Expert Backs Police Action in Standoff

While Vicki Shade’s friends and family continued to question police tactics, at least one leading expert insisted Monday that police did the right thing in storming the house where she was being held hostage.

Even though the nine-hour standoff with violent drug abuser Roland E. Sheehan ended with both his and Shade’s deaths, New York criminal justice professor John Violanti said Ventura police were more cautious than most agencies in similar situations.

“If you are not getting coherent responses or you get no responses from an individual, you don’t know what’s going on in there,” said Violanti, who teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “And if you know he has a gun or a weapon and you believe he is about to hurt someone, then it’s time to go in.”

Sheehan broke into Shade’s house in east Ventura early Friday and held her at knifepoint for hours as police tried to talk him into coming out. But Sheehan grew tired of talking and finally threw the cellular phone police had given him out a second-story window.

He had already told police he was not going back to prison. If they wanted the standoff to end, they would have to kill him. That’s when police fired tear gas into the house and charged in.

With officers downstairs, Sheehan turned to Shade, his 37-year-old ex-girlfriend, and plunged his knife into her chest five times. He then lunged toward police, knife still in hand, and was shot 11 times.

Usually, waiting the situation out is the best response, said Violanti, who has studied the standoff at Waco, Texas, and the hostage negotiations in Iran 20 years ago. Most hostage takers can be convinced, in time, to surrender, he said. But most also continue to talk to officers.

“When they stop, well, as a commander you have to make a tough decision,” Violanti said. “But I think this woman was probably in immediate danger of being killed. He was not going to give in.”

Violanti’s assessment coincided with the reasoning by Ventura police on the scene. “Frankly, we felt we couldn’t wait any longer,” said Lt. Carl Handy, a police spokesman.

Handy declined to specify why police decided to end the nine-hour standoff when they did, saying only that something convinced authorities that they had run out of time.

“He was becoming more agitated, more threatening,” Handy said. “He drove us into a position where we couldn’t wait any longer.”

Handy said police tried to talk to Sheehan after he tossed out the cell phone, shouting at the second-story window from the street.

“It wasn’t working,” Handy said.

While preparing for Shade’s funeral, friends and family continued to argue that the police decision to rush the house set Sheehan off, causing him to panic and stab Shade.

“It looks to me that he probably would not have started stabbing her if police had not thrown in the tear gas,” said Donald Shade, the victim’s brother. “He probably just wanted to talk to Vicki, and the next thing he knows he’s surrounded by police. Then he acted out of fear. He grabbed a knife and did what he saw in the movies, he held her hostage and hoped police would go away.”

Tara Gaston, a friend of Shade’s, also wondered if police should have waited a little longer. Perhaps Sheehan might have calmed down in time.

“I know he was getting impatient,” Gaston said. “But he didn’t attack her until they came in. They waited nine hours. Why couldn’t they wait a little more?”

Violanti said that even if officers had waited, the outcome may not have been different. “These are tough decisions,” he said. “Maybe if they had gone in early they could have saved her, or maybe if they waited another 15 minutes she would have already been dead.”

The nine hours police waited outside Shade’s home was probably longer than authorities usually spend at hostage scenes before bringing them to a conclusion, he said.

Still, other family members charged that authorities mishandled things long before the day Sheehan took Shade hostage.

“I don’t know that there was anything else they could have done there,” said Bryan Baker, Shade’s 23-year-old brother, who lives in Florida. “I don’t feel the police had the ball in their hands at that time. However, they did have the ball in their hands when they let him out of jail the first time. That’s where they dropped the ball.”

Shade filed a restraining order against Sheehan after he began stalking her following their breakup six months ago. Police records show Sheehan violated that order 15 times and was arrested in September. He was released on $20,000 bail pending a court date in November, which he missed. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

Family members are angry that such a low bail was set for Sheehan, who had an extensive criminal history.

He was charged with murder in Rhode Island in 1980, but that was dropped when he agreed to testify against two co-defendants.

The deputy district attorney who was prosecuting Sheehan for repeatedly violating court orders to stay away from Shade said Monday that $20,000 bail is not considered low for the type of crimes Sheehan had allegedly committed.

“Our response to his repeated violations of the restraining order was to file more restraining order violations,” Adam Pearlman said. “I really can’t talk about why the bail was not increased.”

Violanti said Sheehan may have been so desperate by the time police arrived that he was hoping they would kill him--a phenomenon known as “suicide by cop.” Statements that he was not going back to jail and officers would have to kill him to end the incident sound like classic signs of a man wanting to die at the hands of officers, Violanti said.

“You don’t go toward police with a butcher knife in your hand and expect to live,” Violanti said.

Family law attorney Cathleen Drury said Shade’s death illustrates the need for tougher enforcement of domestic violence and stalking laws.

“I have cases in my own practice that are similar, and it’s terrifying for these women. They’re living their lives looking over their shoulder,” she said.

Times Community News reporter Nick Green and Times staff writer Daryl Kelley contributed to this story.