Federal jury finds Karl F. Thompson Jr. guilty of excessive force and making a false report in the death of Otto Zehm.
By Tim Connor
Five years, seven months and 15 days after Otto Zehm was fatally hogtied and beaten in a north Division convenience store, a federal jury found a Spokane police officer, Karl F. Thompson, Jr., guilty of two criminal charges in the case.
The verdict was read at 2:42 this afternoon by Federal District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle who presided over the three week trial in a Yakima courtroom. One hundred seventy miles away, in Van Sickle’s home courtroom in Spokane, more than eighty people watched and listened in dead silence as the judge carved the verdict from an envelope with a letter opener, nervously cleared his throat, and read the news. He then polled the jury.
Guilty on both counts.
The first charge was that Thompson had violated Zehm’s civil rights by using unreasonable force in arresting him under color of law. The second was that Thompson had falsified a record with intent to impede an investigation. Sentencing will come later, with Thompson possibly facing a half dozen or more years in prison.
James Byrnes joined his father and brother at City Hall this evening for the post-verdict vigil for Otto Zehm.
After years of often contentious discovery and motion practice, today’s session in Yakima was poignantly brief, lasting less than ten minutes. The on-lookers in the Spokane courtroom—where large monitors were arrayed to watch the trial from Yakima—included members and friends of the Zehm family and a contingent of lawyers and other staff from the Center for Justice, which represents Otto’s mother Ann Zehm in a federal civil suit against the City of Spokane. After Judge Van Sickle read the second part of the verdict, the gravity of the jury’s findings seemed to sink in as hands were clasped, fists were quietly clenched, and tears flowed.
Afterward, I asked Dale Zehm, Otto’s first cousin, what was going through his mind in the moments after the judge read the jury’s verdict.
“Relief,” he said. “Definitely relief. For five and a half years we’ve been going through all of this,” he added, his voice searching for the right words. “I’m especially relieved for his mom. I think about her son every day and how she lost her son. It was so unnecessary.”
Ann Zehm, Otto’s mother, is Dale’s aunt.
Forty-five minutes after the verdict, the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington, Mike Ormsby, held a press conference downstairs in the Spokane courthouse. Ormsby first commended the jury and praised the team of federal investigators and prosecutors who put the Thompson case together.
“This was a case that had to be brought,” he said. “The truth and the effects of that truth had to be determined. And it now has been.”
While acknowledging the extraordinary importance of the case to the Spokane community, Ormsby also emphasized that the prosecution was limited to “a single police officer” and was not an indictment of the entire Spokane Police Department.
This brought a question from the Spokesman-Review’s Jonathan Brunt, who noted that in his closing statement on Monday the government’s lead trial attorney had stressed to the jury that Thompson’s decision to fabricate his police report was a lie committed with the confidence that the Spokane Police Department’s internal investigator would work to support Thompson’s version of events.
In response to Brunt’s question, and a related question about the prospect of additional indictments stemming from the case, Ormsby simply said it was his office’s policy not to discuss possible future indictments, or even the existence of ongoing investigations.
Ormsby did reiterate the Justice Department’s interest in wanting to have Thompson taken into custody immediately because he was convicted of committing a violent crime.
Although Judge Van Sickle declined the request from federal prosecutor Victor Boutros to have Thompson taken into custody immediately, Ormsby said the government will now quickly pursue the matter with U.S. Magistrate Cynthia Imbrogno, to whom Van Sickle deferred it.
The question as to what comes next now goes to others, most notably Breean Beggs and Jeffry Finer, the two attorneys who are handling the federal civil case seeking damages from Spokane police officers and the City itself for the attack on Otto Zehm and the subsequent efforts to try to blame the 36-year-old mentally disabled janitor for the violence used against him.
“Mrs.’s Zehm’s goal is for the City to take responsibility for what happened to Otto,” Beggs told a local reporter, “and to take the steps necessary to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
The civil case was put on hold at the behest of federal prosecutors two years ago, so as not to impede the criminal proceedings against Thompson. Since the Justice Department requested the stay in the civil case, Finer said, he now expects the government’s lawyers will move “promptly” to have it lifted, now that the criminal verdict has been entered by the jury.
Beggs also noted that, with today’s verdict, Thompson’s liability can be contested in the civil case (in which he’s one of the named defendants) only if Thompson succeeds in appealing and reversing today’s verdict against him.
As a crowd of peaceful demonstrators gathered just east of City Hall to commemorate today’s verdict with signs and candles, Spokane Mayor Mary Verner released the following statement:
“The jury in the trial was in the best position to render a verdict in this case. And, we accept their decision. This verdict is only one step toward closure and healing for our community. I remain committed to completing a thorough internal and external review of all aspects of the case. Our citizens rightfully require their elected officials to acknowledge mistakes and problems and make changes to avoid them in the future. That’s what we’re going to do.”
