Exculpatory Evidence in Rick Torres Murdering Jason Wilkinson Hidden for Years
Officer Rick Torres murdered Jason Wilkinson, a 17 year old on Mother's Day, May 8, 2005. The lead investigators, Detectives O'Dell and Hemstock covered up the murder of Jason and Rick Torres was never charged with murdering Jason.
A previous article released recounts the cover-up. However, the cover-up is much more sinister than initially thought. VPD Officer Torres resigned from Vancouver Police Department in 2006, about a year after the shooting. This is commonplace in government agencies where there are civil service employees. They pass along the problem to someone else.
It is unclear how Rick Torres obtained employment after the murder, however, he immediately began working for a multi-national corporation, the Lind Group. While working for the Lind Group, Torres was sued by the family of Jason Wilkinson. The case is Wilkinson v. Torres.
In support of the family suing Torres, Key, the Vancouver Police Department and Chief Martinek, Anthony Davis, the eyewitness to the murder filed an affidavit remaking what he saw that day.
The affidavit reads in part:
The November 28, 2008 affidavit states in part:
I, ANTHONY DAVIS, declare as follows:
11. The second officer (Torres) had is [sic] firearm drawn as he approached the minivan. As the minivan began to back up, the officer that had is [sic] gun drawn looked at the officer standing in front of the minivan. They made eye contact and appeared to acknowledge each other.
12. The officer with the gun walked to the front passenger door of the minivan as it began to drive away from the officers and fired his weapon at the driver.
13. The van was traveling at such a slow rate of speed that the officer was able to walk in pace with the minivan as he repeatedly fired at the driver.
14. When the officer began to fire his weapon, the minivan was moving in almost the opposite direction from where the first officer stop.
15. When the officer began firing his weapon, the first officer was nowhere near the minivan’s path of travel and not in harms way.
16. As the officer was shooting at the driver, I could see that the driver had two hands on the steering wheel in positions of 10 and 2 o’clock. The driver slumped back in his seat and dropped his hands to his side after being fired upon multiple times.
17. The officer continued to fire at the driver of the minivan as the minivan coasted slowly backwards. The officer stopped shooting and the minivan coasted out of the yard and into the middle of the street in front of me.
18. The officer that had fallen was now lying on his back in the street holding his leg. It was my impression that he was resting after being hurt or that he was faking an injury. I observed nothing during the course of the event that would cause me to believe the officer had been injured.
19. After having witnessed the event and not knowing what to do, I made a hand gesture to the officer laying in the street indicating that I was going to move my car. I made a u-turn and puled into the driveway of the house located directly east of the intersection of 40thAvenue and 49thStreet.
20. At no point during the event did it appear to me that either officer was in danger of being ran over, injured, or killed by the minivan.
21. I saw no reason for the police to shoot the driver of the minivan.
22. I made a recorded statement to police shortly thereafter and is incorporated by reference as Exhibit 1.
During Torres sojourn from law enforcement from 2006 through 2013, while he was working for the Lind Group, the lawsuit muddled its way through the system. The presiding Judge, Benjamin Settle, ruled that Torres made conflicting statements during his internal affairs investigation into the murder.
Remarkably, with the statements by the judge depicting Torres as an unreliable, lying witness, Clark County Sheriff's Office hire Rick Torres in 2013.
Astoundingly, the City of Vancouver did not place Torres on a Brady List, which is a list of officers that have been known to make false or untruthful statements under oath. Judge Settle determined that Torres remarks regarding the murder were conflicting. Torres was hired with both the mar on his record for making false statements and an eyewitness account of Torres murdering Wilkinson.
The 2008 affiant, Anthony Davis was never interviewed by either Detective O'Dell or Hemstock after they threatened him. The 2008 affidavit did not trigger an investigation in spite of Detective O'Dell documenting that he attempted to get in touch with Davis on multiple occasions. O'Dell's final synopsis in the case does not mention Davis a single time.
In an amazing turn of events, Torres was hired by Clark County Sheriff's in 2013. He was scheduled to testify at a trial on August 10-12, 2016. The person he had arrested was going to bring out the false statements made by Torres in his internal affairs testimony. However, Torres resigned on August 4, 2016, less than a week prior to the trial.
The Prosecuting Attorney failed to disclose the affidavit of Anthony Davis to each and every defendant that Rick Torres participated in arresting after Torres murdered Wilkinson in 2005. The lawsuit where Judge Settle deems that Torres made conflicting statements is Wilkinson v. Torres which was finally decided in 2010. The affidavit of Anthony Davis was filed 3 years after the IA investigation was closed 2005. The affidavit and the false statements made by Torres have been hidden from each defendant Rick Torres arrested. Brady v. Maryland, a court case decided in 1963 requires the Prosecuting Attorney to turn over any evidence that may be helpful to a defendant. This is further evidence that the officials in Clark County are covering up the murder of Jason Wilkinson.
Torres has returned to working for a subsidiary of the Lind Group after his 6 days notice he gave Clark County Sheriff when he resigned.
The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney's Office will not respond to requests regarding the affidavit Anthony Davis filed in 2008 depicting the murder. Nor will they respond to the request for information as to whether Clark County Officials have seen the affidavit of Anthony Davis. They have also been provided the transcript of the 2019 interview of Anthony Davis and will not respond to it.
During the 2019 interview, Davis states there was another eyewitness to the murder that has never been interviewed. The name has been withheld from CCSO and VPD. However, both agencies have been made aware that there is another eyewitness to the murder of Jason Wilkinson. They have not contacted anyone to find out the name of the second eyewitness to the murder.
Messages have been sent to Rick Torres's wife via Facebook asking if anything written about him is inaccurate. She has not responded to the inquiries. It should be noted that Torres had a LinkedIn account and I sent him a message in July of 2016 inquiring about the Wilkinson v. Torres case, but Torres has deleted his LinkedIn account.
Additionally, I have contacted him at his email address at Clark County, however, within an hour after sending him an email to his government email account, that account was shut down. Torres was given a board member position at the Clark County Planning Commission instead of being arrested for the murder of Jason Wilkinson. Clark County Sheriff's Office originally deemed it "justifiable homicide." In Detective Eric O'Dell's report, he states that he tried to get a follow-up interview with Anthony Davis, and he wanted to get that before he closed the report to "set the record straight."
Anthony Davis "set the record straight" when he filed an affidavit in 2008 in the Wilkinson v. Torres case. Additionally, he had the fortitude to be interviewed on March 30, 2019, and recounted in a recorded interview what he saw that day.
It's clear Clark County is covering up for this murderer.
