WASHINGTON – A former member of the Secret Service Uniformed Division has revealed he heard a radio transmission inform officers there was a child in the car of Miriam Carey before officers shot her to death.
The former officer told the Carey family attorney he was on duty and in the officers' locker room at the time he heard that radio call, and that he heard a number of other radio reports, until the chase ended with the shooting of the unarmed woman.
If Secret Service officers were aware Carey's infant child was strapped into the backseat of her car when they chased and shot her to death, that would add to the list of the violations of their own policies, as recently documented by WND after obtaining the secret documents.
Carey was the single mother from Stamford, Connecticut, who drove to Washington, D.C., with her infant daughter strapped into the back seat on Oct. 3, 2013. She drove up to a White House guard gate, apparently by mistake because she immediately tried to make a U-turn to leave, but was chased by uniformed Secret Service officers and U.S. Capitol Police officers and shot dead about two blocks from the Capitol.
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WND obtained the official police report on the Carey shooting and detailed it in a five-part series. That report said four officers fired shots at Carey, two from the U.S. Capitol Police and two from the Secret Service Uniformed Division.
WND also obtained the secretive policy on vehicular pursuits in the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division Operational Procedures manual and the guidelines on the use of deadly force in the Homeland Security Legal Division Handbook, and detailed how officers violated their own rules by shooting and killing Carey.
If Secret Service officers were aware of the child in the car when shooting at it, that would add another serious violation.
Under the heading "General Policy" in the U.S. Secret Service Operational Procedures guidelines on “Vehicular Pursuits,” it states:
"Whenever it becomes evident that injury to citizens or members of the Force, or unnecessary property damage may result from a vehicular pursuit, that pursuit shall be immediately discontinued. Safety is the first priority, not arrest."
Carey family attorney Eric Sanders told WND, "Certainly, since the officers had no authority to pursue them, they cannot establish authority to use deadly physical force against Miriam or her minor child."
As WND previously reported, at least one officer immediately knew there was a child in Carey’s car, and he got on the police radio as soon as she left the White House guard post.
That indicates that all of the officers should have known they were shooting at a car with an infant strapped into the back seat.
The account from the White House guard in the police report includes this statement:
"As she got to the next set of barracks she made a U-turn and came back towards us. At this time she came to a stop or slowed down to an almost stop, I tried to open the front driver’s door but it was locked. I noticed that there was a baby in the car."
He then added, "A look was broadcast as the vehicle traveled west on Pennsylvania Ave."
Sanders, a former New York City Police officer, told WND a "look" stands for "be on the lookout for," when used in radio transmissions.
The guard apparently did report the presence of the child in the car during his radio transmission, because the former Secret Service officer who spoke to Sanders confirmed he heard the mention of the child in a radio report.
Additionally, officers seemed to get a clear look inside Carey's car, as seen in the video below, when she momentarily stopped at Garfield Circle, just below the Capitol.
Sanders said it was inconceivable that officers would not have seen the infant strapped into the child seat in the backseat.
But, for some reason, officers may have been surprised to find the child in the car after they shot and killed Carey.
The account from a Capitol Police officer who witnessed the crash of Carey’s car at the end of the chase read:
"Officer (redacted) said when the shots stopped he ran towards the suspect’s vehicle and noticed a small child in the back seat in a car seat. Officer (redacted) said the driver was unresponsive and he signaled to the other officers there was a child in the car. Officer (redacted) said he broke the car window and pulled the child from the car. Officer said the child was covered with glass and blood. Officer (redacted) said he wiped the child off and checked her for any injuries. Officer (redacted) said he rushed the child indoors and had a nurse treat the child. Officer (redacted) said he rode in the ambulance with the child to Children’s Hospital."
The shots that stopped Carey's car and presumably killed her were fired from behind her car, through the rear window, with her infant daughter strapped into a child's car seat in the backseat.
The Justice Department claims officers fired their guns because Carey drove in reverse toward an officer at the end of the chase at Maryland Avenue and Second Street, but an eyewitness in the police report contradicted that claim.
That witness, a woman who apparently was working at the nearby Supreme Court, told police, as Carey’s "vehicle was backing up and before it struck the police booth, there were no police officers near the vehicle."
It is possible officers did not hear about the child before they shot because of communication lapses between the Secret Service and Capitol Police, and because of the Reagan-era radio system still in use by police at the time of the Carey chase.
In March 2014, Roll Call reported Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., grilled Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine as to whether the antiquated radio system had hindered the department’s response to the Carey incident.
Schultz said some police officers had said the radios used during the chase and shooting were not capable of communicating with Secret Service officers.
Dine said two emergency channels and a mutual aid radio system allowed the two agencies to communicate.
If that were true, would not officers have known of the child in the car?
And, if that were true, why did they shoot?
Such questions are why the killing of Miriam Carey is still a mystery, almost two years after her death.
Even long before WND uncovered all of these additional details, once he heard the basic facts of the case in December of 2013, famed civil libertarian Nat Hentoff said from all of the evidence he had seen in WND’s reports, which he called very thorough and easily corroborated, "[T]his is a classic case of police out of control and, therefore, guilty of plain murder."
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