys for Daniel Allen Tuffree contend that police fired first in Aug. 4 shootout that killed Michael Clark.

Attorneys for Daniel Allen Tuffree said they will argue that the high school teacher fired in self-defense during a shootout with Simi Valley police last month that left a young officer dead.

Tuffree was not suicidal when police entered Tuffree’s back yard with their guns drawn and fired first, the attorneys claim in a motion filed late Wednesday with the Ventura County Municipal Court. “Mr. Tuffree only fired in response to the shots fired by Officer [Michael] Clark,” said defense attorney Richard E. Holly in the motion.

The motion asks that defense attorneys be given free access to police witnesses.

Tuffree is scheduled to be arraigned today and is expected to plead not guilty to a capital murder charge and six counts of attempted murder and assault.

If convicted, Tuffree could be sentenced to death for taking the life of the 28-year-old Clark on a hot Aug. 4 afternoon in Simi Valley in what prosecutors allege was a senseless murder. Prosecutors said Wednesday that they have not decided whether to seek the death penalty.

But Holly said in the motion that Tuffree, in an interview with police immediately after the shooting, “emphatically repeated that Officer Clark was the first to fire his gun.”

Furthermore, Holly maintains that investigators have consistently released inaccurate information to the public.

“The media [have] received misleading and inaccurate statements from the Simi Valley Police Department regarding the subject case,” the motion states. “The police spokesmen have repeatedly omitted any reference to deceased Officer Clark’s participation in the gunfire.”

Defense attorneys also contend that prosecutors and police are interfering with their ability to interview witnesses. Holly’s motion asked Judge John E. Dobroth to stop the alleged interference.

Prosecutor Peter D. Kossoris on Wednesday said he had not reviewed the motion and declined to comment on it other than to say, “I don’t think the judge will hear it [today].” Holly said Simi Valley police officials have told him that they will accept no telephone calls or allow any interviews with any of the officers involved in the shooting unless a deputy district attorney is present.

Holly said this policy hampers his ability to interview witnesses to the shooting.

“Moreover, the information provided by police [has] omitted other salient details of the officers’ participation, including that they had drawn their guns as they entered Mr. Tuffree’s back yard prior to making verbal contact with him,” the motion alleges.

Holly said prosecutors told him that Clark fired at least 14 shots before succumbing.

Simi Valley police officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But police have maintained from the start that Tuffree opened fire on Clark first.

Michael Pierce was one of the two officers who accompanied Clark to Tuffree’s Aztec Court home. Pierce told an investigator he first heard a single gunshot fired and believed it came from inside Tuffree’s house before the shootout ensued.

A second officer who was with Clark before he was fatally wounded told another investigator that he was unsure where the initial gunfire originated. Neither officer talked of Clark firing his weapon.

Police officials have said the three went to Tuffree’s home after he reportedly threatened suicide.

But Holly disputes this account.

“Nowhere in the police dispatch tape-recording of the call was there ever a mention that Mr. Tuffree might be suicidal,” Holly states in the motion.

Holly said the officers received a routine “check welfare” call and, after getting no response when he loudly knocked on Tuffree’s front door, Clark and the two officers went into Tuffree’s back yard where the shootout occurred.

Tuffree was holed up in his three-bedroom home for more than five hours after the gun battle before a SWAT team pumped numerous rounds of tear gas into the residence and rushed in to arrest Tuffree.

Tuffree is divorced and was a high school social studies teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District since 1986. He was assigned to teach at Van Nuys High School this school year.