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Cop kills armed guest at Campbell motel
The unnamed officer who was first to arrive saw the man standing on the balcony and ordered him numerous times to drop the knife, according to the statement by Capt. Russ Patterson. When the man advanced on the officer, the cop fired his Taser, hoping the electric charge would temporarily disable him. It didn't.
Posted on Thu, Sep. 08, 2005
Cop kills armed guest at Campbell motel
MAN REFUSED TO DROP KNIFE, POLICE SAY
By Chuck Carroll
Mercury News
A Campbell police officer shot and killed a knife-wielding man at a local motel Wednesday night after a ``stun gun'' failed to stop the man's advance toward him, the police department said.
A police statement said officers were called to the Motel 6, at Camden and Curtner avenues, at about 10:40 p.m. A man was reportedly standing on a balcony and screaming that someone was in his room.
The unnamed officer who was first to arrive saw the man standing on the balcony and ordered him numerous times to drop the knife, according to the statement by Capt. Russ Patterson. When the man advanced on the officer, the cop fired his Taser, hoping the electric charge would temporarily disable him. It didn't.
When the man advanced again, the officer fired his handgun, Patterson said. The man was taken to the hospital, but he died while being treated.
No one was found in the man's motel room, according to police.
Patterson the names of the dead man and the officer would probably be released late this afternoon.
The shooting, which remains under investigation, will be reviewed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.
Contact Chuck Carroll at ccarroll [at] mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5206.
Cop kills armed guest at Campbell motel
MAN REFUSED TO DROP KNIFE, POLICE SAY
By Chuck Carroll
Mercury News
A Campbell police officer shot and killed a knife-wielding man at a local motel Wednesday night after a ``stun gun'' failed to stop the man's advance toward him, the police department said.
A police statement said officers were called to the Motel 6, at Camden and Curtner avenues, at about 10:40 p.m. A man was reportedly standing on a balcony and screaming that someone was in his room.
The unnamed officer who was first to arrive saw the man standing on the balcony and ordered him numerous times to drop the knife, according to the statement by Capt. Russ Patterson. When the man advanced on the officer, the cop fired his Taser, hoping the electric charge would temporarily disable him. It didn't.
When the man advanced again, the officer fired his handgun, Patterson said. The man was taken to the hospital, but he died while being treated.
No one was found in the man's motel room, according to police.
Patterson the names of the dead man and the officer would probably be released late this afternoon.
The shooting, which remains under investigation, will be reviewed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.
Contact Chuck Carroll at ccarroll [at] mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5206.
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IMC Network
Man is fatally shot by police officer
Suzanne Herel
Friday, September 9, 2005
A Campbell police officer shot and killed a man who allegedly lunged at him with a knife at a Motel 6, authorities said Thursday.
Campbell police Capt. Russ Patterson said the incident had begun at 10:40 p.m. Wednesday when someone from the motel called to report that a man was yelling that someone was in his room.
Officers found Campbell resident Steven Loren Fountain, 24, on the motel balcony, "obviously agitated'' and holding a knife. They ordered Fountain to drop the weapon, Patterson said. Instead, he said, Fountain charged Officer Brian Sessions, who shot him with a stun gun.
When that didn't stop Fountain, the officer shot Fountain with his handgun four times in the legs and torso, Patterson said. Fountain was transported to Valley Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Page B - 3
Just letting a corporate media story stand with no discussion is really not right. Sure, the story may be true -- although officers may have had other options, like just stay back.
But what about all the other possibilities: he was a political target, or he didn't have aknife but was acting out and police escalated things and lost control of themselves. I could go on and on.
The words of the corporate media here have no counterpoint. No witness corroboration. Never let a police statement stand on its own like that, without pointing out that police lie. Their words already carry way too much weight with the non-critically-thinking public.
Just in case yuo all forgot "COPS" are killers and muders running free in our streets our communities doing what they please - Killing my god how could we the people let this happen let this happen so long .
When will we Fight Back ?
So...we should add "mediocre postmodern poetry" and "programmer notes" to the seemingly endless list that the state gives us as to why it's OK to shoot people? Please. I don't know exactly what happened on the balcony where Mr. Fountain was shot any more than you do, but what I do know is that the police seem to think it's open season.
There are other ways to deal with people who are agitated than shooting them. I would hope that this would be obvious, but I guess some people don't really know what it feels like to be the underdog, now do they?
was i only one noticed whenever clinton wanted anti-gun legislation some nut went off with a gun?
turn off the television america
don't do drugs, kids. except heroine, that doesn't make you nutty.
So sad. Sounds like a case where less then letal force could have been applied (like the bean bag shotguns in use in S. California).
If the guy was shot in the leg, chances are he would have dropped right there, something sounds a bit fishy here.
the situation is outragous !!
when will it stop ? they hunt the people of this country with a total indiferance to human life, killing at will whenever it suits them , for their pleasure.
It is time to stand up and say enough is enough !!!
Its tiime the hunted become hunters and and start taking these bastards out of our comunities!
people must organize and lay plans to eleminate these threats to life and liberty with the force these murders understand.
just cowering down every time the cops threatens them praying the lunatic doesnt feel like murdering at the time.
people are behaving like a deer cought in the headlights of a truck, just waiting for their turn for the po-lice to kick their door down and fill their sleeping pathetic bodies full of lead knowing it WILL be justified by the state.
In reality, no one has any idea what really happened. It's interesting to see how much people contort reality to suit their ideology. Both activists and cop lovers appear to be primarily ruled by their dogma, not their senses. Not exactly encouraging (for EITHER side).
To quote a bumpersticker I saw last week, "How much of your reality is imagination?"
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_valley/12654568.htm
it wasn't a knife
Patterson now says Fountain, after putting down the sharpener, continued to come toward Sessions with some sort of papers in his hand. That's when Sessions fired the Taser at Fountain, Patterson said. After one of the two barbs required to shock a subject missed its target, Fountain retrieved the steel and ``charged'' Sessions, Patterson says."
The Taser website, at http://www.taser.com/law/videos04.htm has a video showing the reaction of a bull who was peacefully grazing, innocently ignoring the jism-clogged blockhead terrorist pointing a Taser at him. The Taser shock instantly takes the bull down. When he recovers, he immediately charges at the threat to his life. The video ends there.
We don't know if the torturer then blasted the bull with bullets - as is done on the streets with humans. Or if other bulls then lamented how the dead bull clearly had issues.
Given that the story has shifted, I feel no need to justify my doubts in the present version of the story. But if we take it at face value, we have someone who thought he'd complied with police orders by dropping what police feared could be a weapon, yet still found himself subjected to the "humane" electroshock that cops who've experienced it call "the worst 5 seconds of my life".
With all due respect to Mr. Fountain's friends that have posted here, I question the rational functioning of anyone who would NOT conclude that his/her life was in danger under such circumstances. Regardless of the soundness or unsoundness of Mr. Fountain's reasoning before the arrival of police, from this account it seems that after the arrival of the police his reasoning was sound enough to comply with police orders and to to eliminate the perceived threat, and then sound enough to realize that the person before him was responsible for the worst 5 seconds in his life - despite his complying - and therefore the person before him was a dangerous, unpredictable threat to his life.
The death of Mr. Fountain is not "tragic". Being killed by a tree limb dropping on you in a storm is "tragic". The death of Mr. Fountain is called "homicide". What's deeply tragic is the immortality of the insane notion that people killed by police provoked their own murder.
Posted on Thu, Sep. 15, 2005
Campbell police shooting murkier than reported
MAN HELD SHARPENING STEEL, NOT KNIFE, COPS NOW SAY
By Chuck Carroll
Mercury News
The distraught man who was shot dead by a police officer at a Campbell motel Sept. 7 was not wielding a knife, but a sharpening steel.
In the initial news release on the death of Steven L. Fountain, 24, police said four-year veteran police officer Brian Sessions shot a knife-wielding Fountain after Session's Taser stun gun failed to stop his ``advance'' on the officer.
Capt. Russ Patterson, the department's spokesman, said this week that Fountain complied with Sessions' command to drop the weapon in his hand -- which was not a knife at all but a 10-inch sharpening steel on a five-inch handle.
Patterson now says Fountain, after putting down the sharpener, continued to come toward Sessions with some sort of papers in his hand. That's when Sessions fired the Taser at Fountain, Patterson said. After one of the two barbs required to shock a subject missed its target, Fountain retrieved the steel and ``charged'' Sessions, Patterson says.
He also noted that a sharpening steel isn't technically a knife, but it's still a dangerous weapon. ``It would seriously injure somebody.''
Also, while initially the police did not disclose how many shots were fired, they now say Sessions squeezed off 10 rounds from the Campbell Police Department's standard-issue firearm, a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun, which has a 12-round magazine. Patterson said four of those rounds actually hit Fountain -- also a new detail. Fountain died in a local hospital.
Patterson said police were called to the Motel 6 at Camden and Curtner avenues at about 10:40 p.m. Sept. 7 by someone who reported that there was a man standing on a second-floor balcony screaming that someone was in his room. Police have said there was no one in his room.
Sessions remains on paid administrative leave pending an investigation by the Campbell Police Department and the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office. Both paid leave and a review by the prosecutor's office are routine in fatal police-involved shootings.
The Mercury News has also learned that, contrary to police statements from the first couple days, a second officer was on the scene by the time the shooting occurred. Police continue to say all the shots came from Sessions' gun, and that the other officer did not use her Taser.
Deputy District Attorney David Tompkins declined to discuss the specifics of the shooting.
``We'd rather not comment on something that's still under investigation,'' he said. ``We haven't even received the report yet.''
But Tompkins noted that it's not unusual for initial reports, in all sorts of police matters, to be wrong or incomplete, as revealed later by a full investigation.
Tompkins added that it could be three months before the final report in the motel case is presented to a grand jury for possible prosecution. It often takes that long to get the coroner's report, which must include toxicology lab test results, he said.
Campbell Police Chief David Gullo said the department has been as forthcoming with the media and the Fountain family as they could be, but that they wanted to be careful not to release information that was incorrect.
``We try to give the basics of what happened'' as soon as the media start asking, he said, ``and as things unfold and we learn more about it, we have a much broader picture.''
Gullo said it was inappropriate for him at this point for him to conclude whether his officers acted properly.
``We can't answer that right now. The facts have to be reviewed by the District Attorney's Office. We work with them to prepare the report, but they have to review it'' and draw their Ted Fountain of Portland Ore., the father of Steven Fountain, said he's not ready to blame the police for his son's death because he still hasn't heard a full account of what happened.
``I don't want to prematurely accuse anyone,'' Ted Fountain said. ``I want to gather the all the facts and take appropriate action when it's appropriate. There's obviously nothing I can do to bring Steven back. It's obviously a tragedy, and we're just trying to pick up the pieces.''
Contact Chuck Carroll at ccarroll@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5206.
The cops are nothing but lunatic killers that are a disease terrorizing the people
The situation is outrageous !!
When will it stop ?
They hunt the people of this country with a total indiferance to human life, killing at will whenever it suits them , for their pleasure.
It is time to stand up and say enough is enough !!!
Its time the hunted become hunters and and start taking these bastards out of our communities!
people must organize and lay plans to eliminate these threats to life and liberty with the force these murders understand.
This shooting may or may not have been justified, but you weren't there having to make a split second decision so don't be so quick to judge. I suppose if there weren't police all the criminals would voluntarily lay down there weapons and stop praying on people?
THE DUDE PUT THE TOOL DOWN COMPLIED WITH THE OFFICERS DEMAND.
THEN WAS SHOT TEN TIMES BY THE LUNATIC COP !!
Casual Observer its time for YOU to take your medication
you dimwit.
OK, maybe he's not right-wing, just a homophobic piece of shit.
My prayers to them all.
My prayers to them all.
santa clara county sherrif are triger happy as its been proven many times over, campbell police are bored more then not and anything that makes them look like the good guys they jump on, I have seen campbell police plant evidence once before about 15 years ago so it would not surprise me if they didnt do the same in this case, and yes. having worked with departments in the santa clara valley many officers have admited to me that they do lose there cool and react in ways they shouldnt. and 4 shots?? thats what you would need for someone on PCP !!!!!!!!!!!!1
This guy died because he chose wrong. I was not there, and neither were you. Second guessing and what iffing won't change this outcome, or the next incident.
Geniuses & Meth Dont Mix.
1) slf was mentally ill and it was getting worse,
And/Or
2) slf had a nasty meth habit and it was getting worse.
ALSO
3) slf had made his child the center of his world, to an obsessive degree imho, and the loss/removal of that child caused extreme distress which exacerbated the above problems.
============
ON THE OTHER HAND:
When the cop arrived, slf did NOT have a knife. He had a sharpening steel. If a well-trained, fully-armed cop can't disarm and disable this one little guy without resorting to firing 10 SHOTS from his .45, then at the very least we need to seriously ask ourselves whether that person should be allowed to continue his employment as a police officer.
Let's also consider the location:
We're standing on the balcony walkway of a cheap motel. It's 10:30 at night. Maybe it was dark enough that the officer couldn't tell that it wasn't a knife. Maybe. But 10 SHOTS? How far was the cop from slf? Far enough that he missed a body-sized target confined along a narrow pathway 60% of the time. Is the cop the worst shot ever, or was slf that far away? Or did the cop keep shooting even after slf had gone down?
Have any of you ever seen what happens when someone gets a heavy dose of mace/pepper spray straight to the face? I don't mean a little bit of pepper spray wafting down the street, but a full stream in the eyes? Those folks go down. Those folks pose no further threat to anyone in the vicinity. And those folks almost always survive.
And what about those SIX stray bullets? Fortunately, none of them lodged into some other random motel resident... some little kid... grandma. But they could have.
So even if you love police officers and everything that they stand for, I think you need to be asking yourself and others some hard questions:
Is this police officer the sort of person we want cruising around OUR community brandishing a loaded weapon?
If you knew that this particular cop had a regular beat that included your neighborhood, would you feel safe when your kids were playing outside?
Would your sense of safety increase or decrease if you saw this officer walk/drive past your home?
Think about it.
> when you start confronting cops' behavior...
Yeah, that's the sign of a real intellectual - start spewing and making the silliest of accusations. So I'm a homophobe because I just might think that a raging loony holding a knife and screaming at the cops JUST might have in SOME way contributed to his own demise? Get a clue...
> and "programmer notes" to the seemingly endless
> list that the state gives us as to why it's OK to
> shoot people?
So, we should tell the cops that it's not OK to shoot someone with a knife who is screaming and threatening people, because he might be a really nice, lovable guy when he's not on meth and running around like a crazed lunatic? You think the cops should have held his hands and engaged in an a capella round of "kumbaya" instead? Gimme a break...
http://dreamscape.org/
she was the best friend anyone could have, and do anything for you..
we remained friends after she didnt work there anymore... we remained friends when she decided to be a he again.
we remained friends after serai took his life.
god bless steven l. fountain and his beautiful son
If the Police officer responsible is not punished for what he did then I can see this as nothing but State Sponsered Homicide.
I know a lot of people feel "All" cops are dishonest, but the truth is most cops are God fearing, good people who only have the interest of the community at heart. It just goes to show you everyone loves a cop until they arrest a family member or friend. With the way the laws are going, police officers will have limited force options that will tie our hands behind our back when we are trying to legally do our job. It will get to the point where people will blame cops because they cant do anything about crimes because we wont be able to our jobs legally.
Now i am not saying there are no bad cops out there. I'm just saying people should get more involved with voicing they're opinion about these sorts of matters. Most of the time people will learn they did not fully understand the situation and were uneducated when it came to the details of what happened.
Besides that, the "few bad apples" theory sounds great and all, but the reality is there is a code of silence, and in many ways the only difference between the cops and the criminals is the uniforms...gangs in blue. Enforcers for the elite.
This reminds me of the way the swaggering asshole US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan think they're just "protecting their buddies" when in fact they're jackbooted SS babykillers stomping into Poland and Czechoslavakia circa 1939, just too brainwashed and stupid to know it. Most cops are power-drunk authoritarian asswipe bullies. That's why they become cops. Take away their guns and clubs and body armor and power of numbers and put them in a fair fight and they'll break down bawling and shitting themselves every time. Am I wrong cop? So prove it. HA HA HA HA HA HA! Like that would happen.
"It just goes to show you everyone loves a cop..."
Huh? Speak for yourself, idiot.
"With the way the laws are going, police officers will have limited force options that will tie our hands behind our back when we are trying to legally do our job."
This is the same bullshit cops have been bawling and sniveling for the past 40 years. That's why they despise their own Internal Affairs departments. The plain simple truth is that it DOESN'T MATTER what the letter of the law allows them to do, they do whatever the fuck they please regardless. Who's going to bust them? Other cops? Haw haw!! They have to get caught dead to rights on videotape, a la Rodney King, for that to happen. Oh, and don't let them get their pig paws anywhere near the tape, either.
Stupid asshole brainwashed cops need to keep their stupid asshole brainwashed comments to themselves
"Most of the time people will learn they did not fully understand the situation and were uneducated when it came to the details of what happened."
You mean like when my brother got Rodney Kinged?
Or when the same thing happened to a close friend?
There's NOTHING that justifies that, cop.
Or when a D&D I knew got drowned in a toilet at the county lock-up by the power-drunk pigs "pacifying" him?
Or do you mean the times I've been harassed over nothing by cops in a sour mood who obviously just wanted to play a little game of cat-and-mouse with someone who didn't have a gun (cop insecticide) at their hip?
Fuck you, cop. Let's get this war a-rockin. I got an incendiary IED for you. I want your buddies frozen in horror watching you cook and scream while I blow holes through them with my elephant gun.
I was on the eve of deploying to Afghanistan - y'know, the real war, not the sham in Iraq - when I heard about this. I've been thinking about it a lot. I introduced Kait to the mother of his child; I dated her for over three years. And while Kait was my roommate, they slept with each other behind my back, so I'm probably not the most neutral and unbiased resource.
We were in touch in and out for a few years - from threats of lawsuits over my blog (how can it be libel or slander if I'm not seeking to deprive one of anything and nothing is a lie? Bah!), to talk about the ex...
Shortly before his death, he got in touch with me to apologize because things had fallen apart with that woman, and he felt horrible about things he had said to me after I left California. I honestly tried to rebuild a friendship with him, but he was so out of his mind that it really didn't have a chance. Steven was intelligent, but well, so am I. It's why we were such good friends for several years. We had a lot in common, and we were very close from 1996 to 1999. The poster above me who referenced hiring Kait as a minor used to be my boss too, and well, those were fun days. I remember the first time I talked to Kait as Steven. It was weird. Very weird. But I was happy for him.
Steven had definitely lost it to drugs and addiction. He was a threat to the cop, that is for sure. Steven wasn't in the correct frame of mind for most of the time he was awake when this happened.
That said, it doesn't justify a fatal reaction by the cop.
I can understand how the cop could have been scared. I've had my life threatened several times; it's hard to maintain your intellectual analysis on the situation, to suppress adrenaline and emotions and, well, it's difficult to make rational decisions. But that's no excuse. That's what we expect of our law enforcement personnel. The rhetoric of "well, if you were in that situation, what would you do?" or "you'd shoot too!" is machismo bullsh!t spewed by someone who doesn't understand; there is a reason we are supposed to hold cops, federal investigators, the military, etc., to a higher standard - because they are supposed to be better than that dumb, automaton firing on Red Bull and hate. That's not who I want protecting me, that's for sure.
I really don't think the reaction to this situation was at all proportionate. Considering the situations I've been in, this cop is an embarrassment to public service everywhere, from his 60% miss rate with his weapon to his lack of capability with the taser. I will say, the knife sharpener thing vs. a knife at night, well, that one I'll give the cop - that's VERY difficult to tell apart. But, that said, the cop had a lot of options he didn't even try, from, oh, aiming his weapon for a non-fatal body area... Well, aiming at all would have been advised.
I don't think, looking at what happened, that the cop was a "trigger happy lunatic." A trigger happy lunatic is typically very good at the parts of the job like shooting someone. This guy obviously wasn't. He reacted like a fresh 2nd Lt. in the Army acts his first time in combat - scared. I think he was scared and unfit for duty. Either way, I hope he got fired or permanantly desked for what happened. What happened was unacceptable.
Time and rough wear had taken its toll on that Honda, as well as its occupants. I came to realize the disproportionate toll it had taken on one.
We fell out of touch after. I didn't want to see the memory of our friendship become a collateral casualty. I hoped for a change. 16 years later, I discover what that change was.
It pains me to know that the chance for a turning point was cut short. It saddens me that I'm just now finding out. I don't know what words I can write, or what I can say.. and I question whether I should even say anything. Ultimately, I come to a single decision; I don't want to have never said anything.
For the others who made the journey, I hope that in the years since, you've been able to heal some of the wounds. There was warmth and solace in the house; it was valued and appreciated, and I hope it's lived on.
Ex-boss: She was proud of the opportunity you gave her. It was an empowering and inspiring thing. She knew it was not a small risk you were taking. I hope it's a warming smile, to remember her rollerblading adventures.