BF2S Forums Otto Zehm

Saturday, 19 April 2006 - 2 women called the police when a "suspicious looking man" left a bank.

Minutes later, at 6:26 p.m., Otto Zehm walked into the Zip Trip at 1712 N. Division, and within seconds he was attacked by police officers.

On the grainy surveillance tape, the blue flash of a Taser is visible, but the aisles obscure much of the confrontation. Officer Thompson and other witnesses say that Zehm held a pop bottle, which the officer reportedly feared could be used as a "significant weapon."

Responding officers described Zehm as a swinging, growling suspect who fought ferociously. Eventually seven officers responded – about half the patrol that night.

Officer Ron Voeller said Zehm appeared incoherent but paused once to say, "All I wanted was a Snickers."

Zehm was hogtied, and an officer placed a modified breathing mask on his face to prevent him from spitting. Lawyers for Zehm's family contend he stopped breathing about three minutes after the officer applied the mask, which was never attached to an oxygen tank.

Zehm died two days later.

On Thursday afternoon, the city called a news conference to release the video. Lee said the video shows Zehm "clearly holding a pop bottle and clearly swinging at Officer Thompson."

But Zehm appears to be holding the bottle in front of his face. He moves it side to side three times before the bottle falls out of view and he stops moving. It's then that Thompson applies the first Taser jolt and the two men are seen wrestling out of view.

Asked later where in the video it shows Zehm "swinging" at Thompson, Lee backed off his earlier description. Lee said "swinging" was probably too strong word. He said the video shows Zehm holding the bottle above his head, moving it back and forth.

While the video appears to put to rest the bottle issue, it does not show other aggressive actions by Zehm as described by Thompson in his report.

Thompson told Ferguson specific details about the moments before he used his Taser, which is shown in the new video.

"I am able to get him, to knock him down. He goes down on his back and I go down on top of him. He clearly at this point is swinging both fists at me," Thompson said in a taped report March 22. "I remember pulling back away to get some distance to get away from his punches and I was on my feet and I also realized that I had just moments if I was going to be able to Tase him.

"There was a period of maybe seconds when he was lying on the ground. I moved out of his fist range … he was stationary," Thompson said. "That was the opportunity I used to shoot the Taser."

At no time during the video released Thursday does it appear to show Zehm punching at Thompson.

After being jolted with the Taser, Zehm again began struggling and both men moved back down the aisle out of view. Other camera angles recorded the six other officers who came to aid Thompson in restraining Zehm.

They eventually hogtied Zehm by placing nylon straps on his legs and cinching them up to his handcuffs. The video shows that the officers mostly kept Zehm on his stomach, a position that police officials say officers are trained to avoid because it restricts breathing.

Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker said last week that he has hired a video forensic expert to review the surveillance videos and that review is expected to delay up to a month his decision about whether the officers committed any crimes during the confrontation.

Medical Examiner Sally Aiken has ruled that Zehm died from lack of oxygen to the brain due to heart failure while being restrained on his stomach. But there was no mention of the mask in Aiken's findings that Acting Chief Jim Nicks released to the public May 30.

Beggs has since asked Aiken to review her cause of death while taking into account the use of the mask. "We are still waiting from the coroner her opinion whether the mask was a contributing factor to his death," Beggs said.