“I can't get killed for this job,” observed one of Adam Basford's former colleagues in the Yakima Police Department, explaining why he had refused to come to Basford's aid during a hand-to-hand struggle with an armed suspect. “I thought we were going to get killed, so I had to leave you there.”
That officer was one of three who were in a position to help on August 18, 2013 when Basford attempted to arrest Antonio Cardenas, a recently paroled felon who was suspected of aggravated assault with a firearm. Concerned over the safety of bystanders, including a young girl, Officer Basford didn't pull his gun. He found himself grappling with a younger ex-convict who was several inches taller and at least sixty pounds heavier, while every other available nearby officer found something better to do.
Basford was able to subdue the suspect without killing him or risking the lives of people in the neighborhood. Rather than receiving a commendation, Basford is now off the force and facing criminal charges – not for taking down an armed, violent felon without using lethal force, but for filing a misconduct complaint against an erstwhile colleague.
Basford, an Air Force veteran who regarded himself to be a peace officer rather than a law enforcer, had patrolled a violent neighborhood riven with gang-related violence. On many occasions prior to August 18, he had called for backup, only to find – as he did that night – that no help was forthcoming. This wasn’t just because Basford’s fellow officers were afraid, but because he had violated the unwritten but binding rules of police solidarity by speaking out against routine misconduct and abuse within the department.
Basford had just finished an administrative call when he heard gunshots and saw an armed man later identified as Cardenas racing through the neighborhood. Basford pursued Cardenas into a nearby yard, overtaking him when the suspect failed to clear a fence.
“I didn't want to draw my gun, because there was a young girl just a few feet away,” Basford recalled to Pro Libertate. “Cardenas took a swing at me, and missed. I took his back while the two of us were still on our feet. He reached for my lapel microphone and broke it, then said he was going to kill me and that nobody would find my body.”
As they struggled, Cardenas reached for his .44 Desert Eagle and squeezed off a shot. Basford managed to wrench the shooter's hand away from his body at the last second, but still suffered a grazing gunshot wound to his knee. Already in severe oxygen debt from the struggle, Basford quickly began to feel the effects of blood loss. Worried that if Cardenas escaped he might finish killing him or attack a bystander, Basford applied a rear-naked choke – a potentially lethal hold that was, in this situation, used defensively.
The combatants hit the ground, and Basford saw his backup, Officer Booker Ward, arrive.
“He saw what was going on, heard me scream at him,” Basford later recalled. “We made eye contact, and he turned and ran away.”
Two other Yakima PD Officers were on bicycle patrol nearby.
“They heard me get shot,” Basford recounted to me. “They heard me scream for assistance. They were just two blocks away – but they were fifteen minutes from the end of their shift, and they went back to the station instead of coming to my aid.” Basford would find out later that the bike patrol officers “didn't think the overtime would be approved.”
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http://www.freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2014/08/why-good-cops-stay-silent-persecution.html
