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Paul White was working in his front yard when Kaady passed him. “He wasn’t saying any words,” White recalled. “He was just making noises.” White said Kaady “looked pretty bad,” with a “good share of his body covered in blood.”
Kaady came within 10 feet of White and grunted at him.
“The look in his eyes was like a dazed look,” White said.
The close encounter frightened White enough to prompt him to grab a stick for protection. “I didn’t even know what I was dealing with at the time.”
As Kaady walked down the road, White said the man was “howling like a wolf and acting like an airplane. He was just acting goofy.”
Herbert Lloyd was also outside his house when Kaady walked by. He described the man as “painted up all red, screaming, and trotting stark naked.”
Elaine Thornlimb had followed Kaady in her SUV since the man emerged onto 362nd. She said Kaady waved at her and seemed unaware of his injuries. When dogs barked at him, she said he would bark back.
Thornlimb trailed Kaady slowly while she called 9-1-1 to get the man medical help and motioned other would-be Good Samaritans away. Two different times during his northbound walk, Kaady turned around, jumped on Thornlimb’s vehicle and pounded on her sunroof. After the second time, he sat down on the road, cross-legged and growling.
It was then that the patrol car carrying Bergin and Willard approached from the north.
Fouad Kaady already had been through a lot by the time police found him traveling northbound on Southeast 362nd Avenue. Witnesses said he drove erratically in the Mt. Hood Community College parking lot and appeared to have “lost everything” while at a drive-through cigarette shop.
According to the Kaady family, Fouad drove his mother’s car to find a Sandy-area lot where his pickup was towed from Rick’s Custom Fencing in Gresham earlier that day. Once in the Sandy area, Kaady collided with two different cars, set three grass fires and crashed into a ditch on Bluff Road.
After walking westward through the woods and the property of a nearby nursery, Kaady emerged on Southeast 362nd Avenue, naked, bleeding and burned. He walked northbound and quickly caught the attention of many in the area.
Several witnesses testified that when Sandy Police Officer Bill Bergin and Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy David Willard pulled up to the naked hit-and-run suspect, they emerged from the squad car, guns drawn. One of Kaady’s hands was tucked into his lap.
“He appeared to be just kind of catatonic,” Willard said, noting that Kaady was just sitting and rocking, not looking at anyone.
For the next four to five minutes, the officers talked with Kaady, urging him to lie on his stomach, a command Kaady reportedly ignored. Family members say that Kaady did not want to put his burned flesh on the hot pavement, although police say they pointed to a grassy area.
“We wanted to get him to lie on his stomach so that we could get him in restraints,” Bergin said. “That’s one of the safest ways to apprehend a cooperative subject.”
Willard said he wasn’t going to let Kaady leave the scene but admitted he wasn’t sure how he was going to apprehend him, even if he complied. He thought, “I’m gonna wait until other officers get here before we do anything.”
He said he did not want to touch Kaady at all due to the amount of blood that covered the man’s body. Willard was specifically concerned that by touching Kaady, he could contract hepatitis or AIDS.
“Somebody needs to glove up before they touch this man,” Willard thought to himself.
After it was clear to the police that Kaady wasn’t going to comply with their commands, Willard threatened him with a Taser — a nonlethal weapon that delivers 50,000 volts of electricity to a subject via two metal prongs.
“Please don’t,” Kaady said to the police. He wearily begged but still did not comply with the officers’ commands.
One of the witnesses closest to the incident, Ron Van Meter of Van Meter Nursery, said Kaady was growling at the officers and taunting them throughout the exchange.
“He just kind of sat there and shook his head,” Bergin agreed, “and almost had like a grin (on) his face.”
Bergin then sneaked behind Kaady and shot the Taser barbs into the suspect’s shoulder blades, which sent Kaady flat on his back.
“He continued to move a little bit during the first shock,” Willard said, “which sort of surprised me.”
Officers then told Kaady to roll on his stomach or he’d be shocked again. There was no response. Bergin delivered another shock through the barbs that were still in Kaady’s back.
“At this point,” Bergin told investigators later, “he started laughing and giggling.”
Kaady then sat up. Willard fired his Taser, but only one barb penetrated Kaady’s arm.
Then, according to several witnesses, Kaady sprang up with a burst of energy. “He went nutso on them” all of the sudden, said witness Herbert Lloyd.
“He came to life with a vigor of energy,” agreed Karl Neering, who was working at Van Meter Nursery about 50 feet away from the scene. He said Kaady soon realized that the Taser darts were causing him pain, and he physically removed them from his shoulder blades and arm.
“He basically became wilder and wilder. I was afraid,” Neering said.
At about that time, an ambulance arrived at the scene and parked a few hundred feet to the north of the incident. Paramedic Barbara Noland said that from the time Kaady sprang up, “he was wild and appeared to be out of control.”
Willard said Kaady was still visibly being shocked when he got up. “I remembered thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I’m Tasing this guy and he’s getting up.’ And I started to get really scared about the kind of strength I was seeing.”
Van Meter said he was concerned that Kaady was going to come and attack him and admitted that if he came any closer, he would have been forced to run him over to protect himself.
Co-worker Pavel Androsov said the burst of energy sent Kaady running zig-zag toward the patrol car. Witness Robert Montgomery said Kaady “came at” the officers but noted, “He was either trying to get away or was trying to attack them.”
The officers testified that it was the latter. Willard said Kaady ran away from the officers until the Taser darts came out of his body. “Then he turned and faced us,” he said.
They alleged that Kaady had repeatedly yelled, “I’m going to kill you!” as he ran at them. No other witnesses reported that Kaady said that.
Willard said Kaady began to chase him until the suspect leaped onto the trunk of the patrol car. He moved on top of the roof, waving his arms in the air.
At that point, Willard thought to himself, “I’m going to need to shoot this man,” again stating that he did not want to come in contact with Kaady's blood. “I can’t let him touch me.”
It wasn’t long until the officers realized that the shotgun Deputy Willard had brought was sitting on the hood of the patrol car, in plain view. The car’s driver’s side door was wide open, and the engine was running.
Many witnesses said the next few moments happened extremely fast.
Several witnesses said Kaady was just standing and/or jumping up and down on the patrol car and didn’t say that he was in attack stance. But police say Kaady readied himself to lunge at Willard and again threatened to kill the officers.
Bergin said he was concerned that Kaady was about to attack the deputy to hurt him or steal his handgun. He was also worried that the suspect would try to get the shotgun on the hood of the car.
Willard said he didn’t want Kaady to touch him for any reason and yelled, “Shoot!”
He fired three very quick succession rounds at the center of Kaady’s chest. Bergin fired five shots. They shot to kill, assuming that the man was on drugs and that he could have possessed chemically enhanced strength. Toxicology reports, which could corroborate or disprove that theory, will not be released.
Willard said after that after Kaady was hit three times, he exhibited what appeared to be a shocked, surprised look before he fell backward onto the pavement.
Witnesses have varying opinions on the police officers’ use of deadly force. Van Meter said the officers had no other alternative because the man was out of control.
Montgomery said he felt the deadly force was unnecessary since Kaady was docile before being shot with the Taser. Montgomery said he knew police were scared by the way they were moving and acting.
Noland said she was surprised the officers didn’t tackle Kaady since they had the chance when he was sitting on the ground.
Witnesses Elaine Thornlimb and Paul White were also horrified at the incident’s end.
Androsov noted that he thought the police shot Kaady too many times.
A grand jury vindicated Bergin and Willard of any criminal charges, but Kaady supporters continue to protest the action. “Never forget Fouad” stickers have been distributed, and there has been talk of a civil suit against the county or a federal appeal of the grand jury decision. Kaady family attorney Shannon Connall was unavailable for comment as of press time.
Although the police were not indicted and will not face criminal charges, both the Sandy Police Department and the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office have vowed that internal shooter review boards will conduct additional investigations to determine whether policies and procedures were followed in the Kaady incident. Police are due to return the results of those investigations by Friday, Nov. 25.
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