DID A BILLINGS POLICE OFFICER PULL THE WRONG WEAPON?
     by MONTANA NEWS ASSOCIATION

Billings Montana--Feb 2, 2007/mna press/--Did a Billings Police Officer pull the wrong weapon when he shot his .40 Glock, after a routine domestic call went seriously wrong, in the early hours of Monday? That is a question the Billings Police Department apparently is not willing to answer.

Monday, at about 2:00am, Billings police officers responded to a second 911 call from Nicole Derrick’s residence at 913 N. 22nd. David Thomas placed a call in an effort to get the police to the residence, after an extended argument with Derrick. Thomas placed the first call and hung up. The 911 dispatcher called back and Derrick told the operator that there was no reason for the police to come, that Thomas was just trying to get them to show up, for no reason. But, according to Derrick, Thomas yelled, “help” loudly enough for the person at the other end of the phone to hear. On the basis of that call, officers were dispatched to the residence. Neither Thomas, nor Derrick, was in any physical danger from each other. In fact, Nicole Derrick told the Montana News that Thomas sat quietly on the couch, while waiting for the police to arrive.
 
Three police officers arrived and came into Derrick’s house. David Thomas complied by answering the police officers’ questions and appeared to be calm, until one of the officers returned from running both Derrick’s and Thomas’s names through NCIC. David Thomas was in violation of a Criminal Order of Protection, in which Nicole Derrick was listed as the alleged victim. Thomas is named in a Partner/Family Member Assault against Nicole and his case is still pending. One of the release conditions placed on Thomas was that he not contact Nicole Derrick. A “VOOP” (Violation of Order Protection) is committed if the alleged perpetrator of the assault contacts the victim or any of the witnesses involved, while the case is still pending. Although Derrick and Thomas had a Temporary Restraining Order dropped in civil court in November 2006, the Criminal Order of Protection cannot be dropped by the victim of the assault, as it is put in place by the criminal court judge.

The police officers confronted David Thomas with the fact that he had committed a VOOP and told him they were going to have to take him into custody. Derrick, not a party to the criminal case, had no idea what was going on or why Thomas was being apprehended. Thomas yelled he was not going back to jail and that is when the situation erupted.

According to Nicole Derrick, David Thomas became violent and aggressive towards the police, but that the police overreacted in their response to him. Thomas went into the kitchen and grabbed a pair of scissors, while the police officers were still in the living room, with Derrick partially in the kitchen, as well. Derrick claims the police used their Tasers on Thomas at least three times, while she was still in the kitchen. The Tasers did not seem to have any effect on Thomas, who was wearing a baggy sweatshirt. The police yelled at Derrick to get out of the kitchen and she fled to the bedroom. While in the bedroom, Derrick heard the Taser guns fire at least four more times, before she was able to get out of the house. Then, Derrick heard the gunshot. In the ensuing confusion, officers used a flash-bang device to subdue Thomas.
 
The majority of the physical struggle took place in both the kitchen and adjacent utility room. The utility room measures approximately 8 x 10 feet. It is there that a police officer discharged his handgun, at extremely close range to David Thomas. Was the officer involved an exceptionally poor shot, or did he grab the wrong weapon, thinking he had his Taser gun, instead?

There are several documented cases of officers confusing Taser guns with handguns. Is this another instance of officer weapon confusion? The Tasers used by the Billings Police Department are similar in shape, appearance and feel to the .40 Glock handguns the officers carry. Why would the officer discharge his gun at such close quarters, when his own life was not in danger?

PoliceOne Head Trainer Dave Smith says the confusion is predictable, as many law enforcement agencies have their officers place the non-lethal weapons in close proximity to their lethal weapons. At his website, www.policeone.com , Smith writes: “But the Taser is a different animal. It is used in less lethal situations, which will look like a much different set of "cues" to our senses. The position and training of that instrument must be done in a completely different manner than our handguns! One of the many problems we have to deal with is that our program or schema for drawing a handgun is or should be learned to an automatic level. It is done automatically whenever the proper cues, stimuli or threats are present. Once something is learned to that level after thousands of repetitions, it is difficult to change and damn near impossible to quickly forget.”

Nicole Derrick said the officers involved would not back down, once David Thomas threatened them with his scissors. Derrick was not allowed to try to “talk David down”; the officers moved into aggressive action with Thomas, repeatedly attempting to tase him. The trajectory of the bullet into the closet in the utility room shows that the officer had to have been in the utility room, in extremely close proximity to David Thomas, when he discharged his handgun. Was the officer reacting to “cues” that told him his life was in danger, or did he simply grab the wrong weapon?

The flash-bang device was detonated in the same small enclosure of the utility room. It is safe to assume that the officer who shot at David Thomas was not in the room with him, when the flash-bang device went off. At least, there is no report of the officer being affected in the same way as David Thomas. How and when did the officer get past Thomas and out of the utility room, between shooting at Thomas and Thomas being subdued by the flash-bang device? Perhaps that’s just more of the story that the Billings Police Department isn’t telling and doesn’t want the public to know.

Editor's Note: (In fairness to the Billings Police Chief St. Johns, he was not available for comment as he was in meetings at the time of press deadline of this story. No one was injured and that is what is important.)
 
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