Widow Plans to Sue Police Over Spouse’s Slaying

OXNARD — Calling it all a horrific mistake, the widow of a man killed by an Oxnard SWAT team sharpshooter said Tuesday that she plans to sue the city and the Police Department.

Terri Pankey’s husband, Larry, a 36-year-old self-employed auto mechanic, was shot and killed Jan. 13 after a four-hour standoff with police.

On the day of the shooting, Pankey--unarmed and drinking coffee on the lawn in front of the couple’s South Oxnard home--was just waiting for the police to leave, his wife said.

Family members say Pankey did not surrender to police because he was afraid they would beat him.

“It wasn’t necessary,” said Terri Pankey on Tuesday while sitting in the family’s living room with her 18-year-old son, Chris; her mother-in-law, Herta Pankey-Brinkman; and her lawyer, Victor Salas.

“There was never any domestic violence,” she said. “We just had a loud argument and they brought in this damn army.”

Police said after the incident that Pankey had reached for his waistband just as four officers were approaching him to make an arrest. The alleged motion prompted a SWAT team sharpshooter, who was covering the officers from across the street, to fire.

Pankey was struck once in the middle of the chest and died at the scene, authorities said.

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Oxnard police officials would not comment on the shooting Tuesday, saying only that an internal investigation is underway and that their interim report would soon be handed over to the district attorney’s office for review. Such a review is standard procedure every time police are involved in a fatal shooting.

“All I can say at this point is we are wrapping up interviews today,” said Assistant Police Chief Tom Cady. “We’re still completing the investigation and review, but I wouldn’t be able to comment further on that because of the ongoing investigation and because of the possible lawsuit.”

After the shooting, police officials said Pankey had put several shotguns and other firearms into his truck.

They also reported that Pankey had at times during the four-hour standoff carried a handgun in his waistband, but family members strongly disagreed.

“First of all, most of those guns were toys,” said Pankey’s son Chris.

The family said a police report shows that seven of the 10 guns Pankey had were actually BB guns and cap guns; two were rifles or shotguns he inherited from his father and grandfather; and another was a shotgun. Pankey, a member of the NRA, also had a .380 handgun. The family said all the weapons were registered and all were unloaded and locked in the family truck at the time of the shooting.

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“I told him I didn’t want the SWAT team to kill him and he shouldn’t have a loaded weapon, so the last thing he did before locking the truck was take out all the shells in the .380 and give ‘em to me,” Chris Pankey said. “I took the shells and he locked the gun in the cab of the truck.”

Chris Pankey, who was at his father’s side during much of the standoff, said his father had refused to give himself up because he was afraid that the officers were going to beat him up.

“Besides, my dad didn’t do anything wrong,” Chris Pankey said.

Pankey may have cursed police officers, his son said, and he may have told them to get off his property, but he never threatened any of the officers with his guns.

“He was unarmed and he wasn’t threatening anybody,” Chris Pankey said.

The incident started after the couple’s 8-year-old son ran across the street to a neighbor’s house to call 911 and report that his parents were having an argument.

“I knew him for 18 years and he never raised a hand to me,” Terri Pankey said. “We, like any normal couple, got into arguments sometimes.”

It was at least the fourth time police had been called to the home to intervene in a domestic disturbance.

In November after a domestic disturbance call, officers went to the home and confiscated Pankey’s guns, but the weapons were later returned, Terri Pankey said.

But this time, officers reported that Pankey brandished a handgun, and that is what prompted the backup call. Police officials said the SWAT team was called to the scene in part because they knew Pankey had high-powered weapons.

Pankey had had other run-ins with police officers, including a confrontation with several Port Hueneme officers six years ago in which he eventually pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and was sentenced to 10 days in a work-release program.

After that incident, he told a probation officer that he had a temper and he knew it could get him into trouble.

During last week’s standoff, Chris Pankey stayed behind with his father, talking to him on the front lawn as police cordoned off the street and the SWAT team surrounded the home.

After several conversations with a Police Department negotiator, Chris Pankey said, he agreed to leave his father’s side and go over to SWAT officers waiting across the street.

Chris Pankey said he was forced onto the asphalt and roughed up by SWAT officers in the encounter and then whisked away to Larson Elementary School, where the Police Department had set up a command post.

Chris Pankey alleged that after the shooting, but before he knew about his father’s death, a SWAT team member told him that “they would make an example of my dad.”

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About 6:30 p.m., a contingent of four officers moved in on Pankey, firing three nonlethal bean-bag type rounds to subdue him. But the 220-pound man did not go down and, according to police, ignored the officers’ orders to surrender.

Instead, Pankey moved behind a tree, police said, and reached for his waist, prompting the sharpshooter to fire.

But neighbor Anthony Ramos, a machinist who lives across the street and watched the standoff from his living-room window, said Pankey was not moving and had his hands at his sides when the sharpshooter fired.

“It looked like his hands were at his sides all the time,” Ramos said. “I heard the three--bam, bam, bam--and then right away a boom and his shirt puffed out.

“I don’t understand why they had to kill him,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s totally the fault of the Oxnard Police Department. But there must have been another way . . . He was out in the open, he wasn’t hiding or anything and he wasn’t such a threat. Why didn’t they just wait a half-hour or hour and let the whole thing blow over?”