March 19, 1994, Ronnie Clark was attempting to elude police officers while traveling through Louisiana near Lake Pontchartrain on Interstate 10. The police officers set up a roadblock to stop Clark.
As he was being chased by patrol cars, Louisiana State Troopers Michael Sunseri and William Dorris set up roadblock just before the intersection of I-10 and 1-310 on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain to stop Clark.
As Clark sped toward Sunseri and Dorris, they began to open fire. Clark was hit in the foot as he sped toward them by Trooper Dorris. As he passed by the officers, Trooper Sunseri shot Ronnie Clark in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun, paralyzing him.
The investigation was conducted by the same agency Trooper Sunseri worked for. This is a common theme amongst law enforcement agencies, they investigate their own. In spite of the overwhelming evidence that Trooper Sunseri shot Ronnie Clark in the back, he was cleared of any wrongdoing by his fellow officers.
Over the course of the next years, Sunseri became an expert witness for Law Enforcement regarding accident recreation and eventually started his own business providing accident recreation reconstruction services where he provides his expert analysis and testimony in cases involving accidents, such as the one above.
The Louisiana State troopers brought in their own expert witness in order to testify, as Sunseri often does now, to inform the investigators and subsequently the court, that the shotgun pellets that hit Ronnie Clark performed another “magic bullet” trick and ricocheted off of the roadway, then into a curb, turned 90 degrees and hit Ronnie Clark in the back. In other words, the State of Louisiana brought in an expert witness to lie to the court to get Micheal Sunseri off of an attempted murder rap for shooting Ronnie Clark in the back.
Nobody ever delved into why the Louisiana State troopers were after Ronnie Clark, only that he was running from the cops and he was a “convicted felon”. Two things are certain; Sunseri didn’t care if he killed Ronnie Clark…and he shot him in the back.
Fourteen years later, the “evidence” provided by the “expert witness” hired by the Louisiana State Trooper was found to have been fabricated by another court of law. In other words, it took another court, half a continent away (California), to find that the testimony given by the "expert witness" was bogus. The expert witness was sued by his colleagues in the firearms field for offering false testimony and was kicked out of his profession by his colleagues.
Unfortunately for Ronnie Clark, that evidence was 14 years too late in order for him to recover civil damages against the State and Trooper Sunseri.
Over the course of those 14 years, Sunseri built his own business to offer his “expert opinion” in courts of law in the United States. His web site is michaelsunseri.com.
The case was never reopened after the trial judge found the “expert witness" was a liar. There was no investigation to investigate the new findings from the court that discredited the expert witness that testified that a bullet could ricochet twice and turn 90 degrees.
Sunseri was free to go about his business as both a LE Officer and eventually a business owner providing “Expert Witness Testimony” in accident recreations, such as the one above.
Fast forward 10 years to Mothers Day, May 8, 2005 and an eerily similar scenario plays out. Vancouver Police Officer Rick Torres was initially cleared of shooting Jason Wilkinson, and eventually the trial court in a civil trial found Officer Torres “executed” Jason Wilkinson after he was being chased by police…like in the Ronnie Clark case.
The irony of the Torres execution, the officers began running plates on vehicles that were parked outside of a home. There is nothing in the record as to why the police were running the license plates. In other words, the VPD were conducting a search of vehicles with no probable cause in violation of the 4th Amendment. They were obviously hunting for someone.
When they came across the vehicle that Jason Wilkinson was driving, they began to chase him through the city of Vancouver, Washington. The chase resulted in Jason running into a telephone pole after a PIT maneuver spun his van around in a circle causing him to lose control and hit the telephone pole.
Officer Torres got out of his patrol car and walked up to the passenger side window and pumped 11 rounds into Jason Wilkinson from 8 feet away. Officer Torres even stated that he had his gun on the window of the minivan and was tapping on the window with it, then had to back up from the minivan in order to pump the 11 rounds into Wilkinson.
Like the Ronnie Clark case, the Vancouver Police Department, along with Clark County Sheriff’s Office conducted the investigation and found no wrongdoing on the part of Torres. The agencies found it to be “justifiable homicide”.
Officer Torres resigned six months after the shooting. Three years later, he was sued by the family of Jason Wilkinson. On January 29, 2009, almost 4 years after the shooting, the judge found:
there is no question that Torres acted with the unconstitutional purpose to harm, terrorize and in fact, kill Wilkinson. After Key walked to the front of the minivan and the minivan began to back away from the telephone pole, Key and Torres looked at each other, seemingly acknowledged each other; then Torres walked to the passenger side of the minivan and effectively executed Wilkinson by shooting him eleven times at close range
Torres had resigned from the Vancouver Police Department in January of 2006 and went to work for a multinational corporation, the Lind Group from 2006 through 2013. He was then miraculously hired by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in 2013.
There are no mechanisms in place to prevent officers, such as the ones stated above, from possessing firearms after they have been found liable for “executing” people, or shooting them in the back.
Prosecutors hide the fact that these officers have been known killers...and liars in violation of the case law of Brady v. Maryland (1963). That is the landmark United States Supreme Court case that established that the prosecutors must turn over all evidence that might exonerate the defendant (exculpatory evidence) to the defendant being charged with a crime by the State where these individuals testify against a defendant.
In these cases none of the defendants were made aware that either Sunseri or Torres were “executioners” for the State. One would intuitively think that this would be good for a defendant that is charged by these officers for a crime.
Unfortunately, people that have been arrested by Torres and Sunseri still rot in jail and the prosecutors know these people are liars and killers. Yet they never let the defendants that are incarcerated by these crooked cops know their arresting officer is a crooked cop.
Another case that is eerily similar to the above cases is the case of Sandra Aldridge, a good friend of Rick Torres. She executed Patrick Long in May of 2000 by shooting him in the back of the head while she was an officer for the Macon, GA police department. The investigation, like the ones above, found it was "justifiable".
Rick Torres resigned from the Clark County Sheriff's Office when a defendant was going to bring this case forward. And, like Michael Sunseri, he now has a consulting business where he provides his services to Law Enforcement.
Is this what is meant by the “thin blue line”?
Rick Torres resigned from the Clark County Sheriff's Office when a defendant was going to bring this case forward. And, like Michael Sunseri, he now has a consulting business where he provides his services to Law Enforcement.
Is this what is meant by the “thin blue line”?
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