In lawsuit, veteran Tacoma police officer says he was fired for not shooting to kill a suspect

TACOMA, Wash. — A 22-year veteran of the Tacoma Police Department says he was fired for an unusual reason: because he didn’t shoot to kill a man who had assaulted police officers.

“He didn’t kill the guy, and he lost his job,” said Brett Purtzer, the attorney representing former Lt. David O’Dea in a wrongful termination lawsuit against the department and the city. The trial is scheduled to start in May 2019.

The city’s formal answer to O’Dea’s complaint hints at its defense: broad denial of the allegations, and the idea that O’Dea was fired for poor judgment, not refusing to shoot to kill.

O’Dea, 53, was fired in June 2017. He filed the lawsuit earlier this year. The city contends that he was terminated for violating department policies regarding the use of deadly force.

“All I want to do is be a police officer, and I can’t do that anymore,” said O’Dea, also a 30-year military veteran who attained the rank of Navy captain. He served on active duty and in the Reserves.

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The firing followed a 10-month internal investigation tied to an August 2016 incident initially reported as road rage.

O’Dea, then a lieutenant and swing shift commander in the department’s patrol division, responded to the chaotic scene after hearing radio calls requesting a supervisor. He found three officers surrounding a car parked near the 3200 block of South Union Avenue. The driver, a 37-year-old man, was sitting inside the car with the doors locked and a hoodie pulled over his head, possibly suffering from mental-health issues.

According to court records, the driver refused to get out of the car, rammed a patrol car, tried to drive away from the scene despite being hemmed in, made a tight turn in the parking lot and headed for O’Dea.

“The Nissan swerved towards the east to avoid colliding with the SUV, accelerating directly towards Lt. O’Dea,” court records state. “As it passed, Lt. O’Dea discharged his firearm several times towards the driver’s side of the vehicle.”

Moments later, the driver, Jose Manuel Mendoza-Davalos, was hit with a stun-gun shot, pulled out of the car and arrested. The statement describing the incident appears in the criminal charges later filed against him. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to third-degree assault.

Mendoza-Davalos received minor injuries in the incident, but no gunshot wounds; the shots O’Dea fired struck the car, not the driver.

That’s what O’Dea contends he was trying to do while making decisions in microseconds. In a recent interview, he said other officers were behind the car, and he didn’t want to risk hitting them.

“I began shooting at the vehicle in an attempt to stop the assault,” he said. “I could not shoot at the driver. Had I shot at the driver of the vehicle, they (the officers) would have been in my line of fire.”

O’Dea’s version of events forms the centerpiece of his lawsuit. Assistant City Attorney Jean Homan, who is handling the case, declined to comment on the details.

Court records indicate that an examination by the city’s deadly force review board and a separate internal investigation reached the same conclusions: O’Dea didn’t follow department policy regarding the use of deadly force. Records of those reviews were given to Police Chief Don Ramsdell, who made the final decision to terminate O’Dea.

The department’s policy covers 11 pages, listing various techniques and options for different situations. One phrase likely to be argued in the lawsuit describes how officers should respond to dangerous subjects in moving vehicles.

“Deadly force should not be used against a subject in a moving vehicle unless it is necessary to protect against imminent danger to the life of the Officer or others,” the policy states.

O’Dea contends he felt his life was in danger. Records of his lawsuit indicate that internal reviews disputed that idea and downplayed the possibility.

The lawsuit also contends the internal reviews were flawed, and that department investigators didn’t examine the full record of the incident. The city denies those allegations in its court filings.

The suit compares the handling of O’Dea to other incidents involving deadly force, including the 2016 death of Jacqueline Salyers, shot as she tried to drive away from Tacoma officers. The same review processes followed that incident, which was not deemed to violate department policy.

“My conclusion is if you hurt somebody the department will rule that as within policy so as to limit the liability it has in any civil action,” O’Dea said. “If nobody gets hurt, the department disciplines the officer. I believe what I did that day was not only in my best interest and in the best interest of the suspect — he’s alive today — but also in the best interest of the department.”

KIRO