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Posted on 05/04/2007 3:47:59 PM PDT by traviskicks
STOCKTON - Hayley Bailey is not shy about showing off her boo-boos.
The little, blond 5-year-old lifted her purple floral dress to show a typical beige bandage on her leg. But under the bandage isn't your typical scrape. Under it is lodged part of a bullet.
Hayley and her mother, Kari Bailey, were wounded Tuesday when a San Joaquin County sheriff's deputy fired at the family dog, Daisy. A bullet ricocheted, breaking apart before hitting the mother and child, who were standing side by side.
The Baileys have hired a high-profile lawyer who is not ready to say whether he is planning a lawsuit against the county. For now, he has a lot of questions he wants answered.
Speaking from his office in Walnut Creek, attorney Michael Cardoza ventured the first of those.
"Why would you take a shot at a dog when a 5-year-old girl is in close proximity?" he asked.
Sheriff's Office spokesman Deputy Les Garcia said about 11 a.m., deputies knocked at the Baileys' door at 2706 Munford Ave. in east Stockton, following up on a code enforcement case.
Deputies heard what sounded like someone inside running to the back of the house, and one deputy went around to the back, Garcia said.
When Kari Bailey opened the front door, the deputy fired at her 50-pound Rottweiler-mix dog as it came running out - hitting the dog in the paw.
The shooting happened quickly, Bailey said, and the deputy was only several feet away when he fired. Kari Bailey was struck in the leg, and her daughter suffered a glancing wound to her chest, as well as the injury to her leg.
Garcia identified the deputy involved as 19-year veteran Terry Breitmaier. Garcia did not have information Wednesday about how many shots Breitmaier fired or whether he has fired his weapon outside training before.
Those in the Bailey home Tuesday give a similar account of what happened, but they don't see how the deputies' actions make sense or why deputies were there in the first place.
Kari Bailey's friend Ona Rutledge, 32, was taking some trash out back when she saw a deputy walking down the driveway.
When she walked in the back door, Rutledge said, she told Kari Bailey there were police at the house, and Bailey went to the front door."By the time I got there, she was already shot," Rutledge said.
The two said they never heard a knock at the door but say there were three children playing in the house at the time and there was another woman there visiting. And, they add, deputies then searched the home for Bailey's husband, Eddie Bailey, saying he had tried to run from them.
The 26-year-old father of two was at the house Wednesday with his wife and daughter. He said he was working in Lodi and Manteca on Tuesday as a tree trimmer, as he does six days a week.
Eddie Bailey said he was wanted on a reckless-driving charge, for which he was arrested Tuesday night while visiting his wife and daughter at the hospital. He was released shortly afterward.
Bailey has no idea why deputies would be trying so hard to find him on a traffic charge he was not trying to avoid.
"They're here so I can be cited and released?" Eddie Bailey asked. "That's petty."
Kari Bailey and Rutledge said deputies also asked about a trailer out back they said is being used in drug sales. Eddie Bailey said there's a trailer next door, not on the property he rents.
That has the family wondering if deputies came to the wrong house.
Garcia said investigators have not mentioned anything about a trailer or drug use and said the reason for the visit by deputies was code enforcement. He also said that deputies are trained to use the amount of force necessary.
"You have a split-second decision to make, and you use whatever tool you deem necessary to stop the threat," he said.
While waiting for more answers, Kari Bailey is worried about her daughter and about her dog, who is still with a veterinarian."I don't understand how cops could do that," Bailey said.
Rutledge is glad the deputies didn't arrive a little bit later.
"This is the neighborhood kid hangout," she said. In the afternoon, as many as seven or eight children come for play dates at their home, she added.
Hayley was playing outside with her cousins Wednesday, like she would any day. It was a different sight from Tuesday, however, when her aunt Deborah Martin, 42, recalled the girl screaming "I'm going to die. I'm going to die" after being hit by bullet fragments.
Paw-shaped splotches of blood that wrap around the front of the house and pocks in the door jamb and front step concrete, identified by the Baileys as bullet holes, were the only outward signs of the shooting.
The family is also wondering how Daisy, a friendly dog who submits to ballerina costumes and the pestering of toddlers, would warrant a shooting.
Garcia said the incident is still under investigation, and more information should be available by the end of the week.
The Sheriff's Office called for a multiagency investigation Tuesday, he said. Those investigations are done by teams that include investigators from the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office.
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Too much unanswered yet to voice an opinion either way. I think the lawyer is smart for waiting as well.
yea, it’ll be interesting to see what develops.
IBJBTA
Who don’t police carry the same stuff postal carriers use to ward off dogs? Doggie mace or something?
Because then they wouldn’t get their kicks watching the sobbing children.
People like that used to be called “Criminally Insane” and were usually blocked from civil service jobs, until that term became un-PC.
True, but I think we know enough to express an opinion about "code enforcement" in Stockton.
Sheriff's Office spokesman Deputy Les Garcia said about 11 a.m., deputies knocked at the Baileys' door at 2706 Munford Ave. in east Stockton, following up on a code enforcement case.
Deputies heard what sounded like someone inside running to the back of the house, and one deputy went around to the back, Garcia said
Because nothing, NOTHING takes precedent over officer safety. Nothing. Some people are more equal than others.
This dumbass is lucky the screaming child didn’t get him 50 pounds of pissed-off Rotty trying to crawl down his throat. And why did a code violation get this guy into his Starsky and Hutch mode when he thought he heard running? Did he think that he needed to go in hot pursuit of a dangerous code violator?
Sounds like another trigger happy cop.
I do hope the investigation is thorough.
JMHO
No, you idiot. You make sure you know the target before pulling the trigger or it might be a little 5 year old girl... oh, never mind.
Possibly something about the trailer in the back.
Just for perspective, my office is not too far from that neighborhood and, believe me, it’s no tree-lined paradise (Picture Cousin Eddie’s place from “Vacation”). And I guarantee the parents are no June and Ward Cleaver.
Having said that - this cop has no business being a cop. He should be fired at the very least.
Did anyone read the comments following the article in the source? It looks to me like these people could sure use some spelling lessons! I also found a lot of their replies to be downright nasty to the mother and child.
It's California - Stockton, specifically, which is kind of an armpit in some places.
You can chalk the spelling up to the great educational system.
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