Page 6
Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, July 21, 2010
District Attorney: Deputy justified in fatal June shooting
Following a review of
the circumstances surround-
ing a fatal gun shot fired by a
Josephine County Sheriff’s
Office (JCSO) deputy on
June 23, the conclusion is that
the officer was justified.
Stephen Campbell,
county district attorney, an-
nounced last week that he had
concluded his review of the
officer-involved shooting at
1440 Denton Road in rural
Grants Pass.
The round from a .223
tactical rifle, fired at approxi-
mately 8:01 a.m., resulted in
the death of Vaughn Ronald
Sanderson, who earlier talked
about “suicide by cop.”
Campbell said that a full
investigation of the incident
was conducted by the Jose-
phine County Major Crime
Response Team. It is an inter-
agency team comprised of
detectives from Oregon State
Police, Grants Pass Dept. of
Public Safety, and JCSO. The
OSP Crime Laboratory as-
sisted with scene investiga-
tion and forensic analysis.
The district attorney pro-
vided the following account:
Evidence revealed that in
the early morning hours of
June 23, Sanderson, who had
been drinking for several
days, was expressing
thoughts of suicide including
placing a .357 revolver into
his mouth. Sanderson also
had numerous other loaded
firearms in the house includ-
ing rifles and a shotgun.
When Sanderson was
told by his domestic partner,
Kathy Varner, that she was
going to phone the police,
Sanderson told her if she did
it would be “suicide by cop.”
She was able to slip a cell
phone to a tenant of the resi-
dence, Byron Smith, and re-
quested that he phone 911,
report what was going on,
and request help. Meanwhile,
Varner continued to try to
talk Sanderson down. Smith
made the 911 call at 7:24 a.m.
In response to the call, six
JCSO deputies responded:
Sgt. John Justema, Joel Heller,
Keith Hubbard, Cory Krauss,
Jason Schmidt and Jaired
Freeman. Three of them were
familiar with the residence, as
they had been involved in
prior complaints there. They
approached in teams of two
from different angles.
Justema and Heller ap-
proached the front of the ga-
rage where Sanderson was
located, and the officers used
a fifth-wheel travel trailer as a
shield. As they approached,
the deputies identified them-
selves and were challenged
by Sanderson. Using exple-
tives, he ordered the deputies
off the property and threat-
ened to shoot them.
During the challenge,
Sanderson picked up a loaded
Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun.
Justema repeatedly told San-
derson to drop the weapon
but, in contradiction to law-
man instruction, Sanderson
raised the shotgun in the di-
rection of Justema and Heller
and discharged a round.
Justema immediately
returned fire, discharging a
single round from a .223 ser-
vice rifle, which struck
Vaughn Sanderson in his left
chest, entering his heart and
resulting in fatal injury.
Evidence that the shot-
gun was fired included a re-
cently discharged round in the
chamber of the shotgun when
secured, plus the shot cup
from the shotgun cartridge
(sometimes known as the
wadding), which landed
within a few feet of Justema;
and a shot pellet that appar-
ently struck the fifth-wheel
trailer and dropped near the
front of it where Justema and
Heller had taken position.
Additionally, at least nine
witnesses reported being able
to distinguish the two shots,
first the shotgun and then the
rifle, occurring in quick suc-
cession.
Arraignment set in embezzlement case
(Continued from page 1)
$3,500 removed from bank
ATMs in a one-month period.
“Wilson was never ap-
proved to withdraw cash from
the ATMs,” documents state.
The JCSO incident report
narrative states that Wilson
was “confronted during a
meeting with the board of
directors of the Forestry Ac-
tion Committee about her
work ethic and the lack of
accounting information for
the business.” She was di-
rected to provide them with
the laptop computer contain-
ing the organization’s ac-
counting information.
All the passwords for the
computer had been changed
by Wilson, documents state,
and “two different sets of
books were located.” One set
had been shown to the board
of directors during meetings,
and “one that was poorly kept
over the past two or three
years,” documents state.
A secret indictment for
the case was filed in Jose-
phine County Circuit Court
on May 20 by Deputy District
Attorney Wally Hicks. Court
documents listed Chapp as
the victim for the aggravated
identity theft count, and state
that $10,000 or more was
taken between June 15 and
Dec. 15, 2007.
Court documents state
that the charge of aggravated
theft in the first degree
stemmed from the theft of
$10,000 or more from FAC
between June 1 and Nov. 30,
2008. One of the first-degree
theft charges was for the loss
of $5,000 or more from FAC
between Dec. 1, 2007 and
May 30, 2008, documents
state. The other was for the
period between Dec. 7, 2007
and May 7, 2008.
A charge of identity theft
stemmed from Wilson’s use
of Chapp’s identity between
Jan. 22 and Feb. 6, 2008,
documents state, for an
amount of more than $1,000.
The first-degree forgery
charge was for altering a
check for $1,000 or more
between Aug. 25 and Aug.
29, 2008, documents state.
On Feb. 2, 2009, Wilson
was convicted of stealing
from Herb Nichols between
Dec. 23 and Dec. 26, 2008.
An indictment for that case,
stamped Jan. 16, 2009, also
listed charges of first-degree
forgery and identity theft. It
was signed by a grand jury
foreman and Deputy District
Attorney Michael Caso.
That document states that
Nichols testified in person
before the grand jury with
JCSO Deputy Ed Vincent.
A probable-cause affida-
vit dated Jan. 12, 2009 states
that Wilson took Nichols’
checkbook, wrote a check for
$5,000 and deposited checks
into her account. Wilson also
was alleged to have removed
Nichols’ debit card and used
it to “pay bills,” documents
state.
According to an
amended judgment stamped
March 10, 2009 and signed
by Circuit Court Judge Lindi
Baker, Wilson was sentenced
to 24 months of bench proba-
tion, 20 days in custody and
$437 in assessments.
Court documents state
that Wilson had resided in
San Mateo, Calif. for around
six months prior to being
transported to Josephine
County Jail. At the time, Wil-
son had three outstanding
local warrants for failure to
appear on file, but in a court
document dated July 1, she
wrote that she “didn’t know
there was a warrant out.”
Wilson tentatively is set
to be arraigned for the new
charges stemming from the
alleged FAC thefts on
Wednesday, July 21 at 1 p.m.
in Josephine County Circuit
Court. She apparently will be
represented by an attorney
from the public defender’s
office.
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policies are doing much bet-
ter, he said.
“The reality is that free
trade is bad for the United
States,” Fletcher articulated.
“It’s also bad for very poor
people abroad.”
Karl Marx, the founder
of communism, supported
free trade because it increases
the gap between the rich and
the poor, Fletcher said, which
would hasten the social revo-
lution that Marx sought.
The author said that
white collar workers such as
accountants are increasingly
becoming victimized by free
trade policies.
“The pain is gradually
working its way up the social
ladder, and it’s starting to hit
the yuppies who are seeing
their white collar jobs out-
sourced to India,” he said.
The political coalition
that has supported free trade
policies in the past is coming
undone as a result, he said.
“I think that whole de-
bate is going to erupt all over
again,” Fletcher maintains. “I
think the American people
are increasingly becoming
aware that we’ve got to be
doing something wrong, be-
cause the economy is not
supposed to go backwards.”
As a solution to the prob-
lem of trade imbalance,
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Students will service cars and trucks, diagnose inoperative
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All work is conducted at RCC’s Redwood Campus, 3345
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vestigation is also helpful in
protecting officers from un-
justified civil claims.
During this incident all
officers on scene conducted
themselves to appropriate
professional standards.
Justema’s use of deadly
physical force under the cir-
cumstances he encountered
was fully justified under Ore-
gon law. No further action in
this matter is anticipated or
merited.
Campbell thanked the
Josephine County Major
Crime Response Team for an
excellent and detailed investi-
gation of the incident.
Willian pleads guilty to
five sex abuse charges
A Cave Junction man
facing 10 counts of first-
degree sex abuse has pleaded
guilty to five of those counts.
Dennis Willian, 66, en-
tered his plea in Josephine
County Circuit Court on Fri-
day, July 16. Sex abuse is a
Measure 11 offense with a
mandatory minimum sen-
tence of 75 months in prison.
Deputy District Attorney
Ryan Mulkins, who prose-
cutes most of the sex crimes
in the county, said that the
state is recommending a nine-
year prison term for Willian.
Willian was arrested and
booked
into
Josephine
County Jail in Grants Pass on
June 10. At the time, he was
living near Evergreen Ele-
mentary School.
The charges against Wil-
lian were based on allegations
that he abused a 5-year-old
girl on multiple occasions
during 2002.
Willian was represented
by attorney Victory Walker
from the public defender’s
office. Mulkins said that sen-
tencing likely will take place
within the next month.
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Protectionist policies promoted
(Continued from page 1)
pearing. But he noted that is
not really the case.
“Almost all multinational
corporations are still physi-
cally strongly tied to one
country or another,” he stated.
“We still live in a world that
is largely made up of differ-
ent national economies.”
Even the United States
and
Canada
have
“meaningfully different”
economies, Fletcher said,
despite their many similari-
ties. As an example, the au-
thor cited the fact that Canada
has largely avoided the bank-
ing industry turmoil that has
plagued the U.S. economy in
the past few years.
“Nations still matter,”
Fletcher said. “The national
economy still matters.”
Many nations in Latin
America and Sub-Saharan
Africa are poorer today than
they were 40 years ago due to
free trade policies, he ob-
served. Nations practicing
mercantilist and protectionist
Justema and Heller re-
ported seeing the muzzle
flash of the shotgun in their
direction.
During interviews with
Varner, she reportedly said
that this event “could not
have ended any other way.”
The evidence revealed that
Sanderson, in an intoxicated
and suicidal state, forced the
police to employ deadly
physical force against him.
The district attorney is
charged with the duty of re-
viewing incidents where
deadly physical force is used
to determine if its use met the
standards of existing state
law. A full and complete in-
Fletcher suggested implemen-
tation of a 20 to 30 percent
flat tax on all imported goods
and services.
Such a system wouldn’t
cause low-paying industries
such as apparel to return to
the USA, Fletcher said, but he
feels that it would help retain
high-tech industries such as
semiconductor firms.
Office: 541-597-2813
Cell: 541-659-2670
Tony Fierro, Owner
CCB # 189983
Illinois Valley News is an equal-opportunity
advertising medium. Phone 541-592-2541.