Posted on Thu, Dec. 01, 2005
R E L A T E D C O N T E N T
Star-Telegram / Tom Pennington
Stephen Heard speaks to the media Thursday from a cell in Mansfield.
R E L A T E D L I N K S
Wounded officer on life support
Gunman's mom doesn't buy his story
Gunman placed on suicide watch 5:22 PM
'No way I knew that was a police officer'
By DEANNA BOYD
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
MANSFIELD - A man accused of shooting a Fort Worth police officer in the head told reporters Thursday that he had mistakenly believed that he was returning fire on a robber wanting to steal his identity theft materials.
During a 20-minute jailhouse interview with reporters, Stephen Heard insisted that officer Henry Hank Nava never identified himself as a police officer upon entering the bedroom where the shooting took place and that I did not fire the first shot.
Lt. Dean Sullivan, a police spokesman, called Heards comment a self-serving statement.
He has a right to speak freely and he has utilized that right, and if anything, its a self serving statement and its to be anticipated, Sullivan said. Our formal reply is consistent with what weve said through and through. We stand behind our arrest warrants.
The warrants state that Nava and two other officers, all wearing raid-type jackets with the word P-O-L-I-C-E displayed on the front and back, had gone to a northwest Fort Worth mobile home in search of Heard. They were allowed into the residence by a woman, who told them that Heard was not inside.
When Nava opened a bedroom door, he told his colleagues that he had found Heard, and Heard then fired several shots at Officer Nava, the affidavit states. Nava returned fire but was struck above the left eye.
Dressed in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit, Heard seemed near tears as he apologized to Navas family, stating I am truly sorry that the situation ever arose.
Every waking moment I am praying for this mans life, said Heard, who was later transferred from the Mansfield Law Enforcement Center to the Tarrant County Jail, where he was placed under suicide watch. Nava died late Thursday afternoon.
Heard said he had previously been robbed and had a gun close by on the day of the shooting because he believed he would be targeted again. He acknowledged that he had smoked marijuana and had taken some methamphetamines earlier in the day but said the drug use didnt amount to anything.
Heard said he never heard the officers identify themselves as police at the mobile home's front door because he was in a bedroom with the air conditioner running.
I was in the bedroom and I could see underneath the door (from) the light that somebody was coming in and I had no idea who it was, Heard said.
Heard said he had gone to the closet to find a jacket so he could leave when the door slowly began to open.
All I seen was a gray shirt, his face and the weapon. Thats all I seen, said Heard, who later added that he believed his life was in jeopardy at the time. No one ever knocked on the door and said Police. Sheriffs department. Nothing.
Heard said that as the door opened, I hollered no. They hollered something and gunshots rang out.
He said he had ducked down in the closet when the first shot was fired at him through the closet door.
He said he did not return fire until being struck in the chin by one of the first two bullets and falling out of the closet to the ground.
They wouldnt stop shooting, Heard said. It was the only thing I knew to do.
Heard said that he fled the room and then realized someone had been hurt after catching a glimpse of blue jeans by the door. I know then somethings wrong, he said.
Heard said he was looking through a nearby house trying to find a working telephone when a 26-year-old woman he described as a little girl stepped out of the room.
I was going, Oh no man. Dont go out. Dont go out. Theyre shooting. ... Just stay there and I can talk them down.
Heard said he did not know he had shot an officer until talking with a negotiator.
The first question I asked when I finally got somebody on the phone was Who was hurt? Heard said.
During the hostage ordeal, Heard said he drank four Heineken beers to calm himself down. I let that girl out of that house and I made that phone call and thats it. I gave myself up and thats all I wanted, he said.
Heard disputed police suggestions that he may be a member of the Aryan Brotherhood or any white supremacist gang. Lifting his right sleeve to show off a black tattoo on his arm, Heard said he could only suspect that such allegations arose because of his tribal art tattoos.
Heard said that although he may reject authority sometimes as far as following rules, he denied that he is a violent person.
Ive been in some little high-speed chases for some Mickey Mouse stuff and things like that but its never been nothing aggressive.
He acknowledged that he fled from Sansom Park police Sunday night, stating that a clerk at a convenience store there had called 911 after he accidentally drove off with the gas nozzle still inside his truck and despite his effort to return and give the clerk his information.
Heard said two women with him urged him to leave because police were on the way.
He said when an officer turned behind him, he hit the gas and drove away because he didnt want the girls to go to jail. He said he later jumped out of the truck so that the girls could get away and police would not find a computer inside his truck which he said contained some incriminating stuff, specifically an identity theft program.
Heard told reporters he had only recently gotten into identity theft.
I had really just gotten started in it and just now got everything set up to where I could start doing it, Heard said. I really hadnt had a chance to put it into motion.
He said he believed the officer walking into the bedroom Monday was a robber wanting to steal magnetic paper used in printing counterfeit checks or possibly identity theft programs that he had.
Its a simple mistake. Heard said. I find out now he (Nava) was coming to arrest me for a simple parole violation warrant, Heard said. All I had was a year on it. Anybody can do a year. Anybody.
Heard said he wished Nava had just identified himself when he came in the door.
Nothing was ever said. Nothing was ever stated to me, Heard said. Im angry about that but Im angry at myself that I even had a weapon in my hand.
Heard was then asked if he believes he deserves the death penalty in the event of the officer's death.
For that stupidity? I couldnt live with myself if that man dies, he said. Hes got two little (children). Hes just doing his job.
WHAT THE SUSPECT'S MOM HAD TO SAY:
Posted on Thu, Dec. 01, 2005
R E L A T E D C O N T E N T
STEPHEN LANCE HEARD
R E L A T E D L I N K S
Wounded officer on life support
Police often confront the unexpected
Shooting suspect's mom not buying story
By DEANNA BOYD
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - A man accused of shooting a Fort Worth police officer in the head told his mother Wednesday that he mistakenly believed he was being robbed and that he was praying for the officer's recovery.
She's not buying it.
Deloris Pulce said her son, Stephen Lance Heard, called her about 9:30 a.m. and offered the explanation about why he shot officer Henry "Hank" Nava.
"He told me that he thought he was being robbed," Pulce said in a telephone interview from her home in Texarkana. "He didn't realize it was a policeman. He was in plain clothes.
"I don't want him thinking I'm so stupid that I'm going to believe everything he said," Pulce said. "He wasn't being robbed. He knew he had a warrant. He knew what they were doing and he shouldn't have had a gun."
Heard, 39, was being held Wednesday in the Mansfield Jail with bail set at $2 million. He faces charges of attempted capital murder and aggravated kidnapping.
Nava, a member of the Police Department's north-side crime response team, died late Thursday afternoon at Harris Methodist Fort Worth hospital.
Pulce expressed sorrow for Nava, his family and his fellow officers.
"I know they face that every day and it shouldn't happen. It shouldn't happen," Pulce said before Nava's death.
Nava and two other officers had gone to a mobile home in the 7000 block of Seth Barwise Street in search of Heard, who was wanted on a parole violation warrant, when the shooting occurred about 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Sansom Park Police Chief Tony White said the officers were looking into Heard's possible involvement in an identity theft ring, an investigation still being conducted by Fort Worth police, Sansom Park police and the Secret Service.
Heard became a suspect after police found items in a pickup abandoned near the mobile home Sunday night. The pickup had been involved in a high-speed chase with police after the report of a gas drive-off in Sansom Park.
Arrest warrant affidavits released Wednesday provided additional details about the shooting:
Nava and two other officers were wearing black raid-type jackets with P-O-L-I-C-E on the front and back when they arrived at the mobile home, knocked on the door and identified themselves as police officers to the 50-year-old man who answered. The officers then asked to speak to a woman who lived at the mobile home, asking her whether Heard was there.
The woman said no, granted the officers permission to enter and search the mobile home, and turned to the 50-year-old man, stating that "police were coming inside to search the residence."
Inside, the officers fanned out. Nava went toward a bedroom, opened the door and told the other officers that Heard was inside the room.
"Heard fired several shots at Officer Nava. Officer Nava returned fire," major case Detective G.J. Loughman wrote in the affidavits.
Nava fell to the floor with a gunshot wound to the head. The two other officers fired into the room, but Heard broke a window and escaped.
Heard then broke into a house in the 7000 block of Marvin Brown Street, one block east of the mobile home, taking a 26-year-old woman hostage, the affidavits state. At one point, he used the woman as a shield, said Lt. Dean Sullivan, a Fort Worth police spokesman. After talking with hostage negotiators for more than two hours, Heard released the woman unharmed and, a half-hour later, surrendered to police.
White said Nava had been at the Sansom Park Police Department working on the identity theft case not long before being shot.
"He was here all day Monday and he was here yesterday," White said. "I have officers who are having problems with it. We're just praying for him. We wish the best for his family and for the Fort Worth Police Department."
Nava died at Harris Methodist Fort Worth hospital late Thursday afternoon, police said.
Major case Sgt. Rene Kamper said investigators were conducting interviews in the identity theft case Wednesday. She said the woman and the 50-year-old man at the mobile home were detained and questioned by investigators Tuesday but were later released.
Until receiving Heard's phone call Wednesday, Pulce said she had not talked to her son in almost four months.
A high school dropout born in New Boston, a small town outside Texarkana, Heard later attended vocational training classes and worked as an electrician, she said.
But drugs became her son's downfall and strained his relationship with his family, she said.
"People get in with drugs, their whole thought pattern changes," she said. " ... People that think drugs are fun and recreational, they are not. They're destructive. If there's anything that can be learned from this, it's that y'all need to stay away from this mess."
Texas Department of Criminal Justice records show that Heard has been convicted of forgery, possession of a controlled substance and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in Parker and Bowie counties. Most recently, Heard was released from prison on mandatory supervision Feb. 15 after serving time for unauthorized use of a vehicle in Bowie County.
Pulce said that upon her son's most recent release from prison, Heard told her that he'd found God again and was going to turn his life around.
"I told him absolutely no alcohol. When he drinks anything, he goes to drugs," Heard said. "He knows exactly how I feel about drugs."
But her son's turnaround was brief, Pulce said. In June, when Heard was denied visitation of his 6-year-old son from a previous marriage, Pulce said her son's attitude only got worse.
The next month, Heard moved to the Dallas area, telling his mother that he wanted to be closer to his girlfriend and to get away from the problems that seemed to plague him in Texarkana.
Pulce said she told her son that relocating would not fix his problems and that he needed to get himself clean.
Pulce said a former girlfriend of Heard's called her last month and told her that Heard was involved in identity theft and had been carrying a gun. The woman said that she had contacted Heard's parole officer in Denton regarding the allegations, but that nothing was done, Pulce said.
Mike Viesca, a spokesman with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said a warrant was obtained for Heard on Nov. 1 after he failed to meet with his parole officer in October as required as part of his mandatory supervision.
"We became aware that Mr. Heard might be in possession of a weapon and that information was then communicated to law enforcement agencies," Viesca said.
He said it is unknown whether it was the former girlfriend's allegations that prompted the alert.
Pulce said her son "had no business having a gun."
She said her conversation with Heard Wednesday morning lasted only for a few minutes before he had to hang up.
"He said, 'I need you to come see me. I need you to call me,'" Pulce said. "I said, 'I can't come out there' and I'm not. He knows what he's been doing. He doesn't need to think he can do all that and then I'm one of those mothers who will come running."
Pulce said her son suffers from manic depression, is bipolar, and has previously attempted suicide.
Still, she said, she hopes an expert does not try to present her son as insane should the case go to trial.
"He wasn't taking any medications in prison and his mind was clear," Pulce said. "He just can't stand the stress and responsibility of day-to-day life."
Pulce said she raised her son in a Christian home and is astounded by the accusations against him.
"He knows right from wrong," she said. "I told him this morning, 'You need to pray for that police officer, that he doesn't die and he's all right. He said, 'I have been.'"
Pulce said she has no intention of visiting her son in jail.
"I would go see the policeman before I'd go to see him," Pulce said. "I'm still his mother and I love him, but I certainly don't approve of everything he's done. I certainly don't condone any of it or make excuses for it.
"I'm not going to be one of those mothers sitting in the courtroom begging for mercy for him," she added. "He needs to pay for what he's done. That officer's life has changed forever regardless of whether he lives or not. His family's life has changed forever regardless of whether he lives or not."
Pulce said that her son has destroyed his own life as well.
"He might as well have shot himself in the head," she said
