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Witnesses deny slain youth was aggressive
'He was tripping . . . just flying high . . .'
Wednesday, May 3, 2000
By RUTH SCHUBERT
Two witnesses to the shooting death of a University of Washington freshman say he was not acting aggressively in the minutes before the shooting.
James Sanderson, a 19-year-old from Bellingham, was shot through the neck Saturday night by the driver of a white Honda onto which Sanderson jumped.
Police say that Sanderson "assaulted" several people on the night he was killed and that he opened the Honda's door and "grabbed" at the driver.
But two witnesses interviewed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer characterized Sanderson's behavior as more like someone who was flying high on drugs, hugging strangers and bouncing over the hood of the Honda driver's car.
"I would be sorry if the world and the public believed that this guy was attacking people and that the driver shot him out of self-defense," said a 37-year-old man who witnessed the shooting at University Avenue Northeast and Northeast 50th Street just before 11 p.m. Saturday. "That's entirely incorrect."
The two witnesses filed statements with the police on the night of the shooting; one spoke to police again yesterday. They agreed to be interviewed by the P-I only if their names were not published.
Police have determined that Sanderson was experimenting with LSD on the night of the shooting, said Sgt. Cynthia Tallman, although toxicology reports will not be available for a matter of weeks.
Sanderson's behavior was consistent with someone who was using drugs, according to the two witnesses. They were walking toward their car when they spotted Sanderson running around in the street, yelling and hugging strangers, including a couple walking behind them.
"He was just elated and thought that he was king of the world, and he was not about to hurt anybody was my take," the 37-year-old male witness said. "He was tripping on something . . . he was just flying high."
Another witness, a 31-year-old woman, said there was something a little scary about the way Sanderson was behaving, but she wasn't afraid of being assaulted by the 6-foot-4-inch basketball enthusiast.
The witnesses saw Sanderson walk across the hood of a white Honda that was stopped at a light at the intersection, but they say that it was the driver who opened the car door. Sanderson only turned back after the door was open. "He just continued his celebration by walking up and over this car, and he would have kept going but the car door opened up," the male witness said.
Within a couple seconds, the 22-year-old Honda driver fired.
The two witnesses said they did not see what happened in the seconds between when Sanderson walked behind the open car door and the shot was fired. Police say that Sanderson grabbed at the driver, strongly supporting a case of self defense.
The driver had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, and police released him after interviewing him. No charges against the driver are expected, officer Pam McCammon said yesterday.
Police are releasing few details of the case, which is being investigated.
John Junker, a professor of criminal law at the UW, said that under state law what's important is whether the person who used deadly force reasonably believed that he or she was in danger of death or great bodily injury. "It's not really an assessment of the badness of the defendent," Junker said, "but of (whether) it was reasonable to make the assessment that under these circumstances it was necessary to use the kind of threat you used in order to protect yourself."
But legal definitions weren't very compelling to those who watched as Sanderson died in the street.
"He could have driven away," the woman witness said of the shooter.
The two witnesses were left with the impression that Sanderson was killed simply for making a mistake.
"Should this guy have been shot for walking on a car? That's really the sentence that sums it all up," the male witness said.
P-I reporter Ruth Schubert can be reached at 206-448-8130 or ruthschubert@seattle-pi.com
P-I reporter Kimberly Wilson contributed to this report.
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