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Show or "Lose the knife!" Then John said, "Oh...now you're going to shoot me? Well go of their lives, and which now could never be resolved. knife!" He thought of the unresolved relationship with his own son, hundreds of miles away in a foster home. In a foster home. He wasn't even deemed fit by the government to take care of his own son. John picked up the bottle of Crown Royal and flung it at a picture of his parents. The bottle shattered a window and John cut his hand on a piece of the broken glass. John walked to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the drawer. "Holly...call 911. I'm going to kill myself." Holly had seen John drunk before and tried to laugh him off. But he persisted. Again and again he demanded that she make the calL "Call 911. Make the call I'm going down and I'm taking someone with me." ' Finally Holly picked up the phone and dialed the three numbers. ahead mother fuckers, shoot! Go ahead! Do it!" It was about 8:59 PM. Now Ned Robinson came across the street and tried to squeeze between Manson and Montague. Before he could reach the driveway and Dinsmore, Montague shoved him back and Wiler yelled for Robinson to be secured. According to Guerrero, T holstered my weapon, took control of him and was walking him to my patrol car. He made statements, 'You're gonna have to arrest me and put cuffs on me.' I said. Tine." Deputy Manson moved along the dirt path just east of the driveway. Now Wiler yelled to him, "Get out of my line of fire!" Dinsmore continued to pace back and forth in the driveway. He would make threatening gestures at himself, then raise the knife and move toward the officers. Wiler described the final moments in his report "While the incident was taking its course, I felt John was getting more and more worked up. I felt that John was getting more and more aggressive in his attacks towards the officers. I felt that John was working his courage up to cany out his above listed statements...! could see the anger in John's face, and his body language told me that this time he wasn't going to stop until he stabbed an officer." Wiler stood directly in front of Dinsmore with the Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun leveled at John. Deputy Brownell, now on Wiler's left, held a can of O.G spray (Olecresin to be Capsicum is an organic substance dowel from the cayenne pepper plant...OC has been found effective in controlling a person aggravated by psychologically or physiologically induced emotions...from Moab PD guidelines). Montague stood at Wiler's right with his service weapon drawn and aimed at Dinsmore. A neighbor heard John scream, "Shoot me motherfuckers. You'd be doing me a favor. Shoot me! Put an end to this worthless life. Do it!" And he yelled again, T know I'm going to die tonight and I'm going to take one of you with me." Then John moved toward Wiler. According to Wiler, "John lunged at me." Montague remembers that Dinsmore "charged at Sgt. Wiler with the knife out in an attacking manner." A neighbor recalls that John took "three giant steps." Deputy Brownell observed that "John began to walk forward, taking two steps toward Sgt. Wiler, he stopped momentarily, then proceeded forward again. This last movement by John appeared quicker than the previous steps." Wiler says, "At the point I realized I couldn't move back tost enough, and I realized that John was closing the distance faster than I could get out of the area, I fired a round out of my shotgun, aiming at center mass." Wiler added in a subsequent interview, T got immediate effect." It was 9:01. Some witnesses claimed that Dinsmore was as close to Wiler as three feet; others thought it could have been as tor away as ten or twelve. John was struck in the upper abdomen, spun to the left and dropped to the ground immediately. Wiler racked his shotgun, ejecting the spent shell and loading the tube with a live round. Montague ran to Dinsmore, secured the knife that had fallen from his hands and cuffed John's hands behind his back Manson ran for a medical kit Across the street, Holly Dinsmore screamed, "No! No! No! What have you done? What have you done?" and tried to run to her husband. Brownell intervened and held her back while the ambulance that had previously been called turned off Kane Creek Blvd. and approached the shooting scene within one minute. Holly could hear the EMTs pleading with the officers in charge to remove the handaiffs from behind John's back but the police refused. After three or four minutes John was transferred, still cuffed, to the ambulance and rushed the mile and a half to Allen Memorial Hospital, where Dr. Steven Rouzer was on duty in the emergency room. The ambulance arrived at 9:08 but, incredibly, no officers had accompanied it According to Rouzer' s report, "because of the handcuffs, it was difficult to hear his blood pressure because of the flexion of the arms." TWELVE MINUTES At about 853 PM, Sgt. Mike Wiler responded to a call from dispatch, advising him of a possible suicide threat at 455 Huntridge. The subject was drinking and had a knife and was outside the house with a friend. Wiler was at police headquarters at the time and, with Officer Eddie Guerrero as backup, drove immediately to the address. Three minutes later, he and Guerrero arrived at the scene. Officer Robert Montague and Deputies Louis Manson and Steve Brownell of the Grand County Sheriffs Office had heard the broadcast and responded to the call as well. All five vehicles and their occupants, in fact, arrived within seconds of each other. According to Sgt. Wiler, "our arrival was almost simultaneous, at the same time." John walked to the kitchen and pulled a knife the drawer. "Holly. . .call 911. I'm going to kill myself." from Then according to Wiler, "upon arrival in the area of Aspen and Huntridge Drive, I I could parked short of the residence and exited my patrol unit Prior to dosing the door, control of out of see John waving a knife and yelling at the top of his lungs. Because John's behavior, I chose to k my shotgun and remove it from my vehicle." Wiler carried a sidearm, but dedded that additional firepower was necessary to control the situation. However, Officer Robert Montague had a different recollection of their arrival: "On the south side exiting my vehicle I could see Officer Guerrero and Sgt. Wiler approaching of the residence and I could also hear yelling from the area. T moved to the south side of the residence and observed a man yelling and lunging at Deputy Manson in an aggressive manner. Deputy Manson had parked on the south side of the residence next to the driveway. Deputy Manson was standing north of the dirt path of the yard. "John was on the dirt path of the yard when he was confronting Deputy Manson. I observed John move from that dirt area jumping up on to the driveway that (is) west of the dirt area. The driveway was about two feet higher than the dirt area. "When John reached the driveway, I observed him pull a knife from behind his back." Officer Eddie Guerrero's recollection was similar to Montague's: "Sgt Wiler, Officer Montague, and I approached the residence at almost the same time. During this time John was yelling and appeared to be very agitated. John and Ned (Robinson) stepped up onto the concrete driveway, near a white Suburban. At this point, John said something about dying and pulled the knife from the small of his back." The first officer to approach and make contact with Dinsmore, Louis Manson, made this observation in his report: "Dinsmore was walking with his hands stretched out to the sides shoulder high. The first words that I could make out were 'what are you going to do, shoot me.' "Dinsmore made a slight turn to look at or say something to someone else and when I could see a knife handle sticking out of his pants in the middle of his back." he So while Sgt. Wiler recalls seeing John Dinsmore "waving a knife" as he was exiting his a police cruiser, neither Guerrero nor Montague nor Manson remember seeing him wave knife until they approached the house with Wiler on foot and saw Dinsmore climb onto the concrete driveway. It was about 8:57 PM. Deputy Brownell arrived and noticed Dinsmore on the driveway, now waving the knife. Wiler stood in the street by the curb directly in front of Dinsmore. To his right was Officer Montague and on the far right stood Deputy Manson. Officer Guerrero assumed a position on Wiler's left John raged at the officers. "Why have you taken my son?" he screamed. "I want my son back! You cops are corrupt! Shoot me! I'm going to die tonight and one of you is going un-rac- with me." I Behind John stood Ned Robinson. According to Robinson, Wiler yelled, "Get him out of my line of fire!" and Deputy Manson moved in and pulled Robinson from the driveway. Robinson was instructed to take a position across the street and out of their way. Dinsmore continued to slash and wave the knife, threatening mostly himself. He put the blade to his neck, then ripped open his shirt and pressed the point against his stomach. But at least twice, he acted as if he intended to throw the knife, particularly at Deputy Manson. In the background, standing on the front porch was Holly. Wiler instructed Guerrero to remove her from the house. As Guerrero approached the porch, he called dispatch and ran across the intersection of requested that an ambulance be put on standby. Holly Huntridge and Aspen and stood by a police cruiser. calm John down, but with little success. Deputy Manson continued to attempt to of my conversations with him basically that, you According to Manson, "I remember some here. And he continued to scream at the to know, calm down, let us let us try help you stole his kid, we had him for eight months. And I said, 'Well, top of his lungs at us that we who? (And he said) The courts have token my kid for smokin', for truancy, and you've months." just token him for eight Manson persisted. John looked at Manson and said, "Do you have a son?" Manson nodded and John yelled, "How would you like it if someone took your son?" Meanwhile, by his own recollection Wiler told Dinsmore to drop the knife "probably 20 to 30 times It was many times I ordered him to drop the knife, and he refused." Later, Wiler recalled in an interview that, "I remember my voice was tiring from yelling at John to drop the knife." From across the street, a neighbor could hear the cops yelling at John to: "Drop the "I fired a round out of at center mass... I got my shotgun, aiming immediate effect." Wiler However Utah Highway Patrol officer Ken Ballantine heard the radio broadcast that a shot had been fired and a man was down. According to Ballantine, "Upon my arrival (at the scene of the shooting) I was requested by Deputy Louis Manson to go to the hospital and remove the handcuffs from the subject so that they (medical staff) could work on him." Ballantine arrived immediately after John was wheeled into the ER, the cuffs were removed and John was prepped for surgery. Two Moab Police officers finally arrived at the hospital sometime after Dinsmore went into the operating room at 9:45 PM 45 minutes after the shooting. Dinsmore's condition continued to deteriorate; his liver was destroyed by the shotgun blast and at 9:58 PM, John Dinsmore died. THE INVESTIGATION In the State of Utah, the Sheriffs Department in each county is the legal Investigative arm of the State Attorney General Office. In Grand County, the S.0 set out to collect evidence and information within minutes of the shooting. Under the direction of Chief Deputy Doug Squire, all the officers Involved in the incident were interviewed; so were witnesses in the neighborhood who saw the shooting. The feet that Sheriffs deputies were involved in the incident caused some Moab citizens to question the propriety of the Sheriffs Office conducting the investigation. Doug Squire disagreed, saying, "We weren't here to make a judgement, our job was simply to collect information and evidence." fell to County Attorney Bill Benge. On December 15, Benge The decision-makin- g concluded that the use of deadly force by Wiler was justified and that no criminal charges would be filed in the incident He said that eyewitness reports indicated that "five or six that the last time the officers were not times he lunged at the officers with the knife.-Anable to backpedal as fast as he was advancing. That is when the shot was fired." And Benge noted that Dinsmore's blood alcohol level at the time of his death was almost three times the legal limit d 21, coBtiraed oa next page |
