Jury to Enter Deliberations on Federal Suit Filed Against Warminster Police Officers

After eight days of testimony, the crux of a civil case filed against three Warminster police officers and one Warrington officer came down mostly on the reliability of eyewitnesses to the 2006 shooting and killing of Sean Sullivan.

Lawyers presented their closing arguments to an eight-person jury Friday afternoon at the Eastern District Courthouse in Philadelphia. When they return Monday morning, Judge R. Barclay Surrick will give them instructions before they begin deliberations.

Warminster officers Sean Harold, Daniel Leporace, James McCaffrey and Warrington officer John Blanchard are being sued by Sullivan’s parents, Carol and Bruce, for use of excessive force, the intentional infliction of emotional distress on Carol, and punitive damages. Warminster Township is also being sued for a municipal liability against its barricade policy.

On March 31, 2006, Warminster police officers arrived at Carol Sullivan’s home on Chestnut Rd. to serve her with an arrest warrant. Days earlier, Abington police had arrested Sean Sullivan, who identified himself as his brother, Corey. According to depositions, when Carol went to the station to post bond, she did not inform the police they were holding Sean.

According to police testimony, after arresting Carol, Sean barricaded himself in his room. Police officers said over the radio that Sullivan told them he had a gun. As the officers surrounded the property, Sullivan climbed out the back window. According to the officers, he took a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at Warminster officers Harold and Leporace. They both opened fire as Sullivan began to run toward the back of the yard for the rear fence.

Officers McCaffrey and Blanchard were behind a shed in the backyard and also fired at Sullivan. In total, 55 shots were fired, six striking Sullivan, two each in the right leg, right arm, and back, killing him as he approached the fence. Detectives later recovered the weapon, which turned out to be a Walther PPK replicate pellet gun, in the backyard near a blue boat.

Bill McSwain, attorney for Carol and Bruce Sullivan, Sean’s parents, told jurors that the testimonies from the police officer were unreliable because they had something to gain from the outcome of the trial. Instead, he urged them to strongly consider what nearby neighbors Bob and Kelly Franks testified to witnessing.

Kelly Franks told the court that from the side window of her home, she saw Sean drop from the window in a crouching position and take of running. When she switched vantage points to the back bedroom window with her husband, Bob, she saw Sullivan waving his hand over head, “like he was swatting at a swarm of bees,” and she could not see any weapons in his hand.”

McSwain also urged the jury to remember what he considered a major inconsistency. The officers testified that Sullivan drew and pointed his weapon with his right hand, yet it has been established that he is left-handed. McSwain told the jury that Sullivan was in fact unarmed, and instead of trying to challenge the police, he was attempting to flee the scene.

“He had broken the law in the past, and that is not excusable,” McSwain told the jury, “but he did not deserve to die like that.”

McSwain placed a large portion of the blame for the shooting on Harold, since he fired his weapon first.  Harold had been investigating Sullivan on an armed robbery charge at the time, and McSwain said he “had it in for Sean. He wanted him bad.”

When Sullivan refused to come out and tried to make a run for it, this infuriated Harold, McSwain said, and that anger caused him to begin shooting. McSwain stressed to the jury that it was not his burden to explain how the weapon ended up in the backyard, only to establish that Sullivan was not carrying it when he was killed.

Joe Santarone, defense attorney for the three Warminster officers, told the jury that the Franks only saw two or three of the 10 seconds that elapsed from when Sullivan escaped through the window to when he was killed. He did not accuse the Franks of lying, just that they only caught a glimpse of the action and did not properly perceive what happened. On the other hand, Santarone said, the police officers saw the entire events transpire, and the fact that they take an oath to uphold the law should weigh heavier against the Franks’ account.

Blanchard’s attorney, Joseph Goldberg, also pointed out that Bob Franks said he didn’t see a gun, not that there wasn’t a gun at all. It’s a simple, yet important distinction, Goldberg told the jury.

The reason Sullivan used his right hand, Goldberg said, was because the officers were to his right. It would have been too awkward to use his left and point across his body while trying to run. He could not explain to the jury why Sullivan would challenge the police the way he did, instead of leaving his room peacefully.

“That would be asking me to rationalize the behavior of an irrational man,” Goldberg said. Sullivan’s diagnosis of Opposition Defiant Disorder and a history that includes a suicide attempt to avoid going into detention suggest that Sullivan felt there was no way he was going to go back to jail, Goldberg said.

The police decision to open fire on a fleeing suspect carrying what was perceived to be a deadly weapon was consistent with their training, said Goldberg. If Sullivan had escaped, he would have presented a larger threat to the community, which is a legal justification for deadly force.