A grand jury will decide whether police were justified in opening fire on a burglary suspect who was holding a 12-year-old boy at knifepoint in his home. Both the suspect and the boy were killed.
Police gunfire killed the boy, whose family had recently moved from Salt Lake City, early Thursday. The suspect had broken into his house, grabbed the boy from his bed and was holding a butcher knife to his throat.Officers went to the northeast Portland neighborhood after receiving a call about a burglary in progress a half-block away about 3:30 a.m. Thursday.
when they arrived at the first house, they found the burglar had fled. A police dog tracked the suspect to a basement window that had been forced open in the home of Dr. Greg Thomas, 38, and Martha McMurray, 45.
Officers waited to see if the suspect would come outside, then knocked on the door to tell the family to come outside.
When McMurray went to awaken her son Nathan, she found the man in his bed, holding a 12-inch knife to his throat. She screamed, and officers ran to the room.
"They told the suspect to release the boy and 'we'll let you out of here. We'll give you a free ticket, just let the boy go free,'" said police spokesman Derrick Foxworth. The man refused.
"The suspect was extremely irrational, extremely angry," Foxworth said.
The man got up with the boy, still holding the knife, and threatened to kill Nathan. The officers backed downstairs, where they continued to talk to the suspect at the top of the stairs, Foxworth said.
Meanwhile, two officers outside the house said they could see the man through a window and thought they had a clear shot at him, Foxworth said. Each fired one shot.
It was unclear whether the suspect was hit, but he still held the knife to the boy's throat, Foxworth said. The three officers inside the house then started up the stairs.
"At that time, the suspect appeared to be about to start slicing the boy's throat, and the three officers fired their weapons, fatally wounding the suspect and also striking the boy," Foxworth said.
The boy's parents and 7-year-old brother, Benjamin, sat in a nearby bedroom, listening as the shooting unfolded.
Adding to the confusion, a police car outside the house burst into flames about the same time as the shooting, apparently because of overheated brakes.
The man died at the scene. Nathan was rushed to Emanuel Hospital & Health Center, where he died at 8:45 a.m. after undergoing emergency surgery, hospital spokeswoman Sue Klein said. The boy had been shot in the head, Klein said.
The assailant was described as 25 to 30 years old. He carried no identification, and his fingerprints were being processed, Foxworth said.
Foxworth said the three officers were placed on administrative leave, at least until after the case has been presented to a grand jury. Counselors also have been made available to them.
"They are very, very traumatized and grief-stricken," he said. "This is something where the officers are going to have some very strong feelings to deal with, and it's very, very stressful.
"It's a nightmare none of us wants to find ourselves in."
Foxworth said there was no time to call in the special emergency response team. Two officers had revolvers and one had a Sig-Sauer semi-automatic .45-caliber handgun, he said.
Police declined to release the officers' names.
Nathan was described as "one of those little guys everybody likes" by Martha L. Frankovich, principal of Lowell Elementary, the school he had attended in Utah and where he was enrolled in the district's extended learning program.
The family moved to Portland last July but continued to correspond with teachers and classmates at the school, including a card just before Christmas.
Doctors and nurses at Salt Lake's Primary Children's Medical Center took the news of the youth's death hard, said Laura Winder, a hospital spokeswoman.
They had worked with his father, a pediatric oncologist, and also had treated Nathan as a patient.
Thomas is on the staff at Kasier-Permanente's East Interstate Medical Office in north Portland.
At Fernwood Middle School in Portland, where Nathan was a sixth-grader, teachers and students said they had lost a top student. Nathan earned a 3.8 grade point average despite a schedule that included advanced math and science classes.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Policies call for isolating an assailant
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Standard procedure in hostage situations calls for police to first try to control and isolate the situation before calling in a negotiating team or a special response team, police said Thursday after a former Utah boy was killed by police gunfire.
Nathan Thomas, 12, was being held at knifepoint by a burglary suspect Thursday when police shot and killed the man and accidentally killed the boy as well.
Sgt. Al Akers said that in this case, officers ended up facing an irrational man who moved out of a bedroom and into the hallway, holding a knife to the boy's throat.
"This is the nightmare in the back of the mind of every officer - prowler call," Akers said.
"This one today was a fluid situation," said police Lt. Roy Kindrick. "You have to be there. These decisions go like that," he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis.
Activating a special response team can take up to an hour, said assistant Portland Police Chief Wayne Inman. The officers on hand Thursday dealt with the situation without the help of the specially trained team.
"Sometimes the expectation of the public is that we are expert shots," Kindrick said. "But the John Wayne `shoot them out of the hand' doesn't happen."