Thursday, April 22, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

POLICE SHOOTING: FBI probes unarmed man's killing

Officers' conduct after shooting being examined

Orlando Barlow Killed in 2003 Brian Hartman Put on leave

Federal authorities are investigating a Las Vegas police officer's killing last year of an unarmed man who was surrendering and on his knees when he was shot, the FBI confirmed Wednesday.

Las Vegas police recently placed that officer, Brian Hartman, and others on paid leave as the department's Internal Affairs Bureau separately investigates complaints that Hartman and other officers engaged in grossly inappropriate behavior in the aftermath of Orlando Barlow's February 2003 death.

At the center of the departmental probe are allegations that Hartman and others memorialized the slaying by printing T-shirts with the initials "BDRT," standing for "Baby's Daddy Removal Team."

"These are very serious charges," said Las Vegas police Deputy Chief Mike Ault, commander of Internal Affairs.

In popular culture, unmarried women often use the term "my baby's daddy" to refer to the father of their child.

Federal officials would not elaborate on the specifics of their investigation, beyond confirming it was a civil rights violation inquiry into the February 2003 shooting of Barlow, a five-time felon.

"We are looking into the matter, and that's all we can say at this point," said Special Agent David Schrom, a spokesman for the Las Vegas field office of the FBI.

In another development in the case, police have reached an agreement to settle a federal civil lawsuit filed earlier this year by Barlow's mother.

The lawsuit, in which Sheila Barlow alleged wrongful death and civil rights violations by Las Vegas police, will cost taxpayers more than $250,000 if approved by the department's Fiscal Affairs Committee next month, according to those close to the case.

The proposed settlement does not require the department to acknowledge any wrongdoing in killing Barlow.

About 3:50 a.m. on Feb. 28, 2003, Hartman and other officers responded to a domestic disturbance call at 7092 Rustling Winds Ave., near Rainbow Boulevard and Russell Road.

They were following up on a frantic 911 call from Katrina Graves, who reported Barlow was armed inside her home with her seven children. She had met him a week before and asked him to baby-sit the kids.

When Barlow emerged from the home, he followed police commands to drop to his knees.

Hartman, a 30-year-old former Marine, later testified at a coroner's inquest that he fired an assault rifle at Barlow from about 50 feet away because he feared the suspect was feigning surrender and was about to pull a gun from his pants to shoot three other officers who were a few feet away from the suspect and closing in with holstered weapons.

"I thought that individual was going for a gun and he was going to fire," Hartman told the jurors.

The coroner's jury found Barlow's death was excusable, a result of actions not entirely acceptable, but not egregious enough to be considered criminal.

Ault said the Police Department opened the internal investigation earlier this month after receiving a complaint about Hartman and other officers' behavior after the shooting.

While he declined to discuss specifics of the case, Ault confirmed that the allegations first reported Sunday by Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith are the focus for Internal Affairs investigators.

Citing multiple sources, Smith reported that Hartman and other graveyard shift officers, with the knowledge of some of their superiors in the Southwest Area Command, printed T-shirts with the initials "BDRT" on them after the shooting.

While the allegations suggested the initials stood for "Baby's Daddy Removal Team," the officers argued that it actually stood for "Big Dogs Run Together."

"We're looking at those and connected issues," Ault said.

It is unclear when the Internal Affairs investigation will be completed, but the deputy chief indicated that several detectives have been assigned to it because of the explosiveness of the charges and concern from department administrators.

"There's a tremendous amount of interest in this," Ault said.

The FBI had not notified the Police Department of the federal probe as of late Wednesday afternoon.

"We've gotten no official word of an investigation, but that wouldn't be strange," said Las Vegas police legal advisor Kathryn Landreth, who before joining the Police Department was the U.S. attorney for Nevada.

In the civil case, Police Department attorney Walt Cannon said the decision to settle the civil lawsuit filed by Sheila Barlow is not an indication that department officials felt police would be held responsible for the killing if the case went to trial.

"The department decided to handle the case this way for a number of factors," Cannon said. "Those include the cost of litigation if it continued to trial, the fact that there was an individual who lost his life, and the department wanted to put this behind them and the victim's family."

Sheila Barlow is pleased with the settlement but still mourns her son, according to one of her attorneys, Dominic Gentile.

"She's been very grieved about it," he said. "Who wouldn't be?"