Utah Undercover Cops Kill Woman Heroin User

In our opinion: Police secrecy troubling when information not released

When a police department holds back details in a case involving one of its own officers, it raises questions about the department's motives, and they are questions worthy of a timely response.

A case in point involves the recent shooting of a 21-year old woman from Vancouver, Wash., who was killed after an apparent confrontation with undercover officers from the West Valley City Police Department. In the days after the incident, police have released few details about how the woman, Danielle Willard, was killed. Officers said specifics would only be disclosed after their investigation is complete.

The department may have valid and justifiable reasons to be reticent to release early details, and state law allows police to withhold information if it could jeopardize an investigation or impede a person's right to a fair trial. But in this case, the department has not explained precisely why it chose to delay releasing even rudimentary information, leaving the girl's family desperate for answers about her demise.

We know she died from gunshot wounds to the head, but we know that because the state Medical Examiner — not West Valley Police — disclosed the information. We also know — from the girl's family — that she led a troubled life and was in Utah to be part of a program to help her deal with a long-term problem with drug abuse

Police have not addressed basic questions about the incident, including whether Willard was armed, why officers made contact with her, whether other persons were involved or who exactly fired gunshots, and how many. A police officer was injured in the incident, but just how has not been disclosed.

It is difficult to envision how such basic information could compromise the integrity of an investigation.

cont. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/...-troubling-when-information-not-released.html
 
More details released in West Valley officer shooting


Police released a few more details Friday about a police shooting that killed a 21-year-old woman in West Valley City earlier this month.

According to a news release from West Valley City Police Sgt. Mike Powell, Danielle Misha Willard was shot twice in the head by two West Valley City detectives while they were conducting a drug investigation in the area around the Lexington Park Apartments at 2293 W. Lexington Park Drive (3710 South).

Powell said the detectives had "made contact" with Willard, during which time they fired shots at her. One officer also was injured, but not by gunshots. Powell also acknowledged that Willard’s car collided with a red Dodge Nitro in the Lexington Park parking lot. The Dodge had nothing to do with the investigation at hand, Powell said.

Witnesses who have agreed to talk with the Tribune since the shooting reported the two detectives, who are on administrative leave, were not in uniform at the time of the shooting. Willard’s mother, Melissa Kennedy, also said that investigators told her that her daughter wasn’t armed. Police have not confirmed Kennedy’s statement.


http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55295581-78/shooting-valley-west-lexington.html.csp#disqus_thread
 
trees_please said:
no! wait, i thought heroin was the problem.. arent drugs public enemy number one?? i mean, were fighting this 40 year long, trillion dollar war against it, right?
Click to expand...

Yeah they were aiming for the heroin that was about to pounce on the woman.. they somehow missed.. hopefully that little fucker isn't still hanging around looking for trouble.
 
Sounds like murder to me, sadly the cops will not be brought to justice.

Also fuck the media here, I hate the way they are making it all about her being a heroin user, rather than the fact the police officers shot a young woman. She was not just a heroin user, she was somebody's daughter, and somebody's friend, how fucking disrespectful

The police are acting in a very guilty (and by that I don't mean remorse) manner, and seem to be diverting as much attention from themselves as possible. In my opinion, being entrusted with power and responsibility to protect and serve, and then abusing that power to murder someone is among the most heinous of crimes. I'm against the death penalty, but I sometimes wonder, if cops that murdered innocent unarmed civilians got a firing squad rather than a few months of paid leave, perhaps they would be less inclined to do this kind of shit.
 
People always talk about how much they hate cops and how corrupt they are these days, but what does anyone do about it? Absolutely nothing.
 
SerotonergicHaze said:
Sounds like murder to me, sadly the cops will not be brought to justice.

Also fuck the media here, I hate the way they are making it all about her being a heroin user, rather than the fact the police officers shot a young woman. She was not just a heroin user, she was somebody's daughter, and somebody's friend, how fucking disrespectful

The police are acting in a very guilty (and by that I don't mean remorse) manner, and seem to be diverting as much attention from themselves as possible. In my opinion, being entrusted with power and responsibility to protect and serve, and then abusing that power to murder someone is among the most heinous of crimes. I'm against the death penalty, but I sometimes wonder, if cops that murdered innocent unarmed civilians got a firing squad rather than a few months of paid leave, perhaps they would be less inclined to do this kind of shit.
Click to expand...

+1. makes me sick
 
Dysphoric said:
People always talk about how much they hate cops and how corrupt they are these days, but what does anyone do about it? Absolutely nothing.
Click to expand...
i wonder why? maybe threat of violence...

people often do something about it (look just past the mainstream news...) but when people band together, this is a threat to the current violent-threat-backed heirarchy, and such groups are "dismantled", to put it euphemistically.

martin luther king, ghandi had the right idea... but we know what happens to those kinds of people.

note: this only applies to people who lack material wealth (if you pay your bills, the cops are on your side), and people who are too awake for their own good (looking at the games people and groups of people play).
 
Last edited:
The root problem is police enforcement policy, not individual police actions. These two Utah cops probably acted criminally, but it is more important to assail the entities that obstruct and obfuscate the investigation, as well as those that facilitated the taking up of arms against a person who was, at worst, a minor purveyor of medicinal powders.
 
guns of brixton, motherfuckers. I don't really know what police are like in other states, so I can't say Utah cops are worse, but the school cops we had 9 times out of ten got fired for diddling the students. I'd rather be braindead, drooling, and on drugs than be a killer who doesn't believe in the cause. They do shit like patrolling parking lots near universities, pretty much looking for kids hot boxing the car.
 
Looks like all hell is rightly breaking loose now:

A ‘Pandora’s Box of Problems’ From a Police Shooting and Drugs in a Utah Town

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — It began with bullets and bloodshed one November afternoon. A 21-year-old woman was dead. Two undercover officers had opened fire on her car. The police began asking the usual questions about what had happened, and why.

Their investigation cracked open what one prosecutor called a “Pandora’s box of problems” here in Utah’s second-largest city, where Mormon pioneers once raised milk cows and sugar beets. There have been accusations of stolen drugs and missing money, abuses of police power and a cloud of corruption that defies Utah’s reputation for sunny optimism.

Over the past few months, accusations of bad police work in the narcotics squad of the West Valley City Police Department have engulfed the town and sent shock waves through Utah’s justice system. Prosecutors have tossed out 125 criminal cases. Dozens of convictions may have to be re-examined. The F.B.I. is investigating the Police Department and several officers.

Officials in Utah say they have never seen anything like it.

“Chaos,” said Sim Gill, the district attorney for Salt Lake County.

[...]

Whatever its scale, the revelations upended scores of criminal cases.

After Joseph Hu, a network engineer and part-time student, was arrested on charges of drug distribution and weapons possession last September, his lawyer filed a request for West Valley City to test the $40 in heroin they claimed to have seized. A few weeks later, the city dismissed the case with no explanation and let Mr. Hu out of jail.

“All we knew was something was wrong,” said Mr. Hu’s lawyer, Kelly Ann Booth. “But we didn’t know what.”

The pattern was repeated in case after case, defense lawyers said: When they decided to challenge drug charges rather than accept a quick guilty plea, West Valley City folded up the cases. Then the district attorney, after reviewing hundreds of cases, began dismissing them by the dozen, saying he could not successfully prosecute them.

“There was not a single case I wanted to dismiss,” said Mr. Gill, the district attorney. “We had no choice.”
Click to expand...

full http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/u...force-under-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
 
This is horrible. From the sounds of it, this girl could have easily been any of us, it certainly could have been me, or my girlfriend, or a number of my friends. Of course the whole story hasn't been presented yet, but from the sounds of it, there seems to be absolutely no reason that this girl had to be shot two times in the head.
 
Reminds me of the Rampart Division police scandal. Only (possibly) worse. Rotten pigs.

The 21 year old shooting victim's mother will probably never be able to look at any cop again without feeling like they're all crooked. And I hope she gets a huge settlement for this.
 
Fucking cops get away with anything! Shit like this happens all the time but who cares about junkies right? They woulda just OD'd anyway right? /sarcasm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top