Jurors hear details of doomed drug raid that left officer dead

CHESAPEAKE

For the first time since the fatal shooting of Detective Jarrod Shivers a year ago, his drug-unit partners on Thursday publicly described the events on Redstart Avenue and told of a drug raid gone horribly wrong.

"Chesapeake Police Department! Search warrant! Open the door!" Detective Kiley Roberts shouted across the courtroom, recounting how he began trying to get the attention of Ryan Frederick, who was suspected of dealing marijuana. Frederick was believed to be in the house and possibly armed.

Roberts demonstrated for the jury in Frederick's murder trial how he repeated the call four times while pounding on the door. His partners shouted out, too, he said.

Then, "I hear a very muffled pop," Roberts recalled, followed by, "Man down! Man down!"

Shivers fell limp to the ground. Blood poured out of his nose and mouth. He was unresponsive. Frederick has sai d he fired through the door in self-defense and thought burglars were breaking in.

In the third day of Frederick's murder trial, frightful memories were replayed to the jury, including the late-night visit Shivers' widow received from several officers notifying her of her husband's death.

In tearful testimony Thursday morning, Nicole Shivers told the jury how she met her husband on a blind date and they married in 1997. She described how he was always looking to better himself in his career and said t hat's why he took the assignment in the Special Investigations Section, handling drug and vice cases.

Nicole Shivers said the final time she saw her husband alive was the morning of his death, Jan. 17, 200 8. He was sleeping, and she was rushing off to work. They spoke several times that day by phone, the last time about an hour before the 8:30 p.m. raid at Frederick's home.

Nicole Shivers' testimony was brief, and defense attorneys did not cross-examine her.

Roberts, Shivers' partner in the Frederick case, testified at length about the history of the investigation, the informant used and the surveillance conducted.

He described how they pulled up to the house that night in an unmarked van with the lights off. A second group was in an unmarked car, and a marked patrol unit rolled up past the house.

Dressed mostly in black, they "approached in a stealth manner," Roberts said. Shivers was to be the first through the door.

They started pounding on the door, shouting and then trying to break it down with a battering ram.

"I wanted, without a doubt, Mr. Frederick to know that we were the police outside," Detective Sgt. Scott Chambers said.

Then several officers saw a curtain move and called for an "8-ball," which would have meant an immediate burst into the house. Chambers, though, told them to wait in order to give the suspect a few more seconds to surrender.

"In a situation like this, no officer's life is worth dope - marijuana or cocaine," Chambers said. The next thing he recalled seeing, he said, was Shivers lying on the ground.

Roberts' testimony drew the most intense cross-examination after he named the informant - Steven Wright, whose full name is Steven Rene Wright. The police had refused until the trial to name him.

Also for the first time, Wright was identified as the person who alerted police to a break-in at Frederick's house days before the raid.

Wright failed, however, to tell police that it was he who broke into Frederick's garage and stole several marijuana plants, despite being asked "15 times," Roberts said. Police didn't learn that until about three months ago, he said.

Roberts testified that Wright was a new informant but that he proved reliable in a prior case that led to the conviction of a drug dealer. Wright was paid $50 for the information, Roberts said.

Defense attorney James Broccoletti tried to show that police relied on little more than Wright's word before conducting the raid. Detectives acknowledged they had no other evidence that Frederick was dealing marijuana.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com