DATE: Saturday, October 11, 1997            TAG: 9710110702

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  190 lines

SHOOTING VICTIM'S ERRATIC BEHAVIOR, ACTIONS BROUGHT FATAL RESPONSE

In the days before Bruce Quagliato's violent death, his life began unraveling.

He was fired after acting strangely at the Oceanfront hotel where he worked. His roommates evicted him from the apartment they shared.

The 28-year-old New England man slipped into depression, friends told investigators.

He had moved to Virginia Beach from his Longview, Mass., home to enjoy the warm weather. He came here in a vintage 1977 Camaro he had fully restored. Now, with no job and no home, the car was all he had left. He told friends he wanted to be buried in it.

Quagliato wrote his will.

It looked like Quagliato had been trying to get the attention of police for days.

Police said he drove off from a gas station without paying but wasn't caught. Later, he got into a heated argument with a worker at a fast-food restaurant. She called police; he left.

Then, on March 25, shortly after 9 p.m., Quagliato was driving through the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. No one knows why.

A base police officer tried to stop him. Quagliato refused. There was a chase and a collision.

That set into motion the events that led to Quagliato's death.

The Catalyst

I have officers down!''

The urgent voice shook several Virginia Beach police officers like a winter shiver. Some were in the precinct building finishing paperwork. Some were on patrol. Some were eating dinner. It was just after 9 p.m.

``Officers down'' is a universal phrase. It means someone has been killed or badly hurt.

But none of the Virginia Beach officers would know until later that the transmission from the amphibious base was misleading.

The collision between a base police car and Quagliato's car shook up the officer but that was all. No one was killed or hurt.

The transmission triggered a series of events that intersected in a fatal shooting, damning accusations, a sweeping internal affairs investigation, the suspension of 14 police officers, and a multimillion-dollar wrongful death lawsuit.

What happened in just five minutes on the night of March 25 on Independence Boulevard has been scrutinized for more than six months by the police, the commonwealth's attorney's office, the FBI and the Quagliato family.

Many of the officers involved in the pursuit and shooting have agreed to talk about what happened that night.

This is the story of the tangled events that led to the shooting. It is based on interviews and investigative documents from the police, the commonwealth's attorney and the FBI.

The Chase

After the collision, Quagliato left the base.

Officer Shawn Walther, a seven-year veteran, first spotted the suspect's car on Independence Boulevard near Cullen Road.

A second police cruiser driven by Anthony L. Whitmore fell in behind Walther's car.

Traffic was moderate on Independence Boulevard, and Quagliato's car hovered around the 45 mph speed limit. A third police car appeared.

Near the intersection of Ewell Road, one of the police cars tried to pass Quagliato but the Camaro veered and the cars collided. The police car dropped back.

At Haygood Road, the traffic light was red. Quagliato stopped.

Odd, the officers thought.

Some got out of their cars and began walking to the Camaro, but the light changed and the Camaro was gone.

The officers followed. Quagliato reached toward the car's passenger side, picked something up and held it to his head. The officers couldn't see what it was but the way Quagliato was holding it made them think it was a gun.

As the procession passed Honey Grove Road, Whitmore tried to move in front of Quagliato's car. Again there was a collision. The impact knocked Whitmore's cruiser off the right side of the road.

At Witchduck Road, the light was red. Walther's car stopped well behind Quagliato's. The officers were preparing to order Quagliato out at gunpoint. Suddenly, the Camaro's white reverse lights came on, the rear tires smoked, and the car lurched backward, colliding with Walther's.

Quagliato punched the gas and drove through the intersection. Walther followed.

Quagliato suddenly stomped the brakes. Walther couldn't react in time. Again, the cars bumped and then Quagliato motored on.

At Jericho Road, a K-9 officer joined the procession. A few blocks later, Quagliato stopped for another red light. An officer shined a spotlight at him. The beam whitewashed Quagliato's face. He was screaming something but no one could understand what.

The blue-and-red strobes of several other police cars popped in the distance ahead. Two sergeants, Brian Robertson and Michael Zito, were laying a trap.

Several police cars blocked side streets, limiting Quagliato's options. Two other police cars jutted across Independence Boulevard just north of Virginia Beach Boulevard. They blocked all but one lane.

As Quagliato approached, Zito flung a set of tire-bursting road spikes across the open lane. They clattered on the pavement. Zito retreated behind one of the police cars.

Quagliato slowed to a crawl. His car lurched from side to side.

There was a gap between the two police cars blocking the right lanes of Independence Boulevard. It was perhaps three or four inches wider than the front end of Quagliato's yellow '70s muscle car. He jammed the accelerator and shot toward it.

Zito was standing near the gap as Quagliato's car threaded through at nearly 40 mph. The car almost hit him and the sergeant jumped back.

Quagliato was heading toward the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway. Sgt. Robertson wanted him stopped.

Two years ago, Virginia Beach police officers followed another fleeing suspect, Arnold Peterson, onto the expressway. Then they were powerless to stop him. Peterson, driving drunk, continued into Norfolk, where he crashed into another car, killing both people inside.

That crash led the Virginia Beach Police Department to revise its pursuit policy, giving officers a more aggressive option to quickly end dangerous pursuits.

Robertson ordered that option: a rolling roadblock.

The purpose of a rolling roadblock is to box in a fleeing vehicle with four police cars - one in front, one in back and two flanking the suspect's car. Then, in unison, the police cars gradually slow down.

Few officers on the street have been trained how to do it. None of the pursuing officers had the training.

But Robertson didn't want the car on the expressway so he gave the orders to stop it. At least two police cars started accelerating past the Camaro.

As the vehicular noose tightened, Quagliato's car swerved and smashed into the pursuers. The Camaro spun around, facing the wrong way. Then, Walther's car slammed into the skidding Camaro and shoved it partly onto the gravel shoulder.

Another police car struck a light pole, knocking it down.

As many as 18 officers scrambled from their cars and ran to the crash. The scene exploded in chaos.

The shooting

Walther bailed out of his police car. Zito and Robertson stopped their car behind the crash scene.

Some of the officers didn't turn off their sirens. The electronic wails of at least four police cars shrieked above the commands of police officers yelling at Quagliato and each other.

At least two officers ran up to the Camaro. Zito screamed at them to get away. Zito yelled to Quagliato to surrender. So did Walther. So did others.

Some officers wanted to do a ``felony takedown'' and order Quagliato out at gunpoint. Others wanted to stun Quagliato by smashing the side windows and dousing him with pepper gas.

Here, memories of what happened begin diverging. Some officers remember Quagliato sitting calmly with his hands on the steering wheel. Some remember him jamming his car into drive and lurching forward.

Walther elected the ``felony takedown'' option. He began moving toward the Camaro with his gun drawn. Some officers remember him taking slow, deliberate steps; others remember him rushing to the car.

Quagliato was sitting up. His expression was blank, strangely calm. He was looking through his windshield at the guns of at least three officers, and five others flanked him.

Officer J.R. Mockenhaupt was next to Walther. He turned his eyes from the car and reached for another officer's baton. He wanted to smash the side window.

Quagliato lurched right. Walther lost sight of him.

Then Quagliato's body began rising slowly. His arms were extended and rigid. It looked like there was something in his hands, some officers said.

For the officers, time began crawling in blurry slow motion.

Someone screamed: ``He's got something in his hands. I think it's a gun!''

Others heard: ``Gun! Gun!''

Two shots pierced the Camaro's passenger window. The glass exploded. The shots were Walther's, and he began backpedaling to the safety of his battered police car.

The other officers heard the shots, saw the glass shatter and watched Walther reel backward. Most thought Walther had been shot and they fired at the Camaro to protect him. Bullets streamed into the car.

Walther backed into Mockenhaupt, who also thought Walther had been shot. Mockenhaupt reached around Walther and started firing.

Only one of the eight officers had ever been involved in a shooting. It wasn't what they expected; it wasn't like Hollywood. The bullets didn't knock Quagliato around. Most remember him sitting almost still while the bullets pierced him. One remembered that Quagliato's hair jumped and his head twitched with each impact.

More than a dozen 9 mm hollow-point bullets struck Quagliato in the ribs, back, arm and head.

Some officers weren't sure what had happened but they fired anyway. One panicked officer shot four times into the police car he was crouching behind.

Because the officers had nearly encircled the car, errant rounds whizzed past them. Some were spared by inches.

After a deafening five seconds, Bruce Quagliato was dead. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Bruce Quagliato

A FATAL CONFRONTATION

Staff graphic by Robert D. Voros

Text and research by Mike Mather

For complete copy, see microfilm KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING VIRGINIA BEACH POLICE DEPARTMENT

CHASE INVESTIGATION TIMELINE CHRONOLOGY

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