REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2012 | Vol. 112, No. 26 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢
Jury foreman recounts debate over Ostling verdict
Close to home BY JOEL SACKETT
BY BRIAN KELLY Bainbridge Island Review
Joel Sackett photo
“Milking was hard at first but after trying for a couple of weeks, I got the hang of it. My sister Bayla is still working on it and does other chores on the farm. Being with the goats everyday is so amazing. It fills me with joy to hold them and take in their playful energy. “My favorite goat to milk is Helen. She was pretty wild at first and we had to catch her to milk her. She calmed down when she figured out that she got some corn while on the milking stand. Now she comes up to the gate with the rest of the Does when it’s BOD_BIReview_6-26-12.pdf 1 6/26/12 8:45 AM time to milk.” — Mira Rosenkotz
Residents worried about Hidden Cove beach access BY RICHARD D. OXLEY Bainbridge Island Review
One island resident has sparked a neighborhood uproar after trying to make the end of Hidden Cove Road a little more hidden. The Bainbridge Island City Council got an earful Wednesday from islanders asking to keep the dead end as it has been for more than 100 years.
TIME TO DISH: Bainbridge Island’s Anna (Greist) Rossi competes on MasterChef. A9
The council asked City Attorney Will Patton to enter into discussions with residents with the hope to maintain the road’s historic use, which has a stairwell the public uses to get to the beach. The island boasts multiple road ends that provide public access to the shoreline. There are so many that the city formed a committee solely dedicated to their management in 1992.
That committee has recently been pleading with the city council to address the emerging issue of the Hidden Cove Road end. The neighboring property owner, Rick Hennessey, recently poured concrete part way down the road where his property begins. His intention was to install a gate that would SEE ACCESS, A31
Bainbridge Police officers put themselves in a life-or-death situation by moving too quickly to confront Douglas Ostling and not taking time to talk to his family about his mental illness, the jury foreman in the federal civil rights trial said Wednesday. Galen Conrad, a senior pastor at Calvary Community Church in Longview, was the foreman for the eight-member jury that awarded the Ostling family and Ostling’s estate $1 million after the close of an 11-day trial earlier this month. The jury in the trial, prompted by a lawsuit the family filed against the city of Bainbridge Island after police shot and killed Ostling while responding to a 911 call at the family’s home, found the city had not properly trained its officers to deal with the mentally ill. The jury also said the deadly shooting was justified, and did not find fault with Bainbridge Police Officer Jeff Benkert for firing the fatal shot. They also said
that police did not unlawfully delay medical aid to Ostling as he lay bleeding to death from gunshot wounds behind his locked apartment door. After finding much evidence to support their view that Bainbridge police had not been properly trained to deal with the mentally ill and had not followed the policies set out in their department’s manual, the jury struggled long and hard to decide how much money the family should get, Conrad said. “That was really difficult. We had two very extreme views,” he said. At one end, Conrad declined to be specific, was a damage award well beyond what the jury eventually settled on. “Let’s say millions,” Conrad said. At the other end: “Maybe $100,000 or less.” It took a long time to reach agreement, he said, with one side wanting a low amount of damages, and the other side, wanting more. “That took an awful large SEE FOREMAN, A32
Ostling attorneys use police guild’s no-confidence vote as reason against new trial BY BRIAN KELLY Bainbridge Island Review
Lawyers for the Ostling family are pointing to the Bainbridge Island Police Guild’s recent vote of no confidence in Police Chief Jon Fehlman as one of the reasons why a new trial should not be ordered in the death of Douglas Ostling. Earlier this month, attorneys for the city of Bainbridge Island asked a federal judge to order a new trial in the police shooting of Ostling, a mentally ill Bainbridge Island man who was killed
after police shot him while responding to a 911 call at his family’s home. A jury said the Ostlings’ civil rights had been violated and awarded the family and his estate $1 million. The jury found the city’s police department had not properly trained its officers, but attorneys for the city said a new trial was warranted because Fehlman had been too sick to testify in his own defense. SEE TRIAL, A32