The decision was met with an outburst of anguish from Lyles’ father, Charles Lyles, who shouted:[Expletive] you! [Expletive] you! You killed my daughter!’ as he was ejected from the courtroom by inquest administrator Michael Spearman, who apologized to the six-member jury. “You’ll answer some day!” Lyles shouted. “You will answer to God!” The two officers, Jason Anderson and Steven McNew, left the interrogation through a back door and through a loading dock as angry members of the Lyles family crowded the hallway outside. Karen Koehler, the family’s attorney, said in a statement that the family “rejects the final findings from the coroner today.” “During the … interrogation, a solid and unwavering blue wall justified every action of his officers,” Keller said. The proceeding was “strictly limited” to focus on the officers’ mental state rather than Lyles’ long history of mental illness. “The family does not blame the jury for its decision,” Koehler said. “SPD’s policies, practices and procedures are specifically designed to allow an officer to shoot and kill a person in mental crisis with a knife.” Lyles, she said, “called the police for help, went into a mental breakdown and was shot and killed. The findings of the investigation are nothing the SPD can be proud of,” he said. The jury answered 123 questions and not all of them were unanimous. All agreed, however, that Anderson failed to follow SPD policy requiring him to carry a Taser when he responded to Lyles’ apartment on the morning of June 18, 2017, to investigate her report of a burglary. King County District Attorney Dan Satterberg, who has been reluctant to file criminal charges against an officer in a police death before an investigation is conducted, said Wednesday that he had a senior deputy criminal prosecutor monitoring the process. He called the details revealed during the interrogation process “heartbreaking. The death of Charleena Lyles is a tragedy. “In the coming weeks, we will review all the admissible evidence presented at the inquest and the jurors’ responses to each of the inquests and make a final charge decision,” he said. The jury was divided on some questions about what the officers knew about Lyles’ mental health issues and pointed out that Lyles, during early questioning about the burglary, kept moving her hands in and out of her pockets without the cops telling her to stop. Police are generally trained to watch a person’s hands at all times, even if that person is not suspected of a crime. Two of the six jurors said they could not decide whether the officers reasonably believed Lyles posed a threat before pulling the knife. However, the jury unanimously found that using a Taser in the cramped confines of her apartment, as she advanced on officers with a knife, would not have been appropriate or effective. Anderson and McNew declined to comment Wednesday, citing SPD media policy. Their attorney, Karen Cobb, said their sympathies go out to the Lyles family. Cobb said officers and their families have also been affected by the procedures and scrutiny. “It was difficult,” he said. “But they appreciate and support the jury and the process.” Lyles, a pregnant, 30-year-old black mother of four with a history of mental illness, had called police that June morning to report a burglary, although evidence in the investigation indicated no burglary had occurred and surveillance video showed no had she ever left her apartment. Anderson, who had been a Seattle officer for about two years, was dispatched, and when he arrived at the Brettler Family Place Apartments near Magnuson Park, where Lyles and her children lived in a fourth-floor unit, he ran a routine computer check that showed that Lyles was well known to police and had an “officer safety alert” attached to her name. The warning said that two weeks earlier during a domestic violence call, Lyles had cornered an officer in her apartment with a large pair of scissors. She had said she would transform into a wolf and talked about cloning her daughter. That incident ended peacefully, with Lyles taken into custody. Anderson, according to Seattle police procedures, called for backup that June day, even though a “cold break” was usually an officer’s response. Steven McNew, a 17-year veteran, responded. As the pair made their way to the apartment, it was decided that McNew would be the “cover” officer, an observer there for security, and that Anderson would take the report. Their only discussion about how to handle the call was “not to let it backfire on us,” according to a recording of the incident captured by microphones synced to the dash cam of Anderson’s police cruiser. Both officers are white, and Lyles’ shooting was among a string of black law enforcement killings in the area in 2017 that sparked community outcry and reforms to King County’s interrogation process. Lyles’ death also helped bring a local focus to police reform and the Black Lives Matter movement. King County has long been alone in the state in requiring a jury to hear all law enforcement-related deaths. The inquest process is a public inquiry designed to investigate the events — surrounding Lyles’ death, in this case. whether the police followed the correct procedures; and whether “criminality” was involved. The SPD cleared the officers of wrongdoing. Both remain in the department. In the first few minutes at Lyles’ apartment, calling the police was routine. Lyles told what had been taken and Anderson asked questions. Children could be heard in the background. Then, about four minutes later, Lyles’ demeanor changed, according to the officers’ testimony and the recording. Anderson said he looked up from his notebook to see Lyles chasing him with a small knife. He said he jumped backwards and had to suck on his stomach to avoid the knife. McNew said he designed his Glock service handgun. Both officers were heard shouting “go back! Come back!” while Lyles yelled profanities and “Do it!” McNew was in the apartment’s kitchenette, with nowhere to go. Anderson recalled being backed up against a door, though video later showed him retreating down the hallway through the apartment’s open door as shots rang out. Five of the six jurors concluded that McNew was trapped and could have been stabbed if he tried to leave the kitchen. The sixth juror was undecided and answered “unknown” to the question. Both officers said they had no choice but to shoot Lyles, claiming she posed a deadly threat that could not be neutralized any other way, even though McNew called the Taser! at one point and the evidence showed that the device could have been effective. Anderson was supposed to carry one, but had left it in his locker that day because his battery was dead. He was later punished for this failure. Two of the jurors concluded that two of Lyles’ children in the living room were at risk of being struck by a bullet when the officers opened fire. Jurors unanimously concluded that Anderson was standing in the apartment’s open doorway when he fired, which was confirmed by a surveillance video camera in the apartment’s hallway. Anderson testified that he was facing a closed door when he fired. The Lyles family last year settled a civil lawsuit against the officers and the Seattle Police Department for $3.5 million. Both officers also had batons and pepper spray, but said those would not have been effective in stopping the 5-foot-1, 110-pound Lyles and that using them would have brought them too close to Lyles and put their lives in danger . Both officers fired almost simultaneously, hitting Lyles seven times, with three of the rounds striking her from behind. The coroner said two of the wounds would have been almost instantly fatal – one tore the superior vena cava, the large vein that returns the body’s blood to the heart, and another to her stomach that tore the deep femur. Another bullet hit her in the womb. she was 15 weeks pregnant. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, in a statement Wednesday, called Lyles’ death “tragic.” “My heart goes out to the Lyles family and so many others in our community who have said loud and clear that death is not an acceptable outcome for a person in a mental health crisis who is calling for help,” the mayor said. “I continue to think we’re asking the wrong questions — not whether the use of lethal force was justified, but whether it was necessary,” Harrell said. “Could we have kept the officer safe and saved a life?” The six-judge jury — down from its original eight members because of the COVID outbreak that also infected two of the attorneys — heard seven days of testimony, 19 witnesses and reviewed 56 exhibits, including the sound of the gunshot, photos of Lyles dead in the hallway of her apartment and autopsy photos of her injuries. The inquest was marked by tense moments, including an incident that drew condemnation from her family and a warning from inquiry manager Spearman. SPD sent SWAT team members to the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center after McNew walked past a group of Lyles’ family members outside, taunting and obscenities. Both officers gave emotional testimony, with McNew recalling Lyles’ children in the moments after the shooting: how he picked up a baby who had crawled onto his mother’s body and was lying on her chest, and a second child, a boy, coming out of a bedroom to say, “You shot my mom.” Both officers also experienced blisters…
