HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED TO BEGIN WITH
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/321615_robert28x.html
HERE IS THE OUTCOME
No jail for firing back at police
Plea deal brings lesser sentence
By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTER
Jesse James Toro II learned in a Seattle courtroom Friday that he will not face jail for his role in a rolling shootout with three undercover police officers.
Toro, 29, was behind the wheel of a Cadillac sedan in June when he got into an argument with three plainclothes members of the Seattle Police Department's vice squad. Stopped at a South Lake Union intersection, one of the officers shot Toro's car, and then the officers chased him north.
Having pulled away from the police -- the officers' civilian-style Ford SUV couldn't keep up with the more muscular Cadillac -- Toro stopped his car on a residential street in the Green Lake neighborhood. When the officers reappeared, Toro drew a pistol and shot out their vehicle's front tires.
Toro pleaded guilty earlier this month to two misdemeanor gun charges as part of a plea deal, a dramatic reduction from the felony assault charge originally levied against him.
"I wanted to go to trial with this, and I thought I could win," Toro told Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas before she handed him a suspended sentence of one year in jail. Toro said he didn't want to risk a felony conviction or a lengthy prison term away from his wife, Joelle, and 8-year-old daughter.
The state's case was complicated by the fact that Toro had no way of knowing that his pursuers were police, said Hugh Barber, the deputy prosecutor who handled the case.
"Fundamentally, this was an incident between a citizen and undercover officers in an undercover vehicle," Barber said. "We had to analyze it as if it was citizen on citizen."
Barber said the charges Toro pleaded guilty to -- unlawful display of a firearm and reckless endangerment -- held him accountable for brandishing a weapon during the initial altercation, which one of the three vice officers claimed Toro did. Toro has denied the allegation.
Key facts of the night remain in question. Officers initially said they fired only one shot at Toro's car, missing it and striking a wall. But a bullet hole found in the side of the Cadillac seemed to disprove that.
Speaking after he received his sentence Friday, Toro said he believes officers fired at him more than once during the initial altercation. He also believes they shot at him while racing after him on the Aurora Bridge.
"There was a point in the chase when I thought they were going to kill me," Toro said. "I had no idea it was the Seattle police."
While he still thinks he was in the right, Toro said the incident has prompted him to make some changes.
He said he doesn't argue with other drivers anymore -- "I just keep my head forward now," he told Darvas -- and he has closed his specialty jewelry business. He traded his jeweler's loupe for a sledgehammer, going to work in construction.
"This has taken a toll on all of us," Joelle Toro said. "It's been a tough situation."
While Darvas abided by the sentencing recommendation agreed to by both attorneys, she did order Toro not to possess a firearm in the next four years.
"The only way that I'm going to have a comfort level in this case ... is that Mr. Toro not be allowed to possess firearms," she said. Toro also was ordered to surrender his concealed-pistol permit.
A Seattle police review board is expected to release its investigation into the case in coming weeks. Calls to the Seattle Police Officers' Guild were not returned Friday.
P-I reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or
[email protected].
