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Past is guide in shooting inquiry

His split-second decision to fire in a long-ago hostage situation shapes the Pinellas sheriff's response to a fatal shooting by a deputy.

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published May 31, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - The rookie deputy jumped out of his cruiser onto 45th Avenue, knowing only that an armed man was holding a family hostage.

As he ran to the cottage with his gun drawn, he thought of the people trapped inside - a mother, a father, their teenage daughter. Through a window, he spied the intruder, a slight, dark-haired man holding a cocked revolver.

The deputy slipped to a side door and jerked it open. The gunman wheeled around, leveling his revolver. There was no time to think.

"Drop the gun now!"

The deputy had his training. And he had his survival instinct. In a split second, he had to decide, "Either he goes or I go."

In recent days, Sheriff Jim Coats has drawn on his memory of that night when, as a 28-year-old rookie in 1972, he had to make a quick life-and-death decision: shoot or be shot.

That firsthand experience has guided Coats as he addresses questions surrounding a white deputy's fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in St. Petersburg. He is now considering revisions to the agency's deadly force policy and to the training that deputies receive.

"It goes back to the old story, if you've been there and done that, maybe you have a better understanding and a better appreciation for such a traumatic event," said Coats, now 61. "I have the insight to stand back and not rush to judgment."

Deputy Christopher Taylor, who has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, shot 19-year-old Jarrell S. Walker during a drug raid April 12. Taylor said Walker had refused to show his hands and was reaching for something under a couch.

That explanation has not appeased Walker's family. Nor has it satisfied Coats, who made the unusual move of appointing several community members to observe the sheriff's shooting review board process. The board will present its final report to Coats this week.

"Maybe there is a better way to do business," said Coats, whose criticism has angered some of the rank and file.

While the sheriff thinks the agency can learn from the Walker shooting, part of him is uncomfortable playing "Monday morning quarterback" to a choice Taylor made in the heat of the moment.

Coats knows, from personal experience, how a single decision can change everything.

It was the evening of Jan. 28, 1972. Coats, 28, a New Yorker who came to Pinellas County after a stint in the Air Force, had been a full-fledged deputy for only a few weeks. He was patrolling the streets of Lealman about 6:45 p.m. when a dispatcher relayed the report:

Hostages at gunpoint. 4525 45th Ave. N. The Roesch family cottage.

According to interviews and dozens of pages of Sheriff's Office records, this is how it unfolded:

At about 6 p.m., Lenora Roesch, 39, heard a light tap on the side door to the kitchen. Before she reached the doorknob, it began to turn. The door opened, a pistol poked inside, followed by a white man holding it, Bruce A. Zetterlund, 32.

"I'm in trouble," he told her. "I need a place to hide."

Zetterlund, an alcoholic who had spent the morning drinking Early Times whiskey and talking about suicide, ordered Roesch, her husband Joseph and her 15-year-old daughter Tina to sit around the table. He waved the cocked revolver, his finger resting on the trigger.

He said the police were after him (they weren't). He insisted he wouldn't hurt them. He told them to finish their lasagna dinner.

Joseph Roesch, 43, a glass fitter, offered to take him anywhere he liked, give him anything he had or talk to the police on his behalf. Zetterlund said he needed to make some calls, so Roesch led him down a hallway to the phone.

"If you want to keep your daddy," Zetterlund told Tina, "just be still."

He had Roesch call an auto shop so he could talk to a friend. He also had him call the police, then told him to hang up. Later, Zetterlund called his own father.

"Dad, I messed it up and I'm in big trouble," Zetterlund said, before hanging up.

Then a knock at the door: Andrea Koltay, 29, came over to complain that Zetterlund's station wagon was blocking the driveway.

Lenora Roesch opened the door. Koltay saw the gun and backed up two steps. Zetterlund grabbed Roesch by the neck.

"Please come in," Roesch begged Koltay. "He's going to kill my husband."

Koltay complied, joining the others around the table.

Zetterlund, who already seemed intoxicated, wanted something to drink. They gave him a little jug of wine left over from Christmas, then a beer. He later became sick and vomited on the living room rug.

He suddenly fired the revolver into the ceiling. He said he wanted to prove that it was loaded and that he was prepared to use it. He also threatened to shoot a picture on the wall above Koltay's head to prove his aim.

Joseph Roesch urged him to release the women and Zetterlund considered it. Maybe he would just keep Tina. Maybe Lenora.

"Which one do you love most?" he asked Roesch, demanding he choose between his wife and daughter.

"No, we would rather stick together," Lenora Roesch said.

Then came another knock.

Zetterlund told Lenora Roesch to answer it.

"Get up and no funny business," he warned her.

At the door was Koltay's husband, who had come looking for her. He saw Zetterlund and took off running, screaming for the police.

Then Zetterlund said: "One of you will die."

They heard police sirens. Zetterlund looked out the window. "Here they come," he said.

He told the women they could go. Joseph Roesch would stay behind.

The women saw Coats approaching as they rushed out of the door.

Pulling the door wide, Coats demanded, "Drop the gun!"

Zetterlund swung around and aimed at Coats' abdomen. Coats fired one shot from his .38-caliber revolver, striking him in the heart.

Zetterlund slumped in half at the waist, moaning as Coats lowered him to the floor.

Coats checked for a pulse. Zetterlund was dead.

Sitting in his office overlooking Ulmerton Road last week, Coats recounted the shooting, describing a few moments in vivid detail. The way Zetterlund's gun swung toward him. The relief afterward. The family's thanks.

Coats stood in his suit and bent at the waist to demonstrate how Zetterlund folded in half after he was shot.

"I was back on the street shortly thereafter," Coats recalled.

He didn't receive trauma counseling, now mandatory for all deputies involved in a shooting. He leaned on his colleagues and the belief that he had had no choice but to fire.

"I said, "Well, fortunately I was there to save someone's life.' "

Three years later, working as an undercover narcotics detective, Coats faced the end of a gun again. According to records, a suspected drug dealer in Safety Harbor resisted arrest, punched Coats and retrieved a .22-caliber rifle from his bedroom.

Coats ordered him to drop it and, when the man refused, shot him once in the stomach and once in the leg. The man, who is white, survived.

As he described the two shootings, Coats hesitated. He doesn't often tell these stories. Many of his own deputies don't know them. Some details have been lost in his memory, others are a blur.

"This is all done in seconds," he said.

The Roesch family, now living in Guntersville, Ala., still remembers Coats, his name, how young he looked as he entered their home, how happy they were to see him.

After the shooting, they wrote him a letter thanking him. They believed one of them would have died if the authorities had not arrived.

Joseph Roesch, now 77, remembers shaking Coats' hand shortly after he killed Zetterlund.

"Why, he looked like a kid just out of high school," Roesch said over the phone, his wife, Lenora, adding details in his other ear.

Told by a reporter that Coats had become the Pinellas County sheriff, they had a message for him:

"Tell him, the Roesches congratulate him and we wish him well," he said. "We sure appreciated that young fellow when he came to our house."

Times staff researcher Mary Mellstrom contributed to this report.

[Last modified May 31, 2005, 00:45:11]