Soldier’s death followed call back to war

Friday, Dec. 29, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by John Wharton St. Mary’s sheriff’s deputies Sgt. Andrew Cusick and Kevin Darryl Somerville secure a location Tuesday where family and friends of a soldier gathered after he was shot by police at his parents’ home. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo

Lawmen said this week that they did what they could to peacefully resolve the overnight confrontation off Brown Road in Hollywood. They said it ended shortly after noon on Tuesday when Dean raised a gun at approaching officers. A police sharpshooter fired once, killing him.

The next day, quiet had returned to Dusty Lane, which leads to the Dean family’s three homes on cleared land surrounded by woods. James Dean, who turned 29 last weekend, and his wife, Muriel, married last August and had their own home in the Hollywood Shores community, but police report he had gone to his parents’ home on Christmas night. He was alone there when family members called authorities from elsewhere shortly before 10 p.m. for them to check on his welfare.

They also reported that Dean had weapons with him, St. Mary’s Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron said. Sheriff’s deputies and Maryland State Police went to the house, and made a phone call to the residence.

‘‘He said he was not going to come out [and] that he intended to commit suicide,” Cameron said, which began a 14-hour standoff that included gunshots fired at police cars as communications deteriorated. ‘‘We got into a repetitive kind of conversation,” the sheriff said, and ‘‘he said someone would die that night.”

Dean was being activated to go to Iraq, the sheriff said this week, based on comments by the soldier’s family and military papers reviewed by investigators.

‘‘This upset him greatly,” Cameron said, and as Dean shot three police cars, including one occupied by a lawman who was not injured, the officers were well aware of his firearms training. ‘‘We were certainly cautious,” the sheriff said.

Maryland State Police Special Tactical Assault Team Element officers in a military-type vehicle fired tear gas canisters into the house early Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement commanders said, as additional officers approached the back of the house. Dean appeared, carrying either a shotgun or rifle.

‘‘He came to the front door of the house,” state police Col. Thomas E. ‘‘Tim” Hutchins said. ‘‘He began to raise that weapon.”

The single shot that struck Dean was fired by Sgt. Daniel M. Weaver, 46, a 17-year veteran of the agency who had served 13 years with the tactical team, police officials said.

‘‘The officer had to take that action to protect the exposed officers,” Cameron said.

The vehicle carrying seven officers had open ports on its sides to fire the tear gas rounds, state police communications director Gregory Shipley said, and its rear hatch was open.

Hutchins said all other officers on the property would have been in jeopardy if Dean had been given an opportunity to use his weapon.

‘‘It’s a tragedy that was not of our doing,” Hutchins said. ‘‘It was Mr. Dean who decided.”

‘‘Their priority was to end this peacefully with no harm to anyone, particularly Mr. Dean,” the sheriff said.

Dan Alen Sparks bought his property on Brown Road from Dean’s grandparents, and had known him since he was 8 years old.

‘‘He was a good man, a real good man,” Sparks said. ‘‘He would do anything for anybody. I don’t think he would hurt anybody.”

Dean enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2001. He spent a year in Afghanistan assigned to the Army’s 25th Infantry Division, from April 2004 to April 2005, and was awarded an Afghanistan Campaign Badge and a Combat Infantry Badge, the latter ‘‘for participating in active ground combat between April and July, 2004,” according to Ray Gall, an Army human resources spokesman. In 2005, after returning from Afghanistan, Dean chose to move to the Army’s Individual Ready Reserves program. Soldiers in the program do not drill and only report to reserve units once a year, but must be available if called up on active duty for assignments that may last a full year. Dean’s enlistment obligation would have ended in 2009.

Dean had received orders to report for active duty a second time, according to Gall, on Jan. 14, 2007, to the Army’s receiving station at Fort Benning, Ga., for further assignment.

Dean put in his last day of work last Friday, Dec. 22, at T.N. Bowes Heating and Air Conditioning in Mechanicsville. Owner Tommy Bowes knew the service mechanic well and had talked to him about his time in the military. ‘‘We wanted to make sure he had plenty of time” before his redeployment, Bowes said. Dean’s last day of work was to be Jan. 5, but the company gave him paid vacation for two weeks.

‘‘He is a good young individual. I don’t think anyone could have seen this happening in advance,” Bowes said. ‘‘He was a very quiet, soft-spoken kind of guy.”

Dean worked with Bowes prior to his time in the military several years ago, and when he returned to St. Mary’s in 2005, Bowes quickly hired him back.

Bowes said Dean was ‘‘here early and left late,” and was always available to work.

‘‘From what I understand, they called him back up,” Bowes said, adding that Dean thought he was going to be deployed to Iraq, something that deeply troubled him.

‘‘Who wouldn’t be?” Bowes said, recalling Dean’s stories about his time in Afghanistan that ‘‘would make a normal person shudder.”

Bowes said he knew Dean’s wife, and that the couple’s wedding last summer took place about a year after they met.

In the past, when not away serving his country, Dean volunteered his work skills to help Sparks with his home’s heating and air-conditioning equipment. They didn’t discuss his combat experience.‘‘I had a brother who served in Vietnam, and he never talked about it, so I didn’t bring it up around Jamie,” Sparks said. ‘‘There are just some things that people don’t talk about.”

E-mail John Wharton at jwharton@somdnews.com. E-mail Jesse Yeatman at jyeatman@somdnews.com. Staff writers Paul C. Leibe and Jason Babcock contributed to this report.