Bad Decisions Led to Officer’s Slaying, Defense Lawyer Says

A tragic chain of botched messages and bad decisions led to the panicked gunfight that killed a Simi Valley police officer, defense attorneys told Ventura County jurors Tuesday in the murder trial of Daniel Allan Tuffree.

Tuffree, 49, did shoot Officer Michael F. Clark to death, Deputy Public Defender Howard Asher admitted in his opening statement.

But Asher argued that Tuffree does not deserve to be convicted of first-degree murder--which carries a possible death sentence--in the slaying of Clark nor of deadly assault and attempted murder for shooting at Officer Michael Pierce.

“ ‘Chaos’ is the most accurate term to describe what happened at Daniel Tuffree’s house,” Asher said. “Mistakes, miscommunications and misinterpretations led up to the confrontation. And panic took over from there.”

On the day of the shooting, Tuffree, desperate to maintain a Valium prescription that he had been using too quickly, asked a pharmacist for a refill several days early, Asher said.

When he was refused, Tuffree complained to his psychiatrist’s office, lying that someone had stolen 10 to 15 pills, Asher said.

When the psychiatrist said through an aide that he could not have more Valium a week early, Tuffree took the complaint to his doctor, yelling at the office staff over the phone, Asher said.

Meanwhile, varying versions of Tuffree’s complaint passed from doctors to insurance officials to psychiatric caseworkers--each of whom exaggerated in the retelling, Asher said.

Asher told jurors that the HMO official, unable to reach Tuffree by phone, wrote a distorted report “that [the psychiatrist] recommended [Tuffree] get a blood level done, that she has terminated her therapeutic relationship with the patient and that he needs to get into detox.”

This, Asher said, was the distorted story by the time a psychiatric caseworker called police: that Tuffree had been using alcohol and Valium for several days, that his insurance company was trying to get him into detox and that he was not responding to calls.

Dispatchers sent Clark, a former LAPD Devonshire Division officer who had been on the Simi Valley force only a few months.

Clark knocked on Tuffree’s door. When no one answered, Asher said, Clark began talking to neighbors, who told him that the man inside had guns, liked to shoot and was “kind of a nut.”

Clark called for backup. Sgt. Anthony Anzilotti, who had confiscated a gun from Tuffree three years earlier, arrived. Pierce arrived soon thereafter.

Anzilotti, gun drawn, led the officers into the side yard of Tuffree’s house, where Clark called out to Tuffree through the closed kitchen window, Asher said.

When Tuffree spotted Clark, he hid at first, wanting to avoid a confrontation, Asher said. Then Tuffree approached the window with hands below the sill, telling them that he was fine and ordering them off his property.

Clark asked, then demanded that Tuffree show his hands.

“He makes a very big mistake. . . . He wants them to leave, and he shows them the gun,” Asher said.

At that point, Clark yelled, “He’s got a gun!” then ran past the window and began firing at the house, Asher said. And Tuffree shot back, killing Clark.

Asher told jurors that they will hear a police interview in which Tuffree insisted, “I never intended to kill anyone. . . . Why didn’t they just leave?”

Testimony is set to continue today.