Officer Jeremy Lynn
The Missouri deputy who claimed I had called 911 and threatened to shoot anyone trying to evict Carol and me back tracks from that statement in a written report dated 9/10/15, the day after our eviction that led to deputies breaking Carol's arm and bringing bogus criminal charges against her.What have we learned? Officers essentially admit that I never made a 911 call, as I've stated all along. Officers still claim I made some kind of threat, and they apparently used that as an excuse to act like a SWAT team, with assault rifles aimed, pistols flying, and a team of what appeared to be 6-8 cops. But it remains unclear how they knew about any "threat," who reported it, to whom I allegedly made the threat, what evidence the person presented to cops, and why such a threat (if I made it, and I didn't) would be unlawful under Missouri's Castle Doctrine Law. It also remains unclear why officers, if the "threat" was of such concern, took no action at the time it supposedly was made, showed no signs that they took it seriously.
In an e-mail written just eight days before the deputy's written report, on September 2, 2015, my lawyer/brother David Shuler said Deputy Scott Harrison had contacted him to express concern about our upcoming eviction. This is part of David's e-mail:
[Harrison] said he posted the notice to vacate on the Cowherd property. He also said he was concerned because his dispatch contacted him and said you had called 911 and threatened to shoot anyone coming on the premises to get you out. I certainly hope that you did not really do that, but he asked me to make you aware that they take such threats seriously and that you are setting up a potentially dangerous situation.
What did Harrison say eight days later? Here it is, from an investigative report obtained during discovery in the pending "assault on a law enforcement officer" case against Carol:
Extreme caution was used while attempting to serve this eviction due to information reported to law enforcement about verbal threats made by Roger Shuler "to shoot anyone who attempts to evict him from his residence." Information was broadcasted (sic) to all city and county officers by 911 Dispatch on 08/12/2015 at 11:37 a.m. regarding this threat made by Roger Shuler.
What do we learn here:
* Information was "broadcast" via 911, but it says nothing about me making a call to 911.
* It claims someone reported my alleged "verbal threats," but it doesn't say who or how they knew. This appears to be hearsay to the nth degree, but cops used it to point an assault rifle at my head and wind up breaking Carol's arm?
* The report about the alleged threat came on 8/12/15, roughly three weeks before David Shuler sent an e-mail to me about it. Why the delay?
Harrison is not the only deputy to address the 911/threat issue in his written statements. These are the words of Officer Debi Wade, author of the Probable Cause Statement against Carol:
The next day (08-12-15) Deputy Harrison notified me that dispatch had put out information regarding officer safety information stemming from a call that they received about Roger Shuler at 4070 S. Fort. Although not verbatim, the information given to officers was that Roger Shuler told someone that he would kill any law enforcement officer that came in an attempt to evict him from his residence.
Notice two things here: (1) Now, we have 911 dispatch receiving a call "about Roger Shuler," not from Roger Shuler; (2) Wade claims I relayed a threat to "someone," but we don't know who. Officers brought enough weaponry for an eviction to put our lives at risk, based on this?
A written statement from Officer Jeremy Lynn adds new elements to the cops' story:
There was reason to believe there could be issues with the eviction due to past statements and sentiments posted by Mr. Shuler online. There was also a 911 call received in regards to Mr. Shuler, stating there would be violence with anyone who tried to evict him from his home.
What have we here? (1) Now, I'm a threat because of "sentiments" I had expressed online. Is Lynn claiming I threatened online to shoot somebody? If that's his claim, I would sure like to know when I did that; (2) The 911 call now was "received in regards to Mr. Shuler," not from Mr. Shuler. These folks can't keep their stories straight.
Finally, we have the words of Officer Christian Conrad: (The incident report, including all of the deputies' written statements, is embedded at the end of this post.)
I was informed that Shuler was anti-law enforcement and had made threats to assault or kill law enforcement if they attempted to remove him from his home.
Ah, so now, I'm sort of an anti-government terrorist, you know the kind that holes up at a cabin in Montana, while black helicopters fly overhead.
This is laughable, but Conrad isn't the only Missouri cop who portrays me as a menace to government. We will look, in an upcoming post, at others who do the same.
For now, here is the key point: Too many cops are blindingly stupid, especially about matters of the law. And that can put the public at risk. In written statements about our eviction case, cops give the impression that "Hey, we taped an eviction notice from the landlord or his lawyer on your door, so therefore it's valid, and you'd better get prepared to leave." They seem to have no idea that an eviction is a legal process, that it must be authorized by the court. A landlord or his lawyer cannot unilaterally evict anybody.
In our case, we've seen no evidence of a valid court order, signed by a judge, authorizing our eviction. In fact, the docket plainly shows the judge issued an interlocutory judgment, meaning it was not final, with additional issues, including our breach of contract counterclaim, set for hearing on Oct. 1, 2015. (Add link to earlier post.) That suggests there could not be a valid court order, signed by a judge, because she had issued no final ruling in the case.
Officer Scott Harrison
Here is a critical point that seems beyond the grasp of law enforcement: If a tenant "reasonably believes" an eviction is unlawful -- and cops are about to invade his home with no grounds for doing so -- he has a right under Missouri's Castle Doctrine Law to resist, including use of deadly force. In our case, we knew of at least four grounds upon which an eviction would have been illegal, so we had every right to resist via force.In essence, law enforcement was getting its panties bunched over an alleged "threat" to take LAWFUL action. Under such circumstances, what law enforcement saw as a "threat" was more like a "vow" -- to respond lawfully if cops insisted on acting unlawfully.
Experience has taught us that many cops are too stupid to think through stuff like this. Perhaps they have the brain power to patrol beats, and the brightest among them might be capable of investigating crimes that already have happened. But to be involved with a delicate civil matter, like an eviction . . . states have delegated that authority to sheriffs, but there is no way deputies or their bosses should be involved. They either aren't smart enough to grasp the law, or they are too corrupt to apply the law correctly -- and that can cause innocent civilians to be hurt; we've been hurt, and Carol has a scar of 12 inches or more on her left arm to prove it.
How dense can cops be? We have more evidence coming up next.
(To be continued)