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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 2005)
NOVEMBER 15, 2005 Smoke Signals 7 down ' Gara9e rmi xr ynfe-. Rental (3) Togstad A Home A ?t H A The Killing Of Marty George This is the scene of the shooting according to the District Attorney's office. Marty George comes down the dirt road and signals Natalie Lodmell, who exits her car as George exits the red Blazer, and they talk where their cars meet. As they talk, witness Patti Montgomery, who is at the front corner of the Togstad garage, calls to Lodmell, and when Lodmell finally hears her, Lodmell walks that way. George follows brieDy, then returns to his truck, backs it around ( 1 ) , and drives (2) to location 4 on the map. He exits the Blazer and again talks to the two women. At that time, Lonnie Hinchcliff drives up with a City of Sheridan Jeep, and parks. He hides behind an idled tractor next to the Jeep. Following Hinchcliff .Yamhill County Deputy Richard Geist pulls in behind the parked pickup and State Trooper Randy Ogle pulls toward the center of the drive. Both draw their weapons and run to the back of the parked pickup, shouting for George to give himself up. George jumps back in the Blazer and backs it up. Geist back peddles to get out of the way of the Blazer and begins firing, first at the vehicle's tires, then point blank at George. Then, Ogle fires at George. The Blazer stops before hitting Ogle and then drives forward very slowly across the driveway and down a small ravine. Hinchcliff agrees with this description. Montgomery remembers George backing up from position 1 and when the police arrive, he hurries back to the same position at the back of the parked pickup, hoping to get away. Lodmell agrees in the police report, but her drawing of the incident shows George's Blazer coming from position 1 as well. Diagram by Heather Boylan heard on a police scanner about George being on the loose in the area. So, Mont gomery called the other house to warn them, but that call went unanswered. She went to the door and saw Lodmell speaking with George. She called to her and ultimately got her attention. Still according to Montgomery, George started to follow as Lodmell went to see what Montgomery wanted, but then thought better of it, and re turned to his truck to bring it over with him to the Togstad house. It was about a hundred yards from the house. Here, the stories differ. Montgom ery remembers George backing the Blazer up as the two police cars ar rived and the police shouted for him to stop the car, put his hands up and get out. Police had quickly jumped in be hind the pickup truck parked by the bushes in front of the Togstad house with their guns pulled and at that point, George was backing in toward Ogle (see map). The District Attorney said that George turned the Blazer around nearly where it was, then pulled in face forward to a spot right by where the women were speaking by the Togstad garage. He said that George got out of the Blazer there and was speaking to the women when the two police cars driven by Geist and Ogle arrived. As George backed up, whether from the center of the driveway as Montgom ery remembers it, or from the Togstad house, as the DA described it, sixteen bullets were fired, 10 by Geist and six by Ogle. The way the bullets hit home, crossing George's chest from left to right, they appeared to have been fired from the side of the car as George backed up. Some, going through the driver's seat, came from the left and behind. When George turned the rig to circle back toward Ogle, he already was mortally wounded, according to the DA, and the firing had stopped. From this point, the DA suggests that George both hit the break of the car because it slid to a stop, and that he also put the truck in drive, because it then headed slowly across the driveway and down a small ravine. Ogle slipped at one point as the truck was backing toward him, and pushed off the back of the truck as it came to a stop, but no shots were fired through the back window of the Blazer, though that appears to be the time when Ogle's life could have been in the greatest dan ger. Under the DA's scenario, the mor tal shots appear to come from Geist at a time when he was in no immediate danger because he was at the car's side. In addition, Geist's testimony is that he circled around behind the parked pick-up. If that is true, then Trooper Ogle could also have stepped behind the pickup as the Blazer headed toward him. Geist's report has him back peddling out of the way of the Blazer as it speeds backward, and firing point blank from the side of the car. But in the DA's description, Geist has back-peddled out of the way of the Blazer, with his back to Trooper Ogle, so it is harder to understand why he needed to fire at all. In his report of the incident, he said that he did not know where Trooper Ogle was until Ogle started firing. "He (George) may have not even have known that the police were behind him," said the witness, Patti Montgomery. The DA estimated that it took one second for the car to back up in its last arc, and 30 seconds from the time that Geist and Ogle arrived until George was dead. "I never saw his face," said Mont gomery. The DA reported, "This office has concluded that Deputy Geist and Trooper Ogle acted within the author ity of Oregon law in their use of deadly physical force in that they reasonably believed that the actions of Martin George, by rapidly accelerating his vehicle at them, imminently risked their life and personal safety." Many uncorroborated stories, eyewit ness tales and probably rumors sug gest contradictions, ulterior motives and unprofessional attitudes of those who played a part in this police action. Some witnesses fear for their jobs, oth ers wonder if what they know is itself a crime. The Tribal community is asking itself if it should have done more, if it could have done more, and what all those possibilities would be. After the announcement exonerating the police actions, Yamhill County Sheriff Jack Crabtree said that it was in everyone's interest for this to be re solved with the least amount of con troversy and disagreement. Claudia George is no closer to that ideal. Like so many others who turned her son in, or like herself, who warned the police that very day that he was using and might be unpre dictable, friends and relatives wanted their stuff back, of course, but more important, they wanted George taken safely so he could get the help he needed. The police used those advisories as the backup for lethal force. "He was my son but he was my best friend," his mother said. "We used to look up at the clouds and find faces in them." Marty George is also survived by his son, Justin, and daughter, Cara. The George family wanted to thank each and everybody in the community who helped with Marty's funeral and who rallied around in their time of grief. Marty's mother also asked that we relay for her how appreciative she was of the way she was treated by the Major Crime Response Team members, Newberg Detectives Ser geant Jeff Kosmicki and Todd Baltzell, during their review of po lice activities in this case.
