News coverage of shooting reveals inconsistencies in police account of events.
[Editors notes in blue to highlight police inconsistencies]
The man shot dead by police in Langford Tuesday afternoon was on a suicide mission, say members of his family.
Joseph Pagnotta, 52, was shot after he continued to lunge at police with a knife, even after being shot with a stun gun. Pagnotta, a convicted drug dealer who was once set on fire by a disgruntled customer, struggled with drugs and poverty for the last 20 years, said his sister-in-law Rosanna Chartier.
Recently he was diagnosed with chronic depression, but had stopped taking his medication and had been threatening suicide for two weeks, she said.
"He came out of prison on a fraud charge just a couple of weeks ago. He was under psychiatric care in prison because of his mental illness," said Chartier, who talked to the Times Colonist at the request of her sister Natasha Pagnotta, Joseph Pagnotta's wife.
The final straw seemed to be that he had breached probation that day, she said.
He had failed to turn up for an appointment with his probation officer and was waiting to be taken back to prison, she said.
"He went out there on a death sentence. I really believe he wanted them to do it because he couldn't do it himself," Chartier said.
"He was on a suicide mission and he succeeded. That's why we are not holding the police officer responsible."
The family hopes his death will underline the need for people with mental illness to be handled differently.
Joseph and Natasha Pagnotta had been married 20 years and have a 12-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son.
"They are good kids and they are strong and resilient, but the little one misses her dad. She was down the street when she heard the shots," Chartier said.
The suicide threats came to a head Monday afternoon and Natasha Pagnotta took her daughter to a nearby convenience store to phone an ambulance. She did not want to make the call from the house because she was afraid Joseph would stop her phoning or lock himself in the bathroom and slit his wrists, Chartier said.
Natasha first phoned her sister at work and they both tried to phone his doctor. The nurse at the doctor's office told them to phone an ambulance and get him to the Royal Jubilee Hospital for a psychiatric assessment.
"We called an ambulance, not the police, but they came because he was threatening suicide with a knife," Chartier said.
[Please note both the number of times the story has now referred to the victim's mental state as being one bent on suicide, AND that this fact alone is why police were even dispatched to the scene! ]
While Natasha and her daughter were walking back to the
house, three police cars whizzed by and one officer stopped and asked Natasha
whether her husband was dangerous.
"She said that she didn't think he was dangerous to anyone else, but that he was
very paranoid about police because of his past history," Chartier said.
That history kept catching up with him even when he would quit using drugs for
years at a time, she said.
It was tough to find work because of his criminal record and the family survived
on social assistance, always struggling with poverty.
"Drugs helped him escape reality and sometimes he used crime to feed his
family," Chartier said. "I don't think people should judge others until they
have walked in their shoes. There was good in him."
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Gord Bedingfield said it is not possible to guess whether
the man was suicidal.
[Now compare the above statement by the RCMP
spokesman..... ]
"The only person that can answer that is unfortunately dead right now. . . . The
responding members wouldn't have known anything about that before responding to
the incident," he said.
[And this statement about "members not knowing "ANYTHING about that" before responding]
Police are continuing to investigate what happened. The
coroner's office is also investigating.
Bedingfield said the police probe and toxicology reports may help to establish
why the stun gun was ineffective, he said.
Sometimes there are mechanical problems with the stun gun or there could be a
problem with distances as both probes have to hit a person to be effective,
Bedingfield said. "And some goal-oriented people who are very focused on what
they are doing can overcome it."
Police officers discharge their weapons only to protect themselves or people in
their care from death or grievous bodily harm, Bedingfield said. They do not try
to shoot the weapon out of someone's hand or aim for kneecaps because of the
difficulty of shooting such a small moving target, he said.
"If it is serious enough that police have to use firearms, they shoot to
neutralize the threat," Bedingfield said.
[Note, also, the dehumanizing language used by the RCMP spokesperson with reference to this shooting..... they don't kill people with THEIR weapons, they "neutralize" them. This same language is routinely used by persons trained by the military. ]
That means police have to make a split second decision to aim for the centre mass of the body, he said.
[Split second? How then the testimony of the neighbour who stated she could hear police yelling at the victim, and that the ordeal took ten minutes? See highlighted paragraphs below....]
Tanja Watson, a tenant for the last two years in the
other half of the Phelps Avenue duplex where Joseph Pagnotta lived with his
family, said she knew him well.
"I was basically his number 1 enemy in the neighbourhood," she said, referring
to complaints she made about drug-dealing and disturbances that focused on his
home.
Watson had returned from picking up her eight-year-old son from school about
2:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. They were chatting in the living room, then looked
out to see police cars in the street. "They jumped out with their guns drawn,"
she said of the police. "They knocked on the door repeatedly, shouting, asking
him to come out. Finally they broke his door down."
Police told her through the front window of her living room to stay indoors.
Watson said she dropped to the floor, on top of her eight-year-old son to
protect him. She didn't see what happened after, but could hear police.
"They were yelling at him not to move. They were
yelling at him to drop the knife, drop the knife."
Then she heard three shots fired. "It was over and done within 10 minutes," said
Watson.
[Clearly this contradicts the RCMP's contention that the events occured in a matter of "split" seconds....]
She expressed sympathy for the two children who lived next door. "No matter what kind of person he is, he's still their father."
[Well not any more.... and now they have the
TimesColonist to thank for reminding everyone of his drug past, as they so
callously recount to the reader in the closing paragraphs.]
People came to the Phelps Avenue property seven days a week, at all hours
looking to buy drugs, she said. They'd park in her driveway, and sometimes
knocked on her door by mistake.
Times Colonist stories on Pagnotta's drug-related troubles go back almost a
decade. A disgruntled customer came to his Fernwood basement apartment in
January 1995, doused him in gasoline and set him ablaze with a lighter. Pagnotta
survived, but spent a month in hospital and the fire caused $100,000 damage to
the house. A year later, he was sentenced to one year in jail for dealing
cocaine.
Court was told that Pagnotta was a low-level street dealer who sold 3.5-gram
packages of cocaine.
[Was he forcing people to buy these drugs, given they
came to his "property seven days a week, at all
hours looking to buy drugs"? Is this enough reason
to murder someone? You decide....]
© Copyright 2004 Times Colonist (Victoria)