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THE NEW MEXICAN Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Agent: Says horrific day haunted him for decades Continued from Page A-1 “What is she doing? What is she doing?” he thought. “Good God, she’s going to go flying off the back of the car!” He remembered seeing her eyes filled with terror. Then it dawned on him; she was reaching for a piece of her husband’s head. Those horrific moments in Dallas haunted Hill for decades. He struggled with alcohol and depression. The North Dakota boy who grew up to protect one of the world’s most glamorous women was in anguish for years, thinking “what if?” What if he had been faster and moved toward the big black Lincoln just a second sooner, after he heard the first shot? He could have saved the president. It is only now — after coming to terms with what happened that day, after visiting the crime scene on Elm Street in 1990 and after just last year writing a book, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, that he has reached some peace — a peace that allowed the 1954 graduate of Concordia College in Moorhead to return to his home state this month to tell his story. “I think about it every day. … There’s always something there to remind you,” Hill told a crowd of about 600 at Bismarck State College for a Nov. 5 symposium, “The Kennedy Legacy: 50 years later.” “It never goes away.” At every twist and turn of those terrible four days — from the assassination to Monday’s funeral — Clint Hill was there, all the time wrestling with guilt and fighting back the memories of what he had seen — blood, bone and brain matter splattered everywhere. “She [Jackie] didn’t even know I was there,” Hill said in Bismarck, 40 miles south of his hometown, Washburn. “I got a hold of her and put her in the back seat. The president fell onto Mrs. Kennedy. I could see that his eyes were fixed.” Hill knew then that the president was dead. As the agent shielded the two with his body, the limo rushed to Parkland Hospital. In the chaos that ensued at the hospital, the first lady held tightly to her husband. Instinctively, Hill understood that she didn’t want anyone to see the president’s terrible head wound. “I took off my suit coat and placed it over his head and upper torso,” he wrote in his book, and then she released her grip. When UPI correspondent Merriman Smith — who let the world know of the shooting minutes earlier with the first bulletin at 12:34 CST — ran into Hill at the hospital and asked him, “How badly was he hit, Clint?” Hill replied curtly, “He’s dead,” Smith wrote in his Nov. 23, 1963, eyewitness account. Minutes after that exchange, Hill set up a direct phone line in the hospital to Washington and took a call from Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The president’s brother asked: “How bad is it?” Hill, not
Secret Service Agent Clint Hill rides atop the rear of President John F. Kennedy’s car in the Dallas motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963. Hill has always regretted that he didn’t shield the president from gunfire that day. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
wanting to tell the attorney general that his brother was dead, replied, “It’s as bad as it gets.” Throughout the next three days, Hill stayed close by Jackie’s side, filling her every request and even providing the scissors so she could cut a lock of her husband’s hair as he lay in his casket. Hill, 81, and his co-author, Lisa McCubbin, have been traveling the country since his book was published in 2012. A second book, Five Days in November, is being published this week. The guilt is finally gone and, as the person closest to the assassination who is still alive, he has funneled his energy into telling his story for history’s sake. In 1964, Hill received the Treasury Department’s highest award for bravery. “I don’t deserve an award. The president is dead,” he wrote of his thoughts at the time. He fell into a deep depression. “I’d just get up in the morning and drink. I didn’t do anything. Friends would come to see me and I wouldn’t even respond to them,” he said in a recent C-SPAN interview. In 1975, his anguish went public on CBS’ 60 Minutes. The late Mike Wallace asked Hill if there was anything he or other agents could have done to save the president. Hill answered in the third person. “If he [Clint Hill] had reacted about fivetenths of a second faster. Maybe a second faster, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Wallace responded: “You mean you would have gotten there and you would have taken the shot?” Hill: “The third shot, yes sir.” Wallace: “And that would have been all right with you?” Hill: “That would have been fine with me.” Wallace, in his book Close Encounters, wrote: “I have never interviewed a more stricken and tormented man. Hill’s anguish was so acute, so visceral that I had to fight back the tears that were welling up inside of me.” It was after that interview that Hill began his long, slow climb. In a letter to Wallace, he wrote: “My interview with you on 60 Minutes in 1975 turned into much more of an emotional experience than I thought possible. I did not realize that I was in as much emotional distress as I obviously was. It did turn out to be a cathartic experience for me, and helped me release feelings that had been pent up in me for a long time.” Another healing step was a 1990 trip with his wife to Dallas. He walked Dealey Plaza for about two hours. He looked at every angle, every possibility and “let everything run through my mind that I could think of that happened that day. And I finally came to the realization that I did the best I could do. That I really didn’t have a chance of doing anything other than what I did do.”
Threat: Experts cite driver’s dangerous behavior Continued from Page A-1 the officer’s use of deadly force prior to a high-speed pursuit of the Memphis, Tenn., woman, who had resisted another officer’s attempt to issue her a speeding ticket. Meanwhile, new information emerged about the driver, 39-year-old Oriana Ferrell — variously spelled “Farrell” in court documents — who faces charges of intentional abuse of a child, aggravated fleeing of a lawenforcement officer and possession of drug paraphernalia, which authorities identified as two marijuana pipes found in her vehicle. According to a report by an NBC television affiliate in Memphis, Ferrell had been attending the Harding School of Theology while raising her five children as a single mother. She has a YouTube page in which she sings Christian rap music and reveals that she considers herself a poet and a writer. On a blog, she offers parenting advice. The law-enforcement experts interviewed Tuesday didn’t criticize all the decisions made by officers involved in the incident but focused on Officer Elias Montoya’s decision to shoot at the van’s tires as the vehicle sped away. John Eterno, a professor of criminal justice at the private Molloy University in New York and a former New York City police captain who trained officers on use of force, questioned Montoya’s use of his handgun. “Reckless driving is not a reason to start shooting,” Eterno said. “You could have let them go and found them anyway.” In the video released by state police, Officer Tony DeTavis stops Ferrell and tries to issue her a speeding ticket. But instead of taking the ticket, she drives off. DeTavis catches up with her, and a scuffle ensues between the officer and Ferrell, as well as her 14-year-old son. Two other state police officers arrive at the scene, and after the family members lock themselves inside the van, DeTavis tries to break a window with his baton. When Ferrell speeds away, Montoya fires three rounds toward the van’s rear wheels, and a chase ensues through Taos, reaching speeds up to 100 mph. Eterno said it’s easy to criticize an officer’s decision from a distance. He pointed out that DeTavis had a view of the van’s interior, which isn’t visible on the video. Nonetheless, he said, “Clearly, this did not go right.” State police Chief Pete Kassetas said in a news release Monday that he has “concerns relating to the conduct of the officer who discharged his firearm. … I will take appropriate disciplinary action if warranted.”
A department spokesman, Lt. Emmanuel Gutierrez, said an internal investigation is underway, but didn’t comment on whether any officers had been placed on leave. Eighth Judicial District Attorney Donald Gallegos said Tuesday he has no plans file any charges against the officers involved. “If I have evidence the officers committed a crime, I’ll charge them,” he said in a telephone interview. “I don’t have any evidence.” Whether the officers used appropriate force, the district attorney said, is a matter for their supervisors and their department to decide. Eterno said it’s clear from the video that DeTavis lost control of the situation during the initial stop, when he walked away from Ferrell’s vehicle and she drove away. The expert said the officer could have taken her car keys or immediately called for backup. He also said DeTavis endangered his life by standing in the highway as he argued with Ferrell. But Eterno placed the majority of fault in the incident on Ferrell, citing her initial actions. “The woman really needs to be blamed for her conduct,” he said. “She made a very dangerous situation for her children.” Eterno and Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, cited Tennessee v. Garner, a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled deadly force cannot be used against a fleeing, unarmed driver unless that person poses a threat to the officer or the public at large. Stinson, a former police officer in New Hampshire and a former criminal defense lawyer, said he doesn’t like to second guess an officer’s decision to use deadly force in life-or-death situations, but he asked, “Where was the threat to officers? I just don’t see it. It’s an inappropriate use of force.” But Stinson said it’s unlikely a grand jury would indict the officer, given that he thought someone in the vehicle may have had a gun. Montoya has said in reports, “I heard Officer DeTavis or Officer [Anthony] Luna mention something about a gun.” Montoya wrote that when the vehicle started driving away, “I fired my duty weapon three times at the left rear tire in an attempt to immobilize the vehicle with the intention of keeping vehicle in the remote area, so as to not put any other human life in jeopardy.” Montoya also wrote that he chose to shoot at the tires “because of all the people in the vehicle,” and that, “I may have exaggerated in keeping my muzzle down so no innocent person would get hit with the shots I fired.” But Eterno said Montoya’s target was irrelevant because the bullets could have hit anything. “It’s very
hard to hit a moving target,” he said. “Anyone worth their salt could tell you that.” Stinson agreed, adding that some law-enforcements officers “aren’t very good shots,” and that Montoya could have killed someone. A criminal justice professor at John Jay College in New York, Eugene O’Donnell, said he had been using video of the incident in his classroom Tuesday to demonstrate how something like a seemingly routine traffic stop can veer out of control. O’Donnell, a former police officer with the New York Police Department, said “there’s no justification” to fire at a moving vehicle in such a case. O’Donnell also stressed that in many jurisdictions, officers would not have engaged in a high-speed chase after Ferrell fled a second time. “They could wait and get her at her home,” O’Donnell said. “Why did they think she had to be taken into custody then and there?” But prior to the gunfire and pursuit, the experts said, the video showed DeTavis had mostly kept the situation in check. O’Donnell said stopping a vehicle without backup can be a difficult situation for an officer. “When you pull someone over, you have no idea how it’s going to end,” he said, adding that Ferrell raised “a red flag” when she didn’t cooperate with DeTavis. Eterno noted the officer’s professionalism when initially dealing with the driver and the fact that the officer did call for backup. While watching the video, Sinson said, he thought Ferrell’s 14-year-old son — who eventually rushed the officer — might have had a weapon. “My blood pressure went up when he got out of the car.” Lt. Edwardo Martínez, commander of the state police substation in Taos, said the only gun discovered in the minivan was a toy. The experts interviewed Tuesday also didn’t find fault with DeTavis’ use of the baton to smash a window. Ferrell’s lawyer has publicly challenged the charges against her and said she fled because she feared for her safety and that of her children. The children in the vehicle, ranging in age from 6 to 18, were later placed in the care of a family known to Ferrell. The 14-year-old boy who rushed Officer DeTavis was initially arrested but has since been released. The defense attorney, Alan Maestas, has said Ferrell was driving across the country on what was intended as an educational trip with her five home-schooled children. During her arraignment, however, he suggested the family was in the process of relocating to Los Angeles. Prosecutors said a nationwide
background check on Ferrell returned two prior arrests for driving while intoxicated. She disputed that claim in court, telling 8th Judicial District Judge Jeff McElroy that she had never been convicted of any such charges. In pleading for Ferrell’s release at a Nov. 12 hearing, Maestas said his client intended to establish residency in Pecos or with friends in Santa Fe while contesting the charges against her. “Ms. Ferrell has been told that if she doesn’t get out of jail, they are going to take her kids and ship them to their dad in Atlanta,” the attorney said. “These kids want to stay together, and sending them to their dad is not the answer.” Maestas suggested the children’s father was abusive toward their mother. The attorney also presented the judge with 12 letters attesting to Ferrell’s character from ministers, neighbors and other Memphis residents familiar with her. The Memphis television station reported that friends of Ferrell said she “was a godly woman.” The station also linked to Ferrell’s YouTube page, http://bit.ly/1bP63xy, which revealed the woman had a passion for music. In one video, called “That’s a (W)rap,” she walks through her home singing, “Caught up in the rapture of God.” The rest of the song talks about how she has cleaned up her act and mixes in a few biblical references. Ferrell’s website, orianalee.wix.com/ orianalee, lists music she has recorded. She also offers life coaching and advertises what looks to be a school program called “True Skool Akademy,” which bills itself as “holistic-based, Afrikan-centered Teaching.” In one post on her blog, orianalee. blogspot.com, she wrote, “Don’t know how to be a Father, and don’t wanna be… but a purposed, called, dedicated, original, unique, sharpskilled and hard loving Mami… aww, sooky sooky, I AM!!” She also posts pictures of herself with her children. Additionally, a twitter account, @orianalee, which was linked to Ferrell’s YouTube page, shows pictures of Ferrell’s travels through New Mexico, such as a stop near the Pecos River. Another shows that she had stopped in Mora and took a photo of a scenic marker sign describing curanderas, or folk healers. Montoya, the officer who fired the shots at the van, is the son of a minister and was profiled by The Taos News in 2010 for his work mentoring at-risk boys in a program started by the Taos-based social services organization Nonviolence Works. Contact Chris Quintana at 986-3093 or cquintana@sfnewmexican.com.
Death: Results of probe could alter charges Continued from Page A-1 was bleeding from the head, he said, adding that he drove his truck to his grandmother’s house nearby and then returned to Martinez. Emergency responders transported Martinez to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 9:40 p.m. Monday. When officers interviewed Trujillo at the scene, the affidavit says, he had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and “bloodshot and watery (glassed over) eyes.” Trujillo told one officer that he had consumed a beer two hours before the accident, but later told another officer that he’d had a Dr. Pepper with vodka, the affidavit says. The statement also says Trujillo showed signs of impairment when an officer conducted a field sobriety test. After failing the test, Trujillo was administered a breath alcohol test at police headquarters shortly after 5 p.m. He registered a 0.06 breath alcohol level, just below the 0.08 level at which a driver legally is presumed too drunk to drive. A blood sample was taken from him that will be tested to determine a more accurate alcohol level and whether any other intoxicants were in his system, police said. Celina Westervelt, a spokeswoman for the Santa Fe Police Department, said a blood sample from Martinez also will be analyzed. “If there’s something found faulty to the vehicle … those charges could change,” Westervelt, said. “Say there is a faulty mechanism to the truck’s handle, then it wouldn’t have been necessarily his fault that she fell out of the car and then it would be a simple DWI case.” As of Tuesday evening, Trujillo was being held in lieu of a $10,000 bond at the Santa Fe County jail, according to online jail records.
Abortion: Opponents vow to keep fighting Continued from Page A-1 NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue said, “We hope today’s resounding defeat of this abortion ban sends a clear message to the extreme forces around the country now trying to impose their agenda on cities around this country. “ Activists on both sides of the issue said it was the first municipal ballot measure on the matter, which usually is debated at the state and federal level. Abortion opponents hoped a victory in Albuquerque would create momentum nationally in their long-running fight to ban abortion. Father Frank Pavone, national director of the New York-based Priests for Life, said Tuesday night that antiabortion activists should not be discouraged. “It is a brilliant strategy and we will see to it that this effort is introduced in other cities and states,” he said in a statement. “The fact is, of course, that children have in fact been saved through this effort, simply because we have raised the issue of fetal pain, which does not even cross the minds of many abortionists.” Much of the campaign focused on the debate over when and whether fetuses can feel pain. Albuquerque became the focus of the latest anti-abortion campaign because it is home to Southwestern Women’s Options, one of just a handful of clinics in the country that perform late-term abortions. The proposal would have banned abortions after 20 weeks except to save the mother’s life. A leader of the initiative, Tara Shaver, said her group gathered signatures to put the issue to city voters after failing to make headway in the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Police were stationed near polling places around the city Tuesday as protesters from both sides tried to persuade voters who were lining up before the polls closed. One school reported an hour wait. Michelle Halfacre said she cast her ballot in favor of the proposal. “I had an abortion when I was young, and I regret it,” Halfacre said. “I don’t believe in it.” But Jonathan Cottrell, a crisis hotline volunteer, said he voted against the proposal because he believes it marks the beginning of a “slippery slope to ban abortion in general.”