Duck! You're in Wine Country

"We believe the windows and doors need to be open so that citizens can look in at how policy is being made."

Chief Dunbaugh says he is open to the idea of a civilian review board in Sonoma County, as Volkart and other critics are advocating. Such a board would give citizens without direct connection to law enforcement the power to subpoena witnesses and conduct independent investigations. The board would also have the power to recommend disciplinary action in cases where investigators found that police acted inappropriately.

But civilian review is no certain solution for excessive police force.
Civilian review boards are noble creatures, in principle. But at their worst, they become better known for political infighting and ineptitude than for their vigilance in overseeing police practices.

Reducing the high incidence of police shootings in Sonoma County would take more than civilian review. County police agencies claim to follow a countywide use-of-force policy that should, in theory, limit police-related deaths. But after police shootings in Sonoma County, investigators rarely question whether that policy has been broken -- or why crisis situations escalated into shootouts.

In Sonoma County, nobody has been asking hard questions -- why Officer Rangle shot an unarmed man, why Officer Stevens confronted a dangerous suspect without backup, why Officer Carlson let the amazingly disturbed Dale Robbins leave a police station.

Kevin Saunders' shooting was ruled legally justified. But justified is not necessarily unavoidable.

Kevin was hardly a model citizen. He was violent, mentally disturbed, and emotionally frayed. But his family still mourns his death.

Claire Saunders lives at the same address, down the street from where Kevin was killed last year. Last August, she told police she felt the shooting was justified, that Officer Rangle "was just trying to serve and protect and to save other people's lives." She also said she felt that Kevin "wanted to die."

But Claire, who now lives with a man who moved in shortly after Kevin's death, has since changed her mind. She has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit over Kevin's shooting on behalf of Saunders' daughter, Sierra, and Claire's two other children from an earlier marriage.

Kevin's mother has never changed her opinion of what transpired that afternoon last August. Today, 13 months after Kevin's shooting, Pat Baldridge is still angry.

"He should never have been shot. They're calling it 'suicide by cop.' What is that? What does that mean?" Baldridge says in a tone that is both soft and furious. "Because they found a wrinkled-up note? Because he was desperate? He needed help -- and the police shot him.

"I will grieve for the rest of my life.