Ron The Cop - A lie told often enough becomes the truth. » Creach OIS – Tucker makes decision on incomplete report/investigation

November 2024
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Nov
	1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

SCROLL FOR UPDATES

Re: Creach OIS investigation

Dear Mr. Tucker

From your emails to the media last week, it appears that you will release your finding/decision this week in the Creach OIS investigation.

CAUTION – the OIS reports as presented to you are incomplete and leave issues/questions unanswered and unaddressed. An informed decision whether this tragic shooting was criminally justified or not – is not possible at this point.

Why you didn’t send this OIS report immediately back to the OIS investigative team for further investigation is beyond me. Even though SPD sent several emails asking if you required any additional information, the general answer was from your office was no. Why? Perhaps as discovered by KREM2 in their report Cage Fight; the timing of your decision had more do to with your then pending election for County Prosecutor than a search for the truth as to what actually happened in this tragic event. Unfortunately the voters returned you to office because the two viable Republican candidates took each other out in the primary. Because this was a Republican year those Republican voters who voted a straight ticket return you to office. Apparently they did not notice the Republican Part did not endorse your reelection. I will continue to hold you accountable for your actions or more appropriately your inaction and lack of leadership in the law enforcement community as this County’s chief law enforcement officer.

As I’ve disclosed many times before, I am not the Creach family’s private investigator nor am I their law enforcement expert that is reviewing this information. The Creach family sought me out through mutual contacts. I have not been retained by them and only being reimbursed for copying fees. I have freely shared with them the information I have obtained by filing PDRs. I have not provided them with any detailed analysis of the material I have received. They gave me the 733 page redacted report, the ME report and the autopsy photos. I have since obtained by PDRs the subsequent police reports by SPD Det. Hamond and the WSP forensic reports after the initial report was released, the scene photographs, the 911 Call center computer log file, the Dispatch Center’s CAD Call Incident History with the SECOND marks. I will be filing one more PDR regarding time stamping information that has just occurred to me that may be useful regarding the time line. Much of this information was made available to you by the beginning of October 2010.

I am truly sorry if my expectations exceed the local standard of performance but I would have not given such an investigation leaving so many unanswered and unaddressed questions to my district attorney for a criminal review. I would have sought to address these questions to the best of my ability prior to referring the report for review. If I hadn’t done so, my district attorney would have simply sent it back for more investigation. Please see the attached commendations of my work product by both CA deputy district attorneys and my former command staff.

Based on my review of the reports you now have I will stand by my professional opinion as I state above.

I met with WSP Sgt. Ken Wade last Friday for two hours after returning from Orlando, FL. Sgt. Wade emailed me while I was out of town after the OIS investigative team’s meeting last Tuesday to consider the new CAD history information. Sgt. Wade is aware I’m in the process of preparing a report/analysis for Sheriff Knezovich and him and wanted my report as soon as possible. I agreed to meet with him to give him a briefing summary. I expressed my concerns where this investigation was lacking as it was given to you. I suggest you talk with Sgt. Wade regarding my concerns. It is apparent that the OIS team has considered some of these issues but this is not reflected and or documented very well in the existing reports. I do not necessarily agree with the OIS teams rationalizations and conclusions regarding some of these issues.

I know we are inclined to give officers the benefit of the doubt as to their statements but there are times when a few amongst in our ranks do cross the line and commit criminal acts. Spokane is not immune as documented in the book, Breaking Blue, chronicling Sheriff Bamonte’s investigation. My agency has had its share too. One case in particular stands out in my memory which came to be known as, “Jake in the lake case.” A drunk filed a complaint that officers drove him to a nearby lake and threw him in. On the surface this sounded unbelievable but our investigators kept digging. It was discovered that this man’s lungs contained an algae that was specific to this lake. This case was criminally prosecuted and the officers involved were terminated. More recently another an off duty officer committed an armed robbery.

The key areas in need of further study/discussion are the time line/sequence of this event independent of the statements of Deputy Hirzel, the entry/trajectory angle of the bullet wound, the blood trails/stains – the possibility that the body was moved, and the inconsistencies in Dep. Hirzel’s statements based on the evidence, forensics and other information. I would have not concluded this case without a fourth interview with Dep. Hirzel and doing other investigation to confirm, corroborate and or clarify these inconsistencies to the best of my ability. Please remember the OIS investigators attempted to get the CAD history in seconds but were told by the experts this was not available. Because of my knowledge and experience I was able to retrieve this important information.

As an instructor in criminal justice, my interest in the Creach OIS is academic. My intent was also in a positive manner provide constructive critique of my law enforcement colleagues’ work product to improve its substance and quality. OIS investigations must be A+ level work not only because for the important criminal review but for the subsequent IA review re police policy and procedure to prevent further like incidents and to minimize the potential financial losses that the public must ultimately bare. The public must have confidence in the review process or collectively the law enforcement community will lose the trust of the public we serve. Lastly because of my unique professional experience, as a private citizen I am very concerned about the fraud, waste, and abuse of public funds readily apparent in the Spokane Region that are in excess of $100 millions of dollars. I don’t relish having to bare the burden and expense of poor decision making by those who have the duty and responsibility to mitigate these expenses. When law enforcement fails to acknowledge and recognize when mistakes were made and to take corrective/appropriate action, the potential civil damages only multiply.

Some have sought to diminish and marginalize my professional experience and opinion by saying I’ve made wild speculations. Some pubic officials have attempted to silence me by accusing me of libel when I discovered my emails regarding my PDRs related to the Creach OIS investigation were being blocked/quarantined. I later learned after filing a PDR for the computer forensics, this was done at the specific direction of City Attorney Howard Delaney earlier in the year during my investigation of the City’s CFO Gavin Cooley for misuse of the professional title CPA on the City’s website. Neither Chief Kirkpatrick nor Mr. Delaney have specified where I libeled Chief Kirkpatrick after sever requests by me and Larry Shook to do so. Some have dismissed the validity of my opinions because I was never a lead OIS investigator.

While it is true I was never the lead investigator in an OIS, I was involved OISs in many assisting roles including that of a two-term police union president representing the legal rights of officers of an agency with over 500 sworn and civilian personnel. It was during the service of one of my search warrants that an armed suspect was approaching the front door with the intent of shooting the officers at the door. Fortunately because my intel/tactical planning, our SWAT officers made entry from another direction, confronted and shot this suspect who was later convicted of attempted murder of a police officer. I reviewed and successfully filed 1000s of criminal cases during my thirty-five year career from the simple to very complex criminal conspiracies. These cases required a wide range of investigative skills including forensic financial and computer expertise. It was my skills that were directly responsible for the identification and arrest of a suspect that ran over and murdered a young woman with her own car that he was stealing.

My agency, the Riverside Police Department (Riverside, CA), during my time there had several famous and/or infamous cases in it’s history – The Norco Bank Robbery, the Tyisha Miller shooting, and the hostage situation where members of our City Council were shot in a room adjacent to the City Council Chambers. I’m very sensitive to police ambush shootings. Four officers killed in two separate ambush related shootings and another two in other shootings during my time at RPD. RPD just lost another officer several months ago in a gun related incident (See RPD Memorial Page). Law enforcement agencies in our immediate vicinity also lost many more officers to gun related shootings.

Mr. Tucker, you sir, have a sworn duty to the people of Spokane to objectively review these OIS investigations. Your office is a procedural system check on law enforcement’s collective work product and actions. I’m sorry to say in the Zehm death case and in the Jo Ellen Savage manslaughter case, you accepted law enforcement work product at face value and failed in your sworn duty to the people. The US Attorney’s Office has apparently found evidence of an overt cover up by SPD in the Zehm case. In the Savage case in my opinion you committed malfeasance in office by not requiring a complete and thorough criminal investigation that would have followed the evidence to its logical conclusion before you rendered your opinion that there was insufficient evidence to warrant a criminal filing.

I AM NOT saying there was any cover up in the Creach case or that a criminal filing is warranted.

In NO WAY do I wish to diminish the work of the OIS investigation team in the Creach case as I believe there were political forces attendant that forced them to hand off this case before these issues could be adequately addressed.

Mr. Tucker I challenge you to actually hold a press conference when you issue your opinion to defend your position before the media and public instead of retreating from public view by merely issuing a press release as has been your past practice. This is your duty as the chief law enforcement officer of this County. I will also be challenging the local media not to let you do this yet again. This has all to do with maintaining the confidence and trust by the public these OIS investigations are indeed complete, thorough and credible.

As Alan Creach succinctly said in Friday’s S-R article by Thomas Clouse:

The larger question, however, is “ ‘How can you justify killing a senior citizen who comes out to investigate what he perceives to be a theft in progress?’ ” Alan Creach said. “What we have tried to articulate from the beginning is that they have to deal with the community from a perspective of integrity, even if it looks bad for the department.”

Mr. Tucker please remember while your office enjoys absolute immunity when prosecuting a case, in the investigative and filing phase your office only has qualified immunity.

Sincerely yours,

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)

UPDATE I

Email I sent to SPD Lt. McGovern

Lt. McGovern,

You have my previous emails to Prosecutor Steve Tucker and his staff and my recent emails with WSP Sgt. Ken Wade. I don’t know if you have the briefing summary that I provided Sgt. Wade yet last Friday. I’ve further refined my time line from this briefing. See below.

Please carefully review my challenge to Prosecutor Steve Tucker for my over all assessment of this OIS investigation and my relationship with the Creach family. I’m am fully aware that SPD contacted Prosecutor Tucker several times and asked if he needed further investigation and the his general answer was no. I realize that there were political interests that were beyond the control of your investigators in the timing of handing off this OIS investigation for criminal review.

I am sharing this information with the Creach family as this information is generally known now and won’t potentially compromised my recommendations for further investigation. Perhaps they can convince Mr. Tucker that more investigation is necessary before he can make a finding in this case.

As I cautioned Prosecutor Steve Tucker in my email:

By your tolerance of mediocre LE work product a clear pattern and practice is emerging. The question is in which cases is this tolerance intentional/overt in suborning the obstruction of justice and those in which merely are the result of inexperience or incompetence.

In NO WAY do I wish to diminish the work of the OIS investigation team in the Creach case as I believe there were political forces attendant that forced them to hand off this case before these issues could be adequately addressed.

Mr. Tucker please remember while your office enjoys absolute immunity when prosecuting a case, in the investigative and filing phase your office only has qualified immunity.
I’m aware that Prosecutor Tucker has scheduled a meeting with the Creach family tomorrow. If Mr. Tucker follows his past practice in these incidents of significant interest to the public, he will merely issue a press release and not be available to the media to defend his decision. I will not allow him to duck yet again his responsibility this time.

The purpose of my email is to establish an official record of my concerns re Prosecutor Tucker’s decision is being made without all the relevant facts/evidence attendant to this incident. For all of those involved in this investigation I wouldn’t seek cover in any decision/finding by Mr. Tucker from discharging your own sworn duties and responsibilities to the citizens of Spokane.

Also could you please confirm the receipt of this email as I have a separate issue with City Attorney Howard Delaney regarding my emails being blocked/quarantined by him.

Sincerely

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)

Timing sequence of the event:

Det. Hamond did try to establish the time line from the various computer sources. The CAD call incident history of this event shows Dep. Hirzel logging out of service on a prowl check at 14114 E. 4^th by MDT/CDT entry at 23:00:07 Hrs local time (PDT). A dispatcher (ID 591401) verified this address as entered by Dep. Hirzel as being a valid address in the geo mapping database at 23:05 Hrs. Computer forensics of Dep. Hirzel’s laptop computer shows the traffic ticket he says he was working on shortly after parking his unit in the Plant Farm parking lot, was accessed at 11:06:15 Hrs. (23:06:15 Hrs) (Pages 234 and 248).

Dep. Hirzel says he was approaching 4^th St. when he entered this address for the prowl check. Dep. Hirzel says this call was already in the CAD system (Pages 527, 528, 539, 560 and 561). According to 911 Call Center Supervisor Scott who I spoke with said this is not the case. This prowl check call was not in CAD prior to Dep. Hirzel’s entry at 23:00:07 Hrs. as designated by the (*) in front of his unit designator – B606.

Dep. Hirzel says shortly after parking his unit he pulled up his traffic accident report on his laptop. Dep. Hirzel says he then pulled the ticket file up to make the necessary edit as requested by his Sgt. Dep. Hirzel says he did a cut/paste from the traffic accident file to the ticket file. Dep. Hirzel says he hadn’t done any editing yet when he first saw Creach approaching.

The CAD call incident history shows an entry, “Control G S/2” at 23:07 Hrs. followed by, “Shots fired” at 23:07 Hrs. I’m assuming the entry, Control, was a manual keyboard entry by a dispatcher of the radio call by Dep. Hirzel saying, Code 6. I’m assuming the entry of shots fired was also a manual entry. These are manual CAD log entries and may be slightly delayed from real time, as the dispatcher must type the info in. The first keystroke is probably what generates the computer time stamp. This was later confirmed with 911 Call Center Supv. Scott.

Det. Hamond listened to the radio traffic voice recordings. Det. Hamond determined that ten seconds elapsed between Dep. Hirzel calling Code 6 and shots fired (Page 84). The second marks can also be established by the time stamping of the radio traffic audio recording. I filed a PDR for the audio recorder time stamping with the SCSO and learned that Det. Hamond noted the times as 23:07:15 Hrs. (Code 6) and 23:07:25 Hrs. (Shots fired). I may have overlooked this information but I did not see this in the reports.

I filed a PDR with Spokane County’s 911 Call Center for the 911 call received from Mrs. Creach after hearing the shot. See attached 911 computer log file of this call/incident. This 911 call was initiated at 23:07:53 Hrs. as logged by the 911 Call Center computer/telephone switch as it was received from a Qwest Tel Co. trunk line. The call was answered by the call center at 23:08.01 Hrs. Ernie Creach said his mother was at the window when she heard the shot. She then went to get the phone from near the bed across the room. She then crossed back across the room. According to Ernie Creach his mother misdialed the first time and redialed as she was went to the window. Ernie Creach has timed the actions of his mother to be approximately 20 seconds before the 911 call connected.

I filed a PDR with SPD who owns the CAD system to determine what the actual seconds were in the time 23:07 Hrs. logged for the entries of Code 6 and shots fired that were rounded to the minute by the CAD system software program.

The CAD incident call history now in seconds:

Entered: 23:00:47 Hrs via MDT by Dep. Hirzel

Location GEO verified by dispatch at: 23:05:56 Hrs.

Code 6: 23:07:35 Hrs radio trans by Dep. Hirzel by dispatch manual entry

Shoots fired: 23:07:49 Hrs radio trans by Dep. Hirzel by dispatch manual entry

The 911 computer/tel switch and CAD computers are in sync within one second of each other. See CAD entry at 23:08:03 Hrs. when info from Mrs. Creach’s 911 call is info merged into this call history.

I did suggest to Ernie Creach that he verify the time of his mother’s digital clock to actual time before there was a power failure:

I have double checked her clock. It is fast by almost exactly 1 minute 30 seconds. I have referenced this to my cell phone, and double checked my cell phone with 2 other atomic clock in dad’s office. The cell phone and dad’s 2 atomic clocks turned over at almost exactly the same time within a second. With that I took a second hand watch and watched the clock in mom’s bedroom and when that clock changed the second hand went almost exactly 30 seconds before my cell phone rolled up another minute. Basically when mom saw 11:06 on her clock dad would likely have left the bedroom at 11:05 +- 30 seconds when synced to GPS. I did contact our lawyer and relayed my concern that we officially test and document in an official way.

The Creach family has timed the actions and likely route of Creach once being aroused by Dep. Hirzel’s presence in the parking lot from his bedroom, grabbing his gun, leaving the residence and walking to the location of the police unit at approximately 90 seconds.

The time line of this incident is absolutely critical to this OIS investigation as it relates to the voracity of Dep. Hirzel’s statements. The ending time can be approximated within several seconds of +/- 23:07:30 Hrs from Mrs. Creach’s 911 call, the CAD history time stamps, and the radio transmission audio record. Until the audio recorder’s time stamping is verified I will give precedent to the 911 and CAD computers.

The beginning time of this event is not so definitive. Assuming Dep. Hirzel is truthful when he entered this call by MDT and his location at the time, he parked his unit at the Plant Farm after 23:00:47 Hrs. Assuming Dep. Hirzel did parked his unit shortly before he accessed the ticket file at 23:06:15 Hrs, this puts him in the parking lot no later than 23:06:15 Hrs. subject to the laptop time stamp (See below).

Assuming that Creach was not out on his property prior to Dep. Hirzel parking his unit and the family’s time estimate of 90 seconds is reasonably accurate, this puts Creach preparing to leave his residence at no later than 23:06:00 Hrs based on the timing of the shot. Of course this could vary somewhat by the ten seconds that it required Creach to walk to the unit from when Dep. Hirzel says he first observed Creach.

The question is just how much earlier did Dep. Hirzel actually park his unit? This is the bracket of time that this incident occurred and the possible time for all of the actions described by Dep. Hirzel to have occurred.

Recommendation:

I have determined the time line of this event by certain computer forensic information by filing PDRs. There is additional information that may aid in further refining this time line of a technical computer nature that is not a public record obtainable by filing PDRs. This information is potentially available from questioning radio/data communication and other IT/technical personnel that maintain these systems.

Because of the nature of this specific OIS investigation and the critical nature of the time line of this event, this additional information should sought if at all possible now. This information will inevitably be the subject of discovery in later civil actions.

What known time source is Dep. Hirzel’s laptop syncing and at what frequency? Is this time source in turn synced to a GMT/UMT source? This laptop while functioning as a MDT/CDT may time sync from the radio data stream via the unit’s radio transceiver. If not it appears it the laptop may sync when it is in range of a Wi-Fi source. According to the reports Det. Hamond learned that Dep. Hirzel’s laptop time is reset whenever it comes into Wi-Fi range. Other deputies’ laptops could be surveyed to determine what the average +/- deviations are the norm.

What time source are the 911 Call Center computer and the dispatch CAD computer syncing? Is this time source in turn synced to a GMT/UMT source? How often do these computers resync? It’s apparent from the CAD call incident history that these computers on the night of incident were in sync within +/- one second.

The audio recorder probably is a stand-alone piece of equipment. Since the 911 Call Center, Crime Check and the SCSO/SPD Combined Dispatch Center are all physical located at the same location, more than likely this is a multi-track digital recorder that is recording the 911 and crime check calls as well as all of the active radio channels. If so, what is known time source is this recorder synced, at what frequency and what is the +/- deviation from the 911 computer and CAD computer? It is possible the time stamp of this recorder is done manually on an infrequent basis. If the actual real time deviation can’t be established at this late date, the radio transmission audio recording running time stamp can be compared with Mrs. Creach’s 911 call and the relative +/- deviation between these systems can be determined on the night of the incident.

Police Policy and Procedure – time syncing of critical computer systems

Since all of these systems are most likely physically located at the same location an effort should be made to ensure these systems are syncing to a known GMT/UMT source at a regular interval. The servicing/maintenance personnel of these systems are probably either governmental employees and or vendors spread across several jurisdictional entities. The agencies that are serviced by this call/dispatch center should come together and make this a priority of the call/dispatch center.