Otto Zehm (1970 - 2006), a mentally disabled Spokane, Washington man, died on March 20, 2006, two days after being beaten, tasered several times, hog-tied, and suffocated by seven Spokane Police Officers.[1] On May 30, 2006, the Spokane County coroner ruled the death a homicide.[2][3] The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has been investigating the death for two years without conclusion.
In August 2006 an independent report on Zehm's death was commissioned by then-Spokane mayor Dennis Hession. Known as the Worley Report [4] after law enforcement consultant Michael Worley[5], the report was commissioned,[6][7] to look at the three matters -- the Zehm homicide, a Spokane Fire Department sex scandal[8][9], and the Spokane City Citizens Review Commission. Worley's findings were made public in a report released on October 26, 2007, but covered only the Fire Department sex scandal in which Spokane Police ordered a fireman to delete pictures of a minor girl with whom he allegedly had engaged in improper conduct at the fire station and the Citizens Advisory Commission[10] which failed to meet or look at any cases of alleged police misconduct over a period of nearly a decade. Worley submitted the incomplete report, for which the City of Spokane paid $8,800, pending the completion of other then-pending investigations of the Zehm death, including investigations by the Spokane County Prosecutor's Office, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC)[11][12][13], and the FBI. As of August 18, 2008, the FBI has not closed its investigation of the case and has made no public statements regarding the status of that investigation.[14]
No Spokane Police officer or administrator has been suspended or fired or disciplined as a result of the case. However, one officer involved in the case, Spokane Police officer Jason Uberuaga, was subsequent fired for "conduct unbecoming" after being involved in an October 11, 2007, incident involving alcohol and allegations of sexual misconduct. At the time of that incident, Uberuaga was a member of a federal law enforcement task force.[15]
A second Spokane Police officer involved in the Zehm case is Dan Torok[16]. In the Zehm case, Torok provided a written statement in which he stated, "“When my knee struck him, I heard him exhale and I was able to force his arm behind his back.” Court documents indicate that Torok was present when Zehm subsequently stopped breathing. In addition to Torok's knee in his chest, Zehm was subjected to being hog-tied and placed on his chest for 16 minutes, as well as being subjected to a non-rebreather mask placed on his face without oxygen attached, thus limiting his ability to breath.
Almost exactly a year after his involvement in Zehm's death, Torok shot and killed a homeless man, Jerome Alford, on March 24, 2007.[17] Following a Spokane area practice in which the Spokane Police and Spokane County Sheriff's Office investigate one another in officer involved deaths, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office was assigned to investigate the shooting of Alford by Torok. Spokane Chief of Police Anne E. Kirkpatrick ordered Torok to provide a written statement, known as a Garrity letter, rather than submit to questioning by the Spokane County Sheriff's Office. Garrity letters are so infrequently used in the area that Spokane County Sheriff's personnel did not initially accept the letter from Torok. Final results of the Sheriff's investigation were never made public.[18] Currently Torok is a Spokane Police Department detective supervising assignments of child abuse cases, and also acting frequently as a spokesperson for the Spokane Police. He is also a controversial participant in on-line blogging at the Spokane daily newpaper, the Spokesman-Review. In August 2007, he and a colleague were discovered blogging anonymously at a Spokesman-Reivew affiliated blog, Hard 7, until the blog manager discovered their identities and employment with the Spokane Police.[19] Recently another Spokesman-Review blog, Community Comment, has given Torok and his police colleague, Sgt. Jim Faddis, a former internal affairs officer, semi-official status on a periodic thread called Police Blotter[20], a thread identified by a reproduction of the Spokane Police badge.
The Zehm case provoked public outrage, including protests and public challenges to the police by critics.[21] The case also prompted intense scrutiny by the local media and calls for independent oversight. A series of public meetings in the first half of 2007 including a three part series on Police Accountability at Gonzaga University sponsored by the ACLU, the League of Women's Voters, and the Peace and Justice Action League (PJALS) culminated in a growing consensus that an appropriate step to address the concerns about police misconduct would be an independent ombudsman styled after the Boise (Idaho) Office of the Community Ombudsman [22] headed by Pierce Murphy. Murphy visited Spokane several times including to participate in one of the Police Accountability forums at Gonzaga. Murphy also spoke prior to a Whitworth University theater production[23] on Police Accountability and the death of Zehm. The unique event -- Crossing the Line: An Examination of Police, Power and People -- was held on May 16, 2008 at CenterStage. Despite the significant public interest and outcry over the matter, two and a half years after the death of Zehm and following several other controversies involving the Spokane Police Department, no independent oversight of the Spokane Police has been instituted.
![[16]](http://blog.borgnet.us/wp-content/upload/Spokane-Police-Sgt-Dan-Torok.jpg){kind=link}