By Juan Perez Jr.and Todd Cooper
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS
A 35-year-old Omaha man wanted in connection with a violent sexual assault walked into a deadly sting after he allegedly tried to get his accuser to drop the charges.
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Authorities with knowledge of the investigation said Joe M. Weible of 1106 Fawn Parkway called his ex-girlfriend in an effort to reconcile and persuade her to deny her accusation that he had raped her in her apartment and tried to strangle her with a cord on Nov. 29.
Instead, she called police.
Authorities asked the 26-year-old woman to play along and tell Weible that she would meet him.
Weible arranged to meet her Monday afternoon at a shopping center near 120th Street and West Center Road. But when he got there, he found U.S. marshals and local cops waiting to arrest him.
The Metro Area Fugitive Task Force's trap quickly turned violent when Weible spotted the authorities.
Angela Loontjer, 20, said she was working her shift at the nearby Subway restaurant when she saw uniformed officers chasing a man who she thought was running from a nearby store.
The suspect got into his truck and began ramming police cars, an official close to the investigation said.
An Omaha police officer and a U.S. marshal fired, said Lt. Darci Tierney, a spokeswoman for the Omaha Police Department.
It was the eighth shooting involving an Omaha officer this year. Authorities Monday evening did not identify the Omaha officer or the U.S. marshal.
Loontjer said she ran to tell her colleagues what was happening, and then saw Weible's crashed pickup truck near the entrance to the nearby Baker's supermarket.
Colette Halper, a manager of a gift card shop in the area, said none of her colleagues saw the incident, but they heard the last part of it.
“We heard a few ‘bang-bangs' and then the sirens,” she said.
Rescuers said Weible was struck by at least one gunshot.
Firefighters had to extricate him from his vehicle before he was taken to Creighton University Medical Center in extremely critical condition. He died there.
No officers were injured.
After the shooting, police roped off a large portion of the parking lot in front of the supermarket and nearby stores for hours.
Investigators surrounded Weible's green Chevrolet pickup truck, which rested near the supermarket's front entryway and was missing a small side window. The front window was also cracked.
The shooting erupted just a week after authorities issued an arrest warrant for Weible on charges of first-degree sexual assault and attempted strangulation of his former girlfriend.
In 1993, Weible, then 19 years old, was sentenced to serve one to three years in the Dawson County Jail for second-degree sexual assault.
According to police reports on last week's incident:
The victim told officers she allowed Weible to spend the night at her southwest Omaha apartment.
The woman said she awoke about 2:30 a.m. and walked to the kitchen to get a drink. She said that as she walked past Weible, he said he wanted to have sex.
She refused.
According to the police report, the woman said Weible pulled down her pants and forced himself on her in the kitchen. Her 5-year-old son was in the apartment.
The woman told him to stop. He dragged her into the living room. She said that when Weible was through, she told him to leave.
As she attempted to gather her clothes, she said, she felt him wrap some type of cord around her neck.
The woman told police she was unable to breathe.
“Everything went black,” she told officers.
The woman said she regained consciousness about 3:30 a.m. and called 911.
Officers found a bungee cord in the apartment.
The investigation into the incident is continuing.
The Omaha Police Department asks anyone who witnessed the incident and hasn't spoken to police to contact the department's homicide unit at 402-444-5656.
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