Pubdate: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI) Copyright: 1996 The Associated Press Contact: http://www.jsonline.com/general/30627794.html Website: http://www.jsonline.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265 Author: Robert Imrie, Associated Press FATAL SHOOTINGS BY POLICE JUMP Study Shows Biggest Increase Away From Cities Law enforcement officers in Wisconsin shot and killed 36 people during the past five years more than triple the number of fatal shootings by police the previous half decade, an Associated Press review found. The biggest jump came in shootings deemed justifiable or accidental by officers outside of the state's major cities and their suburbs places like Tomah, Gillett, Bayfield, Schofield and Beaver Dam. An attorney for the family of one of the victims a 76-year-old rural Gillett farmer shot in the back last February said the numbers are "astounding" and show a need for closer scrutiny of law enforcement practices. "I think it is a certain high-handedness that is becoming more prevalent," Appleton lawyer Mary Lou Robinson said. "I often say I think the officers watch too much television." Others say the shootings are simply a product of reality. "Rural areas are no longer little enclaves where you haven't got desperate people," said Jack Ladinsky, a sociology professor specializing in criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The reality of crime today is it is less and less a downtown urban phenomenon." The AP computer-assisted review of records from the state Office of Justice Assistance and local law enforcement agencies showed that from 1986 through 1995, 46 people were fatally shot by Wisconsin police officers. Of those, 36 were killed between 1991 and 1995. From 1986 through 1990, only one of the 10 victims was killed outside of Milwaukee County. From 1991 through 1995, 12 of the victims were killed by officers in rural areas or cities with fewer than 50,000 people, compared with 15 in Milwaukee County and nine in the Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay areas. In 1995, all but one of eight fatal shootings by police occurred far from the state's largest cities. Shawano County Sheriff William Aschenbrener blames "a lack of respect, from the youth right on up, just for everything. . . . I am shocked there aren't more officers killed." An attorney has been hired by the family of 29-year-old Scott Bryant of Beaver Dam. He was fatally shot by a Dodge County sheriff's detective who burst into his home about 10 p.m. last April 17 to serve a search warrant in a marijuana probe. A report from special prosecutor Robert Wells said the shooting "was not in any form justified." But Detective Robert Neuman, who told investigators he does not remember pulling the trigger, was not disciplined because he violated no agency policy, Sheriff Stephen Fitzgerald said. The AP review found that of the 13 fatal shootings outside of major cities and their suburbs, four people ended up dead after law enforcement officers tried to serve a warrant or made a traffic stop. In the rest, officers were responding to calls for help and confrontations escalated into shootings. In four cases, the victims challenged police to kill them. "It's over. I am not coming out of this," Michael S. Anderson, 21, told police Feb. 3, 1994, as they negotiated for him to surrender from a Tomah motel room. Anderson, who had robbed three businesses that day and vowed to never return to prison, eventually opened the door, crouched and pointed a gun toward three officers. They fired 17 shots, hitting Anderson four times. In the Shawano County shooting, three deputies got into a confrontation with Reinhold Deering of rural Gillett after driving to his farm at 12:45 a.m. with just their parking lights on to serve a misdemeanor arrest warrant for damaging a motorcycle in a bar parking lot and failing to show up for court. The deputies said Deering, who lived alone, came out with a shotgun. James Reich, the deputy who fired 11 shots at the farmer, striking him twice, said Deering fired one shot at another officer and then pointed the gun at him. Walter Deering of Shawano said "my brother was actually murdered. The autopsy indicated he was shot in the back. . . . They can't go out there at that time of night on a lousy misdemeanor." Even the special prosecutor who investigated the shooting, Oconto County District Attorney Jay Conley, questioned that practice. Still he ruled the shooting was the fault of Deering. "It is my sad conclusion that serving the warrant on Mr. Deering at 12:45 a.m. at his residence where he lay sleeping, combined with Mr. Deering's instability, created an explosive mix that resulted in tragedy," Conley wrote. Ladinsky, the criminal justice professor, said to second-guess police is difficult. But with an increase in violent crime, certainly there are "edgy cops." "I don't think they are talking as much as they used to, in part because they have the view that talking is going to lead to a greater disaster," Ladinsky said.