Koester Takes Stand in Houston
By 250 News
Constable Paul Koester, ( view of Koester partially blocked by sherriff escort) arrives at Coroner's Inquest
Constable Paul Koester, the man who shot Ian Bush on October 29th-2005 in Houston BC, took the stand at a Coroner’s Inquest today to tell his side of the story.
Koester said he had met with other police officers early on in the day and they had decided to make their presence felt at the first hockey game of the season in this small community. At the end of the first period four officers were patrolling the arena, when they came upon two groups of people outside of the arena. In one group a young man later identified as Bush was standing with what Koester said was an open beer. He approached Bush asking him to pour out the beer and then asked him to identify himself. Bush, on two occasions according to Koester, gave him the wrong name.
Another officer who came by identified Bush, and Koester decided at this time he would proceed with an obstruction of justice charge (a criminal offence) along with the open liquor infraction.
Feeling that it would be easier to do the paper work at the police station about three blocks away Koester says Bush was taken to the police station handcuffed.
At the police station, Koester took the cuffs off Bush and left the interview room where he said he turned on the TV monitor. "When I returned to tell him what I was charging him with he had his hands under his chin and appeared to be ready to cry."
Koester testified, "I went to the interview room where I talked with Const. Darren Woroshelo who said that Bush may have evaded police by fleeing from his car." To this point in the testimony, Koester has painted a picture of Bush as a guy who, other than giving the wrong name to police, was being cooperative. Koester said "I thought that he was trying to talk his way out of it, but after talking to Constable Woroshelo I decided to let the charges stand."
Koester returns to the stand this afternoon.
Yesterday, experts testified they believe there was a struggle, that Koester had pulled his gun, tried to hit Bush to get him to release a choke hold, and then moments before passing out, Koester pulled the trigger.
Ian Bush was dead.
He had been shot once in the back of the head.
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Posted by: snappi on May 23 2007 9:04 PM
Yet the TV monitor recorder was turned off for the shooting to the back of the head. Due diligence would have made sure the recorder was on when the TV was turned on. The fact that he admits to tampering with the TV recording device indicates he is trying to make his story sound plausible (finger prints ect) to his version of events.
The he said she said version of him running from custody in the past and not followed up on official records is also suspect testimony IMO.
I think if an officer can not handle a situation of a person in their custody under these kinds of circumstances than he should be at minimum charged with manslaughter.