Coos Bay officer cleared in fatal shooting.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

NORTH BEND - A Coos Bay police officer won't face criminal charges or internal discipline for fatally shooting an unarmed 34-year-old student last month on the campus of Southwestern Oregon Community College, authorities announced Friday.

Detective Hugo Hatzel shot Steven Lile Garner, a robbery suspect, three times - twice in the chest and once in the left side - when Garner charged at him with a Sharpie marking pen on May 12. Hatzel told investigators he thought the pen was a knife and feared for his life.

Coos Bay Chief Deputy District Attorney Paul Frasier said the shooting was justified.

"You shoot until the threat is gone," Frasier said.

He noted that another police officer and a campus security guard told investigators they believed Garner was wielding a weapon. Three other witnesses didn't describe a weapon, but corroborated accounts of Garner's threatening gestures, Frasier said.

"Even though Mr. Garner was not armed with a knife, he was clearly brandishing an object as if it were a knife," Frasier wrote in a 16-page report based on an investigation by the North Bend Police Department. "He could have run a variety of different directions when he encountered Detective Hatzel.

"Mr. Garner chose to ignore repeated commands to stop and get on the ground," the report said. "Mr. Garner chose to make threatening gestures simulating that he was armed with a knife ... any reasonable person facing the same circumstances as Detective Hatzel would have believed that his life was in imminent danger."

Frasier said Garner made the fateful decision that ended his life.

"The question here is why would Mr. Garner advance on an armed police officer with only a Sharpie pen in his hand?" Frasier said at a news conference. "He may have been paranoid and delusional. Or, if he was truly suicidal, he was trying to do everything he could to get the officer to shoot him."

An autopsy revealed enough methamphetamine in Garner's system to prove he was high at the time of the shooting, Frasier said. Garner also tested positive for benzodiazepines, often found in anti-depressants, along with marijuana and opiates.

One of the bullets that struck Garner in the chest pierced his heart. The third bullet grazed his abdomen and lodged in a parked car in the campus lot where the shooting occurred.

Garner's mother didn't return phone calls seeking comment, but Frasier described family members as "not happy" about Garner's death. He didn't elaborate.

It's clear, Frasier said, that Garner was in a "downhill spiral." Garner's medical records revealed a long history of substance abuse, he said. Garner was committed to a mental institution in Minnesota in 2003.

The problems culminated on the small college campus, when five police officers spread out to look for a robbery suspect they believed was Garner. His fingerprints matched those on a note used to rob a Wells Fargo Bank in Coos Bay a week earlier.

Campus security guard Cliff Neves spotted Garner first at about 3:10 p.m. that afternoon, heading across Campus Way Road toward the Wal-Mart south of campus, Frasier said. Neves jumped out of his car and yelled at Garner to stop and get on the ground. Garner reached into his pocket and pulled out the pen, which Neves believed was a weapon, he told police.

Garner advanced on Neves and stabbed at the guard, who struck him with a collapsible baton. Campus guards don't carry firearms. Garner charged a second time, and Neves struck him a second time. Garner turned and ran, Frasier said.

Seconds later, Coos Bay police officer Cal Mitts spotted Garner running toward a campus parking lot. Garner had something in his hand and Mitts told investigators he believed it was a knife. Mitts drew his gun when Garner made threatening gestures.

Hatzel had also arrived at the scene from a different part of campus. Garner charged at Hatzel, who was in plain clothes and identified himself as an officer. Hatzel ordered Garner to the ground.

At that point, Mitts was "convinced Garner was going to hurt or kill Detective Hatzel" and was going to fire, but realized Hatzel was on the other side and could get caught in the crossfire, Frasier said.

As Mitts ran for a safer place to shoot, Hatzel backpedaled until Garner was 5 feet to 8 feet away and then fired three rounds.

State law allows citizens to defend themselves when someone is attacking them, Frasier said, but they must reasonably believe that the other person is committing or attempting to commit a felony involving physical force or deadly force.

In this case, Hatzel believed Garner had robbed a bank and told the teller he had a gun, Frasier said.

Hatzel has been on administrative leave since the shooting and will return to work later this month. He didn't return telephone messages left via his attorney for comment.

The case was marked with some unavoidable near misses, Frasier said. On the day of the bank robbery, for example, the teller said she thought she knew the culprit as "Steve" from her classes, but police weren't able to chase the tip because privacy laws prevented the school from revealing student information, he said.

And just a day after the robbery, police had Garner in custody - before the fingerprint analysis had identified him as a suspect.

Garner had fallen or jumped off a retaining wall in Coos Bay on May 7. When emergency officials and police answered the distress call, Garner tried to run away, covered in blood, yelling "I didn't do it" and "It wasn't me," Frasier said.

Emergency officials noted that he had thrown a knife in the bushes as well. Garner spent the next few days in Bay Area Hospital, where he was admitted with a broken wrist and nose.

Emergency workers told doctors that Garner had tried to kill himself by jumping off the wall. Garner told hospital staffers that "he wanted to be dead and dying with dignity" and that he was from another planet. He also talked about a planet being blown up, according to Frasier's report.

He later was placed in the hospital's psychiatric unit and diagnosed with "polysubstance dependence" of cocaine, amphetamines, opiates and marijuana, Frasier said - though Garner denied having suicidal tendencies and he was released the day before the shooting.

That same day, a Springfield crime laboratory notified Coos Bay police that it had found five fingerprints on a note that the Wells Fargo Bank robber had given the teller and that they matched Garner's. Frasier said Garner's photograph also matched those taken at the May 6 robbery.