GREEN BAY - Jonathon C. Tubby was handcuffed and unarmed when he was shot and killed by a Green Bay police officer at the Brown County Jail this fall, according to sources familiar with the shooting.
Tubby was shot five times "as he moved in the direction of"an officer, who likely could not tell that Tubby was unarmed, the sources said. Police have identified Erik O'Brien, a six-year veteran, as the officer who shot Tubby.
Authorities investigating the case have made no official statements about the Oct. 19 shooting of the 26-year-old, who was in custody after being arrested in downtown Green Bay on a warrant. But interviews with four people with knowledge of the case paint a picture of Tubby, hands cuffed in front of him, refusing to cooperate with officers who had driven him to the sally portof the jail at 3030 Curry Lane. The sally port is an enclosed garage-like area where officers park to walk their prisoners into the jail to be fingerprinted and booked.
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The sources were interviewed, on different days and at different locations, but independently provided nearly identical accounts of the shooting and the minutes leading to it.
Each spoke with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The state Division of Criminal Investigation has not completed its investigation, whichbegan just hours after the shooting.The agency said in October it would not comment while the probe isongoing.
Details emerge
Sources who work in the criminal-justice system said:
- Events began when an officer saw that acar Tubby and a woman had failed to stop for a red light downtown. Both were arrested sometime after 7:20 p.m., when O'Brien and trainee Colton Wernecke stopped the car near the Hyatt Regency Green Bay and determined Tubby was the subject of an arrest warrant because he hadn't reported to jail to serve a drunken-driving sentence.
- In the back seat of the patrol car, Tubby managed to unbuckle his seat belt. He also was able to get his cuffed hands, which had been behind his back, around in front of him, but not to slip out of the cuffs.
- On the ride to jail, one of the officers radioed that Tubby had his hands under his shirt and "appeared to be pointing something at his chin." Sources also said he had his hands under his shirt when he was outside the car at the jail.
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Some video of the incident exists. It shows at least some of what took place in the sally port, the room where Tubby was killed.
During the incident, multiple police cars were in the sally port. Some, but not all, of the vehicles were equipped with dashboard cameras. There were also multiple officers present — likely more than a dozen — as officers tried to determine how to regain control of Tubby.
Sources declined to discuss what the videos show, or said they had not seen video of the incident.
Next steps
Authorities could not say when DCI's investigation will be complete, but said they expect the agency's report this month or in February.
Once DCI is finished reviewing video, interviewing officers and others, and producing a report, the case will be turned over to the county's chief prosecutor, District Attorney David Lasee. He will then determine whether to file a criminal charge against the officer.
Lasee had said a month ago that he had received some information from DCI. He has not said what that information showsand said he will not discuss the case until he has reviewed the completed report and determined if charges are warranted.
While Lasee's probe will focus on whether officers acted legally, senior members of the Green Bay police have separately begun investigating to determine if officers followed proper procedures from the moment they stopped the car Tubby was in.
Those policies govern a range of actions, from whether officers should buckle a handcuffed person into a seat belt (they should, unless the person is aggressively resisting), to decisions about the use of force.
During the investigation, members of Tubby's family have issued multiple calls for healing and justice. They also have called on the community to respond peacefully when the investigation's results are released.
"They do not want to see this turned into a spectacle of racism and protest," said Bobbi Webster, spokeswoman for the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin and a friend of the Tubby family.
Members of Tubby's family said in December they plan to sue the city and the officers involved in the incident. As of Tuesday, no lawsuit had been filed.
Unanswered questions
While the disclosures about the incident shed some light on how a routine traffic stop turned into a fatal shooting, a number of questions remain. Those likely won't be resolved until reports from DCI and the district attorney are complete.
The key question: What happened to cause an officer — one who presumably searched Tubby for weapons or contraband after the traffic stop or oversaw his trainee conduct a search — to conclude Tubby posed a threat. And why were lethal means employed in an area of the county jail where access and egress is limited, and multiple officers were in the immediate vicinity?
Other unanswered questionsinclude:
- How did a handcuffed prisoner in the back of a police car get loose from officers?Rear doors in Green Bay's patrol cars aren't supposed to open from the inside.
- Why did police discuss using less-lethal means to subdue Tubby, but eventually chose deadly force?At one point during the incident, officers discussed a beanbag weapon, which is typically used against a person who is violent or has the potential to be. But it's still unclear if one was even brought to the scene.
- Why did Tubby move toward an officer? One source said he "ran at the person"; another said he did not appear to run directly at the officer.
- Why did only one officer fire, multiple times? One source said there may have been more than a dozen officers, representing Green Bay and the county sheriff's office, in the sally port at points during the incident.
