GRAND JURY 2018-11-30 (Vanblokland) V2 (Corr. 4-26-19)
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1 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON 2 FOR THE COUNTY OF MULTNOMAH 3 4 5 GRAND JURY No. 1 PROCEEDINGS 6 Case No. 69 7 Conducted by: 8 David Hannon, Deputy District Attorney 9 Melissa Marrero, Deputy District Attorney 10 11 - - - 12 November 30, 2018 13 - - - 14 PPB Case No. 18-346005 15 - - - 16 DA Case No. 2390489-2 17 - - - 18 19 20 21 Katie Bradford, CSR 90-0148 Court Reporter 22 Portland, Oregon (503) 267-5112 23 24 Proceedings recorded on wma audio recording; transcript provided by Certified Shorthand Reporter. 25 2 Index 1 GENERAL INDEX 2 Page No. 3 November 30, 2018 Proceedings 3 4 Case Called 3 5 Examination of Todd Gradwahl 4 6 Examination of Thomas Snitily 28 7 Examination of Donald Livingston 39 8 Examination of Peter McConnell 74 9 Examination of Josh Howery 103 10 Examination of Leo Harris 135 11 AFTERNOON SESSION 164 12 Examination of Kelly VanBlockland 165 13 Examination of Scott Broughton 230 14 Playing Audio Recordings During 15 Examination of Scott Broughton 235 16 Reporter's Certificate 268 17 * * * 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 Death Investigation 2 PPB Case No. 18-346005 3 DA Case No. 2390489-2 4 Deceased: Samuel Rice 5 Incident Date: October 10, 2018 6 Location: Del Rancho Motel, 7 7622 SE 82nd Avenue, Portland, Oregon 8 * * * 9 (Friday, November 30, 2018, 8:37 a.m.) 10 P R O C E E D I N G S 11 (Whereupon, the following proceedings were 12 held before Grand Jury No. 1:) 13 MR. HANNON: I'm going to call the case, 14 now. 15 All right. Good morning. We are here in 16 the death investigation of Portland Police Bureau Case 17 No. 18-347005, DA Case Number -- excuse me -- 18 A GRAND JUROR: 69. 19 MR. HANNON: -- Grand Jury Case No. 69, 20 DA Case No. 3 -- 2390489. And we are resuming with 21 testimony and I'll hand it over to Ms. Marrero, who 22 will take the next witness. 23 MS. MARRERO: Can we just pause for just a 24 second? 25 MR. HANNON: Sure. 4 Examination of Todd Gradwahl 1 (Recess taken, 8:38 a.m. - 8:39 a.m.) 2 (TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE : Testing audio 3 recording equipment, 8:39 a.m. - 8:43 a.m.) 4 MR. HANNON: All right. Good morning. We 5 are back on the record in DA Case No. 2390489, Grand 6 Jury Case No. 69, death investigation. We are 7 recalling the case just to confirm we didn't have any 8 technical difficulties with the recording system. 9 We're ready to proceed with our next witness. 10 MS. MARRERO: The State's next witness will 11 be Todd Gradwahl. 12 THE WITNESS: Good morning. 13 TODD GRADWAHL 14 Was thereupon called as a witness; and, having been 15 first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows: 16 EXAMINATION 17 BY MS. MARRERO: 18 Q Good morning. Can you please state and 19 spell your first and last name. 20 A First name is Todd, T-o-d-d. Last name is 21 Gradwahl, G-r-a-d-w-a-h-l. 22 Q Thank you. And can you please tell the 23 grand jury how you're employed. 24 A I'm employed at the Portland Police Bureau. 25 I'm a homicide detective. And I'm also a detached 5 Examination of Todd Gradwahl 1 member of the Special Emergency Reaction Team, which 2 is also referred to as SERT. 3 Q Thank you, Detective Gradwahl. Can you tell 4 the grand jury just briefly a bit about your 5 background, your training and experience. 6 A I've been a police officer in Portland for 7 24 years. I've been a member of Special Emergency 8 Reaction Team for 19 years. As a member of the team, 9 I've attended a lot of training, done a lot of 10 training. 11 We train every other week for two days, so 12 approximately 25 percent of our time for our normal 13 training cycle, but we do additional training, too, 14 like a week at a time every fall and attended other 15 conferences and working with other teams throughout 16 the -- the Northwest. 17 And also team members may travel, train with 18 other teams throughout the United States. And we'll 19 practice tactics, maybe learn from those trainings or 20 those interactions. So over the course of my career, 21 I've had a lot of training between the team training 22 and then also the standard police training that I 23 receive. 24 Q Okay. Thank you. Were you working on 25 October 10th of 2018? 6 Examination of Todd Gradwahl 1 A Yes, I was. 2 Q In what capacity were you working on that 3 particular day? 4 A That day, I was assigned to work for the 5 Special Emergency Reaction Team. We had planned 6 missions being search warrants to serve on that day. 7 And we were just finishing up the second search 8 warrant that we did that day in that capacity when 9 this incident started evolving. 10 Q And can you tell the grand jury how you 11 became notified of this incident and sort of the 12 process in which you began to head towards the Del 13 Rancho. 14 A Yes. I was on the previous search -- or the 15 search warrant we were finishing up in the area of 16 Northeast 50th and Killingsworth. 17 We were finishing up that warrant when we 18 started getting some stuff coming over our radio from 19 members of the team that there's an incident occurring 20 on 82nd Avenue that officers were on and that we may 21 be transitioning to assist with that. 22 Q And when you're hearing this information 23 come over the radio, is that a full activation yet or 24 is that just information that you're hearing at that 25 time? 7 Examination of Todd Gradwahl 1 A It's information that everybody stay with 2 their equipment, stay with -- we had armored vehicles 3 out there and let's keep ourselves engaged. We were 4 just finishing clearing the apartment, making sure 5 there was no additional threats before we handed that 6 scene over. 7 But that way, people wouldn't start 8 unloading weapons and things like that and thinking 9 that they're done for the day, that this other 10 incident is evolving rapidly it sounded like from my 11 memory that we may immediately be going from one 12 location to the other rather than going back to the 13 precinct, at least for me, personally. 14 There are some people, I believe, may have 15 went back to the precinct, but the group I was with, 16 that we were going to possibly jump back in the 17 armored vehicle we were in and go to this new 18 location. 19 Q What information were you receiving? 20 A That there was somebody that had been 21 involved in a incident, where either, I think 22 initially we were told they stabbed somebody and that 23 now was in a motel room and had his wife or pulled her 24 in with a knife and threatened to kill her or 25 something along those lines. 8 Examination of Todd Gradwahl 1 In my mind, I was thinking, this person has 2 already done one crime and now it's potentially -- or 3 sounding like a hostage situation, at that point. 4 That was the initial information I had. 5 Q Okay. And so given that initial 6 information, did your team start heading towards the 7 hotel, even though you hadn't been fully activated 8 yet? 9 A Yes. A decision was made that let's just 10 start moving that direction in case it turns into an 11 activation that we're closer than we are now, because 12 this was in the early morning hours, traffic was going 13 to be heavy, and it was quite a ways away from where 14 we were. 15 We were at the 5500 block north and this is 16 going to be, I think, the 7600 block of south. So 17 that's -- if you add those together, that's a lot of 18 distance to cover in rush-hour traffic. 19 Q Okay. And while en route or -- well, at 20 some point, did you become fully activated? 21 A Yes. I believe we were somewhere in the 22 area of 82nd and Johnson Creek Boulevard when we 23 received that we are activated. And that's when we 24 proceeded northbound on 82nd Avenue toward the 25 location. 9 Examination of Todd Gradwahl 1 Q And when you arrived at the location, what 2 was your role? 3 A My initial role when we arrived, there 4 was -- things were happening pretty quick. There was 5 a lot of officers and -- and traffic was getting 6 blocked. And there, you know, was initial stages of, 7 you know, trying to get everything set up, you know, 8 'cause all this -- all these other resources are now 9 coming. 10 There was some rooms that hadn't been 11 evacuated. So one of my -- my first role was to help 12 get some of these rooms cleared out, you know, so 13 whatever direction this went, that we were minimizing 14 the people at harm in that location being the 15 Del Rancho Motel.