Officer Michael Spaulding, left, speaks with his attorney Ted Buck, center, and Officer Scott Miller, right.
Officer Michael Spaulding, left, speaks with his attorney Ted Buck, center, and Officer Scott Miller, right. Lester Black

King County's inquest into the death of Che Taylor, already three days behind schedule, is now in its final phase as an eight-member jury deliberates on 55 questions that they will answer with either "Yes," "No," or "Unknown." Unlike criminal cases, the jury is not required to have unanimous responses to the questions. Instead, the eight jurors' individual responses will be tallied under each question.

Attorneys representing the Taylor family and the two Seattle police officers who shot and killed Taylor proposed a list of questions, called interrogatories, which were then edited by Judge Janet Garrow. The list was then further amended in multiple closed door sessions between Garrow and the representative attorneys.

The majority of the 55 questions deal with basic facts surrounding the case (for example: “Did Che Taylor die as a result of gunshot wounds?”) and therefore don't seem likely to require much deliberation from the jury. But a series of questions regarding movements by Taylor and what the two officers saw during the encounter are less straightforward. Those may require more deliberation.

The jury’s answers will factor into King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg’s decision on whether or not seek any charges against the two officers, according to a spokesman for his office. The jury’s findings can also be used in any civil suits the Taylor family may file against the city or county.

Yesterday, the final day of testimony in the inquest, centered largely on analysis of the gunshot wounds that Taylor sustained from the two officers and on the handgun that Taylor was allegedly in possession of during the incident. Taylor was killed in February of 2016 by SPD Officer Michael Spaulding, who was armed with a rifle, and Officer Scott Miller, who was armed with a shotgun.

Dr. Richard Harruff, the chief medical examiner for King County, testified that he found fragments of five different rifle bullets inside Taylor’s body, and evidence of another wound that may have been caused by a shotgun shell. Crime scene evidence shows Spaulding fired six shots at Taylor with his rifle and Miller fired his shotgun one time.

Harruff said the shots caused considerable damage to both of Taylor’s lungs, his aorta, his heart and his spinal cord.

“I classified all of the wounds as contributing his death because these were all significant injuries,” Harruff said.

Both officers have said that they fired on Taylor because they believed he posed an immediate threat to their life. Miller testified that he had seen a holstered handgun on Taylor 45 minutes prior to the confrontation, but both officers said they did not see the handgun itself during the final minutes of Taylor’s life.

There is, however, ample evidence that places a handgun near Taylor’s reach during the shooting. Within minutes of the shooting, multiple officers noticed the handgun tucked just under the front passenger seat that Taylor was standing next to. A crime scene photograph taken at the scene also shows the edge of the gun on the floorboards of the car. A fire fighter testified that he had to cut a gun holster off Taylor’s pants while administering aid to him.

At the same time, investigators were unable to find any of Taylor’s fingerprints on the gun, its magazine, or the two bullets loaded inside. In addition, there was DNA evidence of five different individuals on the gun, none of which could be traced to Taylor. The gun itself was not registered to Taylor, who was a felon and would have been unable to purchase a weapon. The .45-caliber pistol had been purchased by a former King County sheriff’s deputy in 2013, according to previous news reports, and was then sold and re-sold. Judge Janet Garrow has not allowed attorneys to present evidence to the jury showing who the gun was registered to.

There are also questions as to the timing of when, during the shooting, the handgun was in Taylor’s possession. Lisa Haakenstad, an SPD crime scene investigator, said there was evidence that the handgun was already under the seat when Miller’s shotgun was fired. The shotgun’s shell pierced a clear hole in the seat’s upholstery and a photograph taken during a subsequent investigation shows debris from the seat covering the handgun.

“The yellow foam indicates that it [the handgun] was on the floorboard at the time of the shot through the seat,” Haakenstad said.

Haakenstad testified that there was also evidence the shotgun shell hit Taylor’s arm after traveling through the seat.

Haakenstad did not conduct her investigation of the white sedan until it had been towed to an SPD processing facility, and she testified that the pistol could have moved while it was being towed from the crime scene. Haakenstad said they could not investigate the interior of the car at the scene because they did not have a warrant to search the vehicle. A witness statement from the car’s owner, however, shows that he voluntarily gave the SPD consent to search the vehicle at 6:40 p.m. the day of the shooting.


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After six days of testimony the jury has heard from just about every person at the scene of the shooting, from the officers who shot Taylor to the neighbors who heard those shots and the back-up police officers who were at Taylor’s body within minutes of the shooting. But there are two very notable exceptions to this list.

Taylor wasn’t alone on that February day. While four officers closed in around him there were two civilians sitting in the car he had just exited. According to court testimony and records, Tom Papageorge was in the driver’s seat of the white Ford Taurus and Noelle Knudsvig was sitting in the rear passenger side seat, only a foot away from Taylor when he was shot.

Why haven’t Knudsvig and Papageorge, the only two civilians to witness the shooting, testified at the inquest hearing? The King County Prosecutor’s Office subpoenaed the two individuals but neither have responded to the county, and both currently have bench warrants for their arrest, court records indicate.

Both individuals were detained at the scene and gave witness statements to the SPD, but neither offered a very clear picture of the incident.

Knudsvig, who appeared to be very rattled during her interview with SPD Detective Ron Cordova, said she couldn’t see a gun on Taylor but assumed he had one.

“I couldn’t see past the seat, but he had a gun, I guess, supposedly it was why he got shot," she told the detective. "I think he was trying to get his gun out of his pants or, I don’t know. And, um, 'cause I couldn’t really see to tell you the truth, 'cause it was from the front seat and I was in the back,” Knudsvig said, according to a transcript of her witness statement.

Papageorge told Cordova that he never saw a gun on Taylor and could not describe Taylor’s movements as the two officers shot him.

(Previous coverage of the Taylor inquest here, here, here, here, here, and here.)