Officer Ronald Solimini saw Amy Bishop in back of a building with both hands on a shotgun and slowly backed away as he tried to calm her down. He was scared, he said, because he “knew what just happened.’’
Bishop, who had just raced out of her home after killing her brother, was soon handcuffed and brought to the Braintree police station, where the watch commander said he began filling out the booking sheet with the words: “murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, two counts.’’
Within 20 minutes, however, Bishop was released without charge, in the company of her mother.
The more than 300 pages of previously impounded testimony provides the most detailed account to date of the police response to the Bishops’ home that day and the investigation that followed. But it leaves unanswered a critical question: What happened during that 20-minute period to persuade the police to change course and not press charges against a woman who had run through the neighborhood with a loaded gun, confronting two police officers and two bystanders.
Large sections of crucial testimony were redacted from the inquest transcript, including all 20 pages of testimony from John V. Polio, the Braintree police chief at the time. Also redacted were key sections where it appeared answers were about to be provided.
The death of Seth Bishop at his sister’s hands and how law enforcement handled the case came under intense scrutiny after Bishop allegedly gunned down three colleagues during a 2010 faculty meeting at the University of Alabama-Huntsville....
Despite the redactions, the testimony of the former officers, investigators, and prosecutors portrays an investigation that was systematically mishandled at several levels of law enforcement, from local investigators who stonewalled their state counterparts to state investigators who seemed to shrug it off....
Bishop is scheduled to go on trial in Alabama on March 19 and will be pursuing an insanity defense....
--more--"
Related: DA rips gap in Bishop report
Bishop’s novel offers insight into her thoughts
Bishop's Bomb
Parents defended Amy Bishop on '86 shooting
They the ones that pulled the strings?
"Stepmother, grandmother charged in Ala. girl’s death" Associated Press, February 23, 2012
GADSDEN, Ala. - The grandmother and stepmother of a 9-year-old Alabama girl who died after she was allegedly forced to run for three hours as punishment for lying have been charged with murder and are being held in jail....
--more--"
Also see: Judge acquits widower in scuba case
