Dispatcher’s Testimony Key in Officer’s Aquittal

A 2007 shooting by an off-duty Spokane (Wash.) police officer has more facets than a diamond, including testimony by a police dispatcher that cannot be confirmed by logging tapes because they were erased. Off. Jay Olsen was acquitted by a jury on Monday, but the controversy over his shooting Shonto Pete, a Native American he met in a bar, is not over. Olsen claims that Pete stole his truck, but Pete was acquitted of that charge back in 2007. The district attorney charged Olsen with assault and reckless endangerment, but the jury determined the shooting was self-defense. Key to the decision was testimony by comm center supervisor Marvin Tucker, who appeared for the defense. Tucker said a neighbor dialed 911 and put Pete on the phone. Pete stated that he had stolen Olsen’s truck and that he’d been shot. But the neighbor disputes that conversastion, and Tucker only came forward with his testimony recently. Try to decipher the many other facets of the complicated case here, and read more specifically about Tucker’s testimony here.