El Sobrante, CA: El Sobrante man killed himself during police standoff, inquest jury rules

By Malaika Fraley
Contra Costa Times
© Copyright 2012, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 01/19/2012 05:34:31 PM PST

MARTINEZ -- A Contra Costa County jury ruled Thursday that an El Sobrante man committed suicide after a long police standoff that was sparked by a domestic violence incident last year.
Andrew Harper, 43, shot himself in the heart a second after he was struck in the torso by SWAT team gunfire on Sept. 3 in the San Pablo Dam Road apartment he shared with his wife and three young daughters, according to testimony at a coroner's inquest into Harper's death.
Police came to Harper's residence after he went to his wife's workplace, the Red Onion restaurant in El Sobrante, and punched and strangled the woman before dragging her to his car and driving her home. He told police that he was angry that she was having an affair.
The standoff started once Sheriff's deputies entered the house and saw a distraught Harper wave a gun in the presence of his oldest daughter. Harper released the girls to officers and then barricaded himself inside, a deputy testified at the inquest, held for all officer-related deaths in Contra Costa County as a matter of protocol.
Over the next seven hours, Harper talked at length about his love for his daughters, and said that he had taken them to a Taylor Swift concert the night before, said Sheriff's Sgt. Tiffany Van Hook, who served as a crisis negotiator that day.
"I asked him if he was suicidal, and he said that he might be and that he had already said goodbye to his children," Van Hook said.
Harper
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identified himself as an Army Ranger who was highly trained in the tactics that Van Hook was using to get him to surrender. He told Van Hook that he was depressed that he could not provide for his family since coming back in 2007 from Iraq, where he witnessed a superior get blown up. He said his country let him down.
Investigators later learned it was all a lie. Harper did serve twice in the Army, but he never did a combat tour. He was discharged in 1991 as a heavy vehicle specialist after failing his physical fitness and field tests, a detective said.
Harper was dressed, however, head to toe in the latest Army Ranger gear when he died. He would appear and disappear from window view throughout the standoff, sometimes pointing out the window what looked to be a military assault rifle affixed with a laser sight. It turned out to be an air rifle that's nearly identical to the real thing.
SWAT officers testified that they fired upon Harper once he zeroed the laser on several officers. A forensic pathologist said Harper could have survived that gunshot wound had he not shot himself with a handgun a moment later.
Just before the shootings, Van Hook said Harper was slurring his words from his beer drinking during the standoff. He said something unintelligible and then put down the phone.
"I'm saying 'Andrew, Andrew, get back to the phone' and within a minute I hear gunfire," Van Hook said.
Contact Malaika Fraley at 925-234-1684. Follow her at Twitter.com/malaikafraley.