Veteran Says Deputies Shot Him in the Back

Veteran Says Deputies Shot Him in the Back
By MATT REYNOLDS

SAN DIEGO (CN) - A Gulf war veteran and his wife say a sheriff's deputy shot the veteran in the back, leaving him paraplegic, and that the Sheriff's Department then lied about the shooting, claiming the veteran had shot first.

Michael and Kimberly Foster sued San Diego County and its Sheriff William Gore in Federal Court.

Kimberly Foster says she called 911 from her Alpine home on Oct. 19, 2010, "out of concern for her husband's safety." She says she felt that her husband, an Army medic who had served in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf, "was having a PTSD episode."

Alpine is a distant suburb in the hills east of San Diego.

She says San Diego County Sheriff deputies and a SWAT team responded to her call.

"At approximately 1:00 pm, plaintiff Michael Foster walked outside into his back yard in broad daylight. With his back turned to the officers and without provocation, plaintiff Michael Foster was shot multiple times in the back by the SWAT team members," the complaint states.

Kimberly adds that "at the time he was shot," her husband "posed no immediate threat of harm to any of the officers."

She says that when she heard the shots she thought her husband had been killed.

"Immediately after the shooting, San Diego Sheriff's Lieutenant Dennis Brugos made a public statement indicating that the Sheriff SWAT officers shot Mr. Foster because Mr. Foster first shot at them one or two times," the complaint states. "Lieutenant Brugos' statement was entirely false as subsequent investigation has proven that Mr. Foster never discharged his firearm in the presence of the sheriff's officers."

The Fosters say the County of San Diego stuck by the story, even though Brugos' statement was "indisputably false."
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