Eugene Oregon Police Reach Out After Suicidal Veteran Killed by Officers

Eugene police reach out to vets
The chief is seeking their help with training after an officer fatally shot a veteran in crisis
The Register Guard
By Christian Hill
The Register-Guard
APRIL 30, 2015

“In the long run,” Kerns concluded, “our goal is that our department will have an expertise in the unique skills of working with veterans that will be ideal to the needs of our community.”

The Eugene Police Department is reaching out to veterans and enlisting their help to train officers in the wake of the March 30 fatal shooting of a war veteran in crisis.

Police Chief Pete Kerns outlined those and other steps he said his department is taking in an email he sent out before the publication in Wednesday’s Register-Guard of a lengthy opinion essay by Becky Higgins, the veteran’s therapist . The essay was highly critical of the police response.

Higgins was on the phone with her client for about 45 minutes before he was killed.

An as-yet-unidentified officer shot and killed Brian Babb, a 49-year-old former captain in the Oregon Army National Guard, after Higgins called police to Babb’s west Eugene home because he was suicidal and told Higgins he had fired a gun in his home.

Kerns has said the officer fired after Babb, who had moved to the doorway, pointed a rifle at the officer.

Higgins wrote in her op-ed essay that she felt “used by the police” and that officers approached the situation as if Babb “was an enemy combatant, instead of a wounded military officer.”

Higgins questioned the police department’s show of force and asked why officers were in a hurry when Babb appeared to her to be calming down. Engaging a traumatized combat veteran with startling commands from a bullhorn, she said, “begs common sense.”
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Killing of suicidal veteran likely avoidable
The Register Guard
By Becky Higgins
For The Register-Guard
APRIL 29, 2015

Monday, April 27, marked a month since Brian Babb was killed at his home by Eugene police. The Interagency Deadly Use of Force Investigation Team (IDFIT) has given its report on the incident to Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner, who will determine whether the shooting was justified. Regardless of that decision, the shooting likely could have been avoided.

I was Brian’s therapist. I was on the phone with him until minutes before he was shot dead in the doorway of his home. In this column, I can share the information from the 911 call, which is a public record, and I can share my opinions. Everything else about Babb as my client is privileged, even after his death.

I called 911 on March 30 from my cellphone, reporting that I was a therapist in private practice, I had a client on my office phone who was suicidal, he was a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury (TBI), he had a handgun, and he was not willing to take the clip out of the gun or the round out of the chamber. The 911 operator told me to place my cellphone next to me while I talked with my client on my office landline. The recording, which picked up only my end of the conversation, lasted about 45 minutes. The 911 operator could hear me; I could hear her.
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Wanda McBride Hollaway 3 weeks ago
Oh my son. I never knew pain until now. When you were four, you told me that when you grew up, you were going to marry me and take care of me. I hugged you and told you that would be great, but mommy would take care of you too. I have failed horribly. The only thing I can do now, is to make every effort to change prodigal on the VA RESPONSE to suicidal veterans. A trained team from the VA should be dispatched - not police! I will miss you every day of my life and look forward to our reunion in heaven. You are my heart, son.

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