Tape of Teen Assault Suspect Inadmissible

Some tape-recorded statements made by a 14-year-old girl shot by a police officer in May will not be admissible in court, a Superior Court judge has ruled.

The decision by Judge Herbert Curtis III concerned a tape-recorded interview in which the girl tells detectives three times that she does not want to talk to them.

The girl is on trial on suspicion of felony assault of an officer during a brief confrontation in her Ventura foster home. She allegedly threatened Officer Kristen Rupp with a knife.

Rupp shot the girl several times after she refused to drop the knife, the officer testified last week.

Police interviewed the girl twice after the shooting. The first interview was within an hour of the shooting, and Curtis has said that interview is admissible because the girl agreed to speak with detectives and was read her Miranda rights.

But the second interview, conducted after the girl’s surgery, was inadmissible because the girl said she didn’t want to talk and therefore asserted her right to remain silent, Curtis said.

“I think the minor pretty much made it clear she didn’t want to talk,” Curtis said, explaining that the suspect was groggy from surgery and did not knowingly waive her Miranda rights.

On the second tape, the girl tells detectives she came toward an officer with a knife because she “wanted to die.” On the first tape, she tells officers she was trying to drop the knife when Rupp began firing.