Relatives of two women who were fatally shot by a Gwinnett County Police Officer responding to a suicide threat at their home are suing the county.
Two lawsuits filed separately on behalf of three surviving family members claim that 911 dispatchers, supervisors and Officer Lyndsey K. Perry failed to follow the police department's policies for dealing with an armed suicidal suspect, resulting in the wrongful deaths of Penny Schwartz, 51, and her mother Barbara Baker, 75, on July 21, 2009.
Gwinnett County Police spokesman Cpl. Edwin Ritter referred inquiries about the case Wednesday to county spokesman Joe Sorenson, who declined comment on the pending litigation.
An internal investigation found Perry acted in self-defense when she shot Schwartz, who had taken some form of amphetamine and threatened to commit "suicide by cop." Perry also was cleared in the killing of Baker, an elderly woman apparently caught in the officer's line of fire.
Radio traffic tape from the 911 center revealed that a dispatcher told the officer there was no gun in the house. For that reason, Perry entered Baker's home on a quiet Duluth cul-de-sac alone with her weapon holstered.
Baker is heard on the 911 tape anxiously telling an operator that she didn't know if her daughter had a gun, but said Schwartz was threatening to shoot herself.
Perry told investigators that Baker invited her inside and warned, "My daughter has a gun and she is going to shoot you; you have to shoot her." Schwartz came downstairs cursing and yelling, with a revolver trained on the officer. The officer fired, striking Schwartz four times and Baker once.
Perry resigned from the department a year and a half after the shooting. Phil Raines, a 911 operator, was suspended for a day for recording incorrect information about the call.
Baker's surviving adult children, Jody Ahlfinger and Michael Schwartz, filed a wrongful death lawsuit July 19. The following day, Schwartz's son, Derrick Schwartz, also filed a lawsuit listing similar claims. All of the relatives are seeking unspecified damages.
"It's an unfortunate situation; Jody's a nice lady and they have a nice family," said Terry Jackson, the attorney representing Ahlfinger. "It doesn't take too much inspection to see this shouldn’t have happened."
According to the lawsuit, 911 supervisors should have treated the call as a suicidal suspect barricaded with a possible weapon and dispatched a SWAT team skilled in crisis negotiation. The lawsuit also said Perry should have waited for backup, or requested to speak to the call taker directly to determine if Schwartz was armed.
Ahlfinger, who has been a vocal critic of the department's actions, on Wednesday declined to talk about the lawsuit on her attorney's advice. She said her family is still struggling to cope with the deaths of her mother and sister.
"We miss them, we love them and there is not a day that goes by that we don't think about them," Ahlfinger said.
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