Jury finds Fitch guilty of killing Mendota Heights cop

By Marino Eccher/ St. Paul Pioneer Press ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Brian Fitch Sr. has been convicted of killing officer Scott Patrick and will spend the rest of his life in prison. The verdict was read shortly before 10 p.m. Monday following more than nine hours of deliberation by the jury. Fitch, 40, also was convicted of attempted murder of three other officers. He’ll be sentenced automatically to life in prison without possibility of release. After the verdicts were read, Fitch unleashed a profane outburst at the judge. Unfazed, she ordered him removed from the courtroom. Applause from family and friends broke out in the courtroom after he was removed, followed by tears and hugs. Jurors – seven men and five women – got the case shortly after noon. They returned to the courtroom about 4:15 p.m. to view Brian Fitch Sr.’s gun, a weapon tied by a forensic examiner to the bullets that killed the Mendota Heights police veteran. In a note to the judge, they said they wanted to see which side the weapon’s ejection port – from which spent cartridges are discarded – was on. The trial included testimony on cartridge casings recovered from Fitch’s car and the scene of his arrest. After spending about two minutes looking at the gun, the jury returned to deliberations. The trial had been moved to St. Cloud because of concerns Fitch couldn’t receive a fair jury in Dakota County. In his closing arguments, prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz methodically walked through the case against Fitch. It was Fitch’s green Pontiac Grand Am that Patrick pulled over just before he was shot, and a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension firearms examiner concluded Fitch’s gun fired the bullets that felled the officer. “The time has come for justice to be served,” Prokopowicz said. Fitch had ample motive to kill Patrick, the prosecutor said: He had active warrants and faced prison time if caught. But Patrick wouldn’t have known he was pulling over Fitch’s car because it was registered to someone else. “We are left wondering what would’ve happened” if one or the other had taken a different route that day and their paths had never crossed, he said. When police cornered Fitch later that night in a parking lot in St. Paul, he opened fire in an attempt to “take out as many officers as he could,” Prokopowicz said. In her own closing, defense attorney Lauri Traub attacked the case as the result of an investigation that zeroed in on Fitch from the start and contorted to fit that conclusion. Pointing to discrepancies in testimony, Traub said the prosecution’s timeline didn’t fit and that eyewitness descriptions didn’t match Fitch. She also challenged the key firearms testimony as unscientific and unreliable. Witness accounts of the driver of the Grand Am ranged from a blond man in his 20s to a dark-skinned man to multiple people in the car. Prokopowicz said that was normal because bystanders saw the driver for only a split second. But Traub said the two women with the best vantage points gave the same description: “Both said 20s with sandy blond hair.” She hinted that the description matched Jesse Charles, a friend of Fitch’s who testified in the case. The defense did not seek to show an alternate perpetrator in the case. Charles; his mother, Karen King; and his friend Katie Oney all gave testimony that put Fitch at the Robert Street residence before Patrick was shot. He couldn’t have been in the Grand Am when the officer was killed, Traub said, because he dropped the car off at the home and left in another before Patrick died. “It’s a huge, gaping hole in the law enforcement case,” she said, adding that police later tried to pressure King to amend her story to make it fit. Prokopowicz said those witnesses must have been mistaken. He showed dashboard camera images from Patrick’s vehicle of the Grand Am’s license plate from the stop. Charles and Oney were both coming off sleepless nights of methamphetamine use, he said – in Oney’s case, a binge that had lasted weeks. And King’s testimony left room for Fitch to have arrived after Patrick’s death, the prosecutor said. As she did during testimony, Traub aggressively challenged the firearms examination that matched Fitch’s gun to the bullets that killed Patrick. She said that it was subjective and prone to bias and that jurors didn’t even have the opportunity to check the work for themselves because the examiner, Kurt Moline, did not show them images of the bullets he analyzed. “Do you want to vote to convict when he can’t even show you what he saw?” she said. In his rebuttal – the final argument before the case went to the jury – Prokopowicz emphasized Moline’s extensive training and “wealth of experience.” He said that the examiner had participated in studies in which he correctly matched bullets to multiple guns and that the analysis is accepted in the forensic community. “It isn’t junk science,” he said. Traub argued that Fitch’s actions during his arrest, in which he fired the gun six times, fell far short of the standard for attempted murder. At worst, she said, it was assault. She began her closing argument with audio of the shootout – about 10 seconds of intense gunfire – to emphasize the chaos of the scene. The officers who said they saw Fitch shooting at them were coming off an emotionally draining day and distracted in the heat of them moment, she said. “If you were in the middle of that, would you really know what happened?” she said. Prokopowicz said the notion that Fitch was trying to do anything other than kill police was nonsensical. “What was he going to do by firing that gun?” he said. Fitch didn’t hit any officers or police cars. With such poor aim, Traub asked, how could he have been the shooter that hit Patrick three times from a car window without even turning around? During Prokopowicz’ final remarks, Fitch interjected with an outburst, calling out “overruled” in the courtroom. The prosecutor looked to Dakota County District Judge Mary Theisen for guidance; she told him to keep going. The judge also did not address that outburst.     The Pioneer Press is a media partner of Forum News Service
By Marino Eccher/ St. Paul Pioneer PressST. CLOUD, Minn. – Brian Fitch Sr. has been convicted of killing officer Scott Patrick and will spend the rest of his life in prison.The verdict was read shortly before 10 p.m. Monday following more than nine hours of deliberation by the jury. Fitch, 40, also was convicted of attempted murder of three other officers. He’ll be sentenced automatically to life in prison without possibility of release.After the verdicts were read, Fitch unleashed a profane outburst at the judge. Unfazed, she ordered him removed from the courtroom.Applause from family and friends broke out in the courtroom after he was removed, followed by tears and hugs.Jurors – seven men and five women – got the case shortly after noon. They returned to the courtroom about 4:15 p.m. to view Brian Fitch Sr.’s gun, a weapon tied by a forensic examiner to the bullets that killed the Mendota Heights police veteran.In a note to the judge, they said they wanted to see which side the weapon’s ejection port – from which spent cartridges are discarded – was on. The trial included testimony on cartridge casings recovered from Fitch’s car and the scene of his arrest.After spending about two minutes looking at the gun, the jury returned to deliberations.The trial had been moved to St. Cloud because of concerns Fitch couldn’t receive a fair jury in Dakota County.In his closing arguments, prosecutor Phil Prokopowicz methodically walked through the case against Fitch.It was Fitch’s green Pontiac Grand Am that Patrick pulled over just before he was shot, and a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension firearms examiner concluded Fitch’s gun fired the bullets that felled the officer.“The time has come for justice to be served,” Prokopowicz said.Fitch had ample motive to kill Patrick, the prosecutor said: He had active warrants and faced prison time if caught. But Patrick wouldn’t have known he was pulling over Fitch’s car because it was registered to someone else.“We are left wondering what would’ve happened” if one or the other had taken a different route that day and their paths had never crossed, he said.When police cornered Fitch later that night in a parking lot in St. Paul, he opened fire in an attempt to “take out as many officers as he could,” Prokopowicz said.In her own closing, defense attorney Lauri Traub attacked the case as the result of an investigation that zeroed in on Fitch from the start and contorted to fit that conclusion.Pointing to discrepancies in testimony, Traub said the prosecution’s timeline didn’t fit and that eyewitness descriptions didn’t match Fitch. She also challenged the key firearms testimony as unscientific and unreliable.Witness accounts of the driver of the Grand Am ranged from a blond man in his 20s to a dark-skinned man to multiple people in the car. Prokopowicz said that was normal because bystanders saw the driver for only a split second.But Traub said the two women with the best vantage points gave the same description: “Both said 20s with sandy blond hair.”She hinted that the description matched Jesse Charles, a friend of Fitch’s who testified in the case. The defense did not seek to show an alternate perpetrator in the case.Charles; his mother, Karen King; and his friend Katie Oney all gave testimony that put Fitch at the Robert Street residence before Patrick was shot. He couldn’t have been in the Grand Am when the officer was killed, Traub said, because he dropped the car off at the home and left in another before Patrick died.“It’s a huge, gaping hole in the law enforcement case,” she said, adding that police later tried to pressure King to amend her story to make it fit.Prokopowicz said those witnesses must have been mistaken. He showed dashboard camera images from Patrick’s vehicle of the Grand Am’s license plate from the stop.Charles and Oney were both coming off sleepless nights of methamphetamine use, he said – in Oney’s case, a binge that had lasted weeks. And King’s testimony left room for Fitch to have arrived after Patrick’s death, the prosecutor said.As she did during testimony, Traub aggressively challenged the firearms examination that matched Fitch’s gun to the bullets that killed Patrick. She said that it was subjective and prone to bias and that jurors didn’t even have the opportunity to check the work for themselves because the examiner, Kurt Moline, did not show them images of the bullets he analyzed.“Do you want to vote to convict when he can’t even show you what he saw?” she said.In his rebuttal – the final argument before the case went to the jury – Prokopowicz emphasized Moline’s extensive training and “wealth of experience.”He said that the examiner had participated in studies in which he correctly matched bullets to multiple guns and that the analysis is accepted in the forensic community.“It isn’t junk science,” he said.Traub argued that Fitch’s actions during his arrest, in which he fired the gun six times, fell far short of the standard for attempted murder. At worst, she said, it was assault.She began her closing argument with audio of the shootout – about 10 seconds of intense gunfire – to emphasize the chaos of the scene. The officers who said they saw Fitch shooting at them were coming off an emotionally draining day and distracted in the heat of them moment, she said.“If you were in the middle of that, would you really know what happened?” she said.Prokopowicz said the notion that Fitch was trying to do anything other than kill police was nonsensical.“What was he going to do by firing that gun?” he said.Fitch didn’t hit any officers or police cars. With such poor aim, Traub asked, how could he have been the shooter that hit Patrick three times from a car window without even turning around?During Prokopowicz’ final remarks, Fitch interjected with an outburst, calling out “overruled” in the courtroom. The prosecutor looked to Dakota County District Judge Mary Theisen for guidance; she told him to keep going.The judge also did not address that outburst.  The Pioneer Press is a media partner of Forum News Service