Henderson police officers cleared in fatal shooting

"An active shooter situation, a hostage situation or a barricade situation. I was preparing things in my mind," Dotson testified today during a coroner’s inquest into the death of 48-year-old Charles Bradley Campbell last month.

After officers calmly and secretly evacuated between 20 and 30 patients from the emergency room waiting area at St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Siena campus, Dotson and fellow officer John Bozarth found themselves face to face with Campbell, who had been hiding in a triage cubicle.

Campbell held a handgun to his side while the officers trained their rifles on him.

"Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Get on the ground!" Bozarth told jurors he and Dotson yelled.

"He raises it, shakes his head from side to side and kind of smiles," Bozarth said. "Then he points the weapon right at us. I thought, ‘My God, he’s not going to listen to us. He has a big gun and he’s going to shoot at us.’ "

Bozarth and Dotson, in a vulnerable position with nowhere to take cover, fired their rifles at least three times each. Campbell died of a bullet wound that traveled into his chest through a lung and out his back.

Jurors took about one hour to rule the shooting justified.

Henderson Police Chief Jutta Chambers watched as four of her officers and one detective described the March 11 incident. She declined to comment after the hearing, other than to say the jury’s decision speaks for itself.

Also declining comment was Campbell’s sister, who sat in the gallery during the 3½-hour hearing but asked no questions of the witnesses. She later appeared to have an amicable conversation with Chambers outside the courtroom.

Campbell entered the emergency room shortly before 1 a.m. with a blood-alcohol level of 0.15 percent and a small trace of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in his system, medical examiner Gary Telgenhoff testified. Campbell walked to the nursing station, where he spoke with the on-duty triage nurse, Susan Selthofner.

"I’m here to donate my organs," Selthofner recalled Campbell saying. "I said, ‘Excuse me sir?’ "

He then said, "I’m going to commit suicide. I want to donate my organs. I have a gun," the nurse said, shaking during her testimony. "I saw the shape of a gun in his pocket."

A security camera captured Selthofner calmly leaving her station for a back office. She said she reached for the red phone reserved for emergencies, crouched down low and called the police. Footage shows Campbell pacing and leaning against a wall as he waits for the nurse to return.

Sha Jefferson was in the waiting room with her grandson, who had suffered a diabetic seizure. She overheard Campbell’s conversation with the nurse and found it odd.

"He wanted to donate his organs," she said. "He’s walking in there. He’s still alive. He’s probably going to kill himself. He sounded so distraught."

Jefferson also saw what appeared to be a gun on Campbell and directed her grandson behind a curtain. Campbell then walked into a triage cubicle across the hall from the nursing station.

Henderson police officer Tim Donnelly appeared in an ambulance bay doorway and motioned to patients to come out that door. The confused patients slowly made their way to Donnelly.

"Because of the nature of the call, a subject with a gun, with a waiting room with a lot of people in it, I thought something bad could happen," he testified. "A couple people looked at me like, ‘Whatуs going on?’ I motioned to them a little quicker."

Jefferson said the entire episode happened quickly.

"It was like some kind of movie scene," she said. "I didnуt know if it was real or not."

By the time Bozarth, Dotson and officer Justin Kern arrived through the front entrance, Donnelly had all the patients in the crowded waiting room out of harm’s way.

Bozarth testified that he and Dotson tried to persuade Campbell to drop his weapon and surrender. After he was shot, the officers used a bullet-proof shield to make their way to the room where Campbell lay. They found him crouched down with the gun lying in a pool of blood next to him, the hammer of the weapon cocked.

Bozarth dragged Campbell into the hallway, and doctors rushed in to treat him.

When asked why police didn’t try to shoot the gun out of Campbell’s hands, the officers said their lives were in imminent danger, and that shot is extremely difficult. They are trained to shoot at the core of a subject’s body.

"There was no other option," Bozarth said. "I’ve thought about it and thought about it. I wish there was another one (option). He didn’t give us that opportunity."

Contact reporter Adrienne Packer at apacker@reviewjournal.com or 702-384-8710.