Veteran's wife call for help ends with death of husband shot by police

Three deaths involving veterans and police may not seem like a huge problem but when you think they happened in five months in the Portland area alone, that is a clear indication there is an alarm screaming WARNING.

Three deadly encounters between vets and police
Published: Sunday, February 06, 2011
By Mike Francis, The Oregonian

Anthony McDowell. Thomas Higginbotham. Nikkolas Lookabill.

Three men who served in the military. Three encounters with law enforcement officers. Three lives ended by gunfire.

These cases, which occurred in three separate Portland-area jurisdictions within the last five months, have alarmed observers.

"It's really difficult for everyone," said Gresham Police Chief Craig Junginger, whose officers shot McDowell to death outside his house on Monday. "The United States hasn't faced this since the mid- to late-Seventies, since the Vietnam War."

"Military reintegration needs to address this issue further," John Violanti, a former criminal justice professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, wrote in an email.


McDowell, 50, had been home from war for seven years. His wife called for help, saying he was suicidal and when police arrived, he was holding a rifle. The findings from an investigation into his death, as customary in the case of officer-involved shootings, will be presented to a grand jury later this month.

His funeral service takes place at 11:30 a.m. today at Good Shepherd Community Church in Boring, to be followed by committal at Willamette National Cemetery.

Thomas Higginbotham, a Vietnam War veteran, was 67, homeless and carrying a knife when he was shot to death by Portland police officers at an abandoned car wash Jan. 2. He was intoxicated when he was killed.

Nikkolas Lookabill was 22 and had been home about four months from a mostly peaceful deployment to Iraq when he was shot to death by Vancouver police early in the morning on Sept. 7. The Clark County Prosecutor's Office reported that he told officers "he wanted them to shoot him."
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Three deadly encounters between vets and police