'Critical incident' protocol not followed in dog shooting

COEUR d’ALENE — There’s a difference in how law enforcement personnel typically describe officer-involved shootings: People are shot and killed. Dogs and deer are dispatched.

In the case of Arfee, a black Lab shot to death July 9 by a Coeur d’Alene police officer, the investigation is being handled much differently than if the officer had fired at a human.

Officer-involved “critical incidents” in North Idaho — specifically resulting in injury or death — are investigated according to a protocol established and agreed upon by law enforcement agencies and prosecuting attorneys. This protocol, which touts itself as “vital to the continuing public confidence” in law enforcement agencies, was not used by the Coeur d’Alene Police Department in the matter of the officer’s shooting of the dog.

“Past practice is this is designed for a person,” said Coeur d’Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood.

Instead of asking another agency to investigate, Coeur d’Alene police are investigating for themselves a shooting involving one of their own and then — together with city administrators — establishing a board to review the department’s findings.

An agency’s decision to use the so-called “Officer Involved Critical Incident Investigation” protocol, according to one law enforcement source, is at the department’s discretion.

“It’s properly intended to be broad-based,” said John Parmann, Region 1 training specialist for Idaho Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST). Parmann said the dog shooting could be considered a critical incident.

“In a different type of situation, this could be very much a nonissue or have very little public interest,” he said. “This one has maximum public interest.”

News reports on the shooting that killed Arfee, Craig Jones’ 2-year-old Labrador, have circled the globe. In the wake of the shooting, the police department has fielded angry phone calls and emails, intense public ridicule, and even death threats against the officer.

The officer, whose name has yet to be released, was responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle mistakenly connected to reports of child enticement. He fired one shot through the window of Jones’ van, killing Arfee.

The Coeur d’Alene Police Department issued a press release saying a “pit bull” lunged at an officer and was “dispatched.”

Jones left Arfee in the car with the window partially rolled down while he was inside Java on Sherman coffee shop. When he came outside, the officers were gone. There was a bullet hole in his van window, an officer’s business card on his windshield and Arfee’s blood on the seat of his van.

If Coeur d’Alene police had chosen to activate the Critical Incident protocol, the investigation — from the outset — would have been handled differently.

Immediately, another law enforcement agency would have been notified and designated as the lead investigative agency. Meanwhile, the officer’s employing agency would conduct its own internal investigation.

The protocol designates specific duties for everyone involved, from the officer who fired his weapon to officers who arrive at the scene to those from the agency designated to investigate.

Several witnesses who spoke to the media in the aftermath of the Coeur d’Alene shooting said officers at the scene did not interview them.

Java neighbor Jessi Johnson came outside after hearing the gunshot and watched the scene unfold.

In the short time between the shooting and Jones exiting the restaurant and returning to his van, other officers had arrived, removed the dog and left the scene.

Johnson said she — not the police — informed a distraught Jones of what had happened.

“An officer came across the street over to my yard and said ‘It was a vicious pit bull that tried to lunge out and attack my partner.’ We told him we just saw them load a black Lab and he knows what a black Lab looks like versus a pit bull; anybody knows that,” Johnson said.

The protocol dictates that officers secure the scene, putting up barrier tape, limiting access and protecting evidence.

Johnson estimated the additional officers who arrived at the scene stayed no longer than a few minutes. There was no crime scene tape, no evidence gathered.

Police Chief Ron Clark said the department will conduct a “complete and thorough” internal investigation, followed by a review by city administrators and the city attorney’s office, and then review by a third party.

Wood said the department’s investigation is being handled similarly to other incidents that don’t involve injury to a person.

“We have had to dispatch dogs and deer in the past,” Wood said. “In those circumstances we put together an internal shooting review board for policy and legal compliance.”

Coeur d’Alene City Attorney Mike Gridley said if an officer had shot and killed a human, someone “not affiliated with the city” would look at this.

His office, he said, normally wouldn’t even be involved. Mayor Steve Widmyer, however, contacted him, Gridley said.

“From the administrative perspective, they’re interested in seeing an independent investigation,” Gridley said.

Gridley said his department was asked for suggestions on how that could be handled.

Wood said Friday that the third party will be a board chosen by the department and Gridley’s office “for review purposes only.”

“They will not be conducting a separate investigation,” she said.

All findings and reports will be released to the public at that point, Wood said, with the exception of documents that are personnel-related.

Parmann said one reason the Critical Incident Investigation protocol was established is to reassure the public that an investigation is objective.

“Credibility is important in this whole thing,” he said. “I don’t know what happened out there. I’m relying on a very thorough and objective investigation to find out what happened.”

In a public apology, Clark said he will do everything he can to keep an event like Arfee’s death from happening again.

The events of July 9 can’t be changed, Parmann said, but they can be learned from.

“If corrections need to be made in procedures, that will be done,” Parmann said. “It’s a learning opportunity for everyone, the public, agency heads and the people who train the officers and supervise the officers. Everybody has the opportunity to learn from this.”

The officer, who has been assigned to desk duty, will likely have the incident weighing on him his whole career, Parmann said.

“You’re out there and you have to make the right decision every time,” Parmann said. “Right, wrong or indifferent, you only have mere seconds to respond. You know that going in, that your actions are going to be evaluated after the fact.

“You have to accept that, whether you made the right decision or you didn’t. Hopefully this is something where the outcome will be a learning experience for everybody.”