By Jonathan Glover
The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Coeur d’Alene police released video Monday showing the fatal shooting of 34-year-old Curtis Ware during a February traffic stop. A police officer was shot and wounded during the incident.
At a news conference at Coeur d’Alene police headquarters, Chief Lee White said officers Kelly Mongon and Charles Hatley were performing a routine stop near Government Way and Hattie Avenue around 7 p.m. on Feb. 27.
With snow covering the ground and large plumes of breath visible from the Hatley’s body camera, the video begins with the officers talking to the car’s three occupants for several minutes. Ware, who is in the back seat, owned the car which was flagged for a felony drug warrant.
The officers called for backup and the first to arrive was Officer Taylor Beach. For several minutes, the three officers can be seen keeping their flashlights trained on the three occupants while they wait for dispatch to send more officers.
A few minutes in, Ware can be seen fidgeting with his right side. Mongon reminds him to keep still.
After about 5 minutes, Mongon asks Ware, who was wearing a hat and long sweatshirt, to step out of the car.
As Ware get out, Mongon tells him to turn around and put his hands behind his back. At that moment, Ware can be seen turning quickly while gunfire rings out. Beach’s body camera footage shows Ware spin and a flashlight can be seen.
Mongon’s body camera footage doesn’t capture the full view of the shooting. But police said at the time and again on Monday that Ware grabbed a gun hidden in his waistband and fired without warning or provocation.
“Shots fired,” Mongon says. “Shots fired.”
The officer then runs away from the vehicle and Ware while Hatley and Beach return fire. Beach then runs to Hatley and asks where he was hit.
“Ah, I’m hit,” Hatley says.
“You’re OK,” Beach says. “Where are you hit?
“Right in the stomach,” Hatley replies. “I don’t know if he hit my belt or not.”
Chief White said Beach responded “the way she’s supposed to in training.”
“After realizing Hatley had been hit, she goes and puts herself between Hatley and the suspect and basically provided cover,” he told reporters, acknowleging the danger she put herself in. “It was exceptional and completely above and beyond duty.”
Ware, who was pronounced dead at Kootenai Health with three gunshot wounds after officers found him lying facedown in the snow in a resident’s yard, likely would have been arrested for his warrant, White said. But he said nothing he would have been charged with was worth the loss of life.
“These officers didn’t expect this to go this way,” he said. “It would have just been another arrest. We don’t expect to walk into something like this.”
Last week, Bonner County prosecutors, who were recently forwarded findings of the investigation by the Idaho State Police, ruled the shooting justified and elected not to charge any of the officers.
White said altogether, his officers followed protocol by the book.
“I’m extremely proud of the way our officers responded during this incident,” he said. “They were presented with an unprovoked and sudden attack and they literally responded with the way officers are trained.”
Hatley was hospitalized and underwent surgery for a bullet wound to his stomach. The next day, he was standing and talking.
All three officers were presented with medals from the Coeur d’Alene Police Department, White said, and he was pushing for Beach to receive a national award for running to Hatley’s aid after the shooting.
©2018 The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.)