DA: Officer-involved shooting in town of Washington justified

Dan Holtz, The Leader-Telegram, Eau Claire, Wis.
·3 min read

Feb. 26—EAU CLAIRE — The death of a 37-year-old Eau Claire man, who was shot and killed outside a town of Washington residence last November after he advanced on law enforcement officers armed with knives, was justified, Eau Claire County District Attorney Gary King said Friday.

The officer-involved shooting occurred about 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22, at a residence in the 2500 block of Corona Avenue.

The man who was shot and killed was identified as Randy S. LaCoursiere.

The law enforcement officers who fired their weapons during the incident were Brandon Ring, a six-year member of the Sheriff's Office, and Ryan Roth, a four-year member of the Wisconsin State Patrol.

King said the use of force against LaCoursiere was justified for the following reasons:

—During multiple 911 calls, LaCoursiere was described as having erratic and violent behavior. He had also been drinking alcohol.

—LaCoursiere had been squeezing his spouse's jaw, pushing her up against glass, and choking her with both hands. She felt she was going to die that day.

—LaCoursiere repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness to follow the commands of officers throughout the incident.

—He committed multiple acts of self-harm on the day of the incident.

—LaCoursiere armed himself multiple times with knives during the incident.

—He ignored repeated demands to drop the knife. He advanced on officers while wielding knives.

—LaCoursiere has a history of being combative with law enforcement.

According to the Sheriff's Office:

A preliminary investigation by the St. Croix County Sheriff's Office showed that local law enforcement officers were called to the Corona Avenue residence at 3:53 p.m. Nov. 22 for a disturbance.

Deputies initially tried to handle the call for service by phone to keep in line with COVID-19 protocols. A second phone call to law enforcement indicated the situation was more heated, so deputies responded to the scene.

LaCoursiere, a resident at the house, became aggressive and uncooperative with his family and deputies. He armed and injured himself with knives, and damaged property. An ambulance was called to the scene because of his injuries.

Officers called for backup. Members of the Eau Claire Police Department and the Wisconsin State Patrol responded.

A woman and three children escaped out of windows in the residence to bring them to safety.

Law enforcement officers attempted to use de-escalation techniques to calm LaCoursiere. LaCoursiere then exited the residence armed with knives and quickly advanced on law enforcement officers, ignoring the officers' commands.

Investigators said officers used both less lethal options and their firearms. LaCoursiere was pronounced dead at the scene.

The St. Croix County Sheriff's Office led the investigation of the incident with assistance from the state Justice Department's Division of Criminal Investigation.

The investigation included examination of law enforcement staff and witness statements, squad car video, forensic evidence and other information related to what led up to this incident.

Ring and Roth were placed on administrative leave during the investigation.

Recommended Stories

  • FDA advisory panel endorses Johnson & Johnson one-shot COVID vaccine for emergency use

    A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Friday recommended the authorization of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot coronavirus vaccine for emergency use.Why it matters: The FDA is expected to make a final decision within days on the J&J vaccine, which was found to be 66% effective against moderate to severe COVID. An emergency use authorization would allow distribution to immediately begin, helping streamline and speed up the vaccine rollout across the U.S.Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said on Wednesday that J&J will have 3 million to 4 million ready for distribution next week.The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNtech shots are the only other vaccines that have received FDA authorization. Unlike Moderna's shot, J&J's vaccine does not require ultra-cold storage, simplifying the logistics of distribution.Go deeper: FDA analysis finds Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine is safe and effectiveMore from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free

  • The GOP hasn’t represented a majority of voters in the Senate in 25 years

    Five Supreme Court Justices and many more on lower courts have been confirmed by Senates controlled by GOP representing smaller portion of populace than Democrats

  • ACMs shut women out of top country category but say female representation improving

    Women were snubbed for the Academy of Country Music's 2021 entertainer of the year field, but the organization touts 43% of nominees were female.

  • Mystery 41kg Russian metal object found on beach in Bahamas ‘could be from spacecraft’

    Space experts believe object could have come from satellite or spacecraft

  • Pfizer COVID vaccine dramatically cuts need for ventilators in older adults, CDC says

    The preliminary data comes from Israel, which leads the world in per capita vaccinations.

  • Ben Affleck says his divorce from Jennifer Garner and other 'life experience' shaped him into a better actor

    In a new interview as part of The Hollywood Reporter's Actor Roundtable series, Affleck spoke about Garner and the three kids they share.

  • Tesla's appeal to car buyers is 'clearly formidable' but not rock solid, J.D. Power study finds

    The study on car-buying trends argued that Tesla "could be displaced by a worthy alternative," and people are open to other options.

  • Should the Hornets pursue Hawks’ John Collins? The risks and rewards of such a trade.

    Would the forward-center from Wake Forest be the Hornets’ best player?

  • Rush Limbaugh buried in private cemetery in St. Louis

    Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has been buried in a private cemetery in St. Louis, his family announced Friday. Limbaugh's widow, Kathryn, and his family said a private ceremony with close family and friends was held Wednesday, but they did not say where he was buried.

  • A truck with a far-right militia sticker seen near the Capitol riot belongs to GOP Rep. Mary Miller's husband

    Miller's husband admitted to the Daily Beast that the truck belonged to him but denied affiliation to the group.

  • Flautist turned pied piper for Belarusian revolt has 'no regrets' about choosing jail over exile

    One afternoon in early September, Maria Kolesnikova was grabbed off the street by the Belarusian KGB and taken to the border to be forcibly expelled. The professional musician-turned-protest leader, with her trademark red lipstick and cropped bleached hair, was put in a car with two of her associates who were told to drive to Ukraine and never come back. While the two men sat in the front terrified, Ms Kolesnikova, who became a face of Belarusian protests last summer, took out her passport, ripped it up and threw the pieces in the faces of KGB officers standing nearby. Moments later, she was out of the car and as dawn broke she walked across no-man’s land back into Belarus. She was immediately arrested and not seen in public since. In her first interview with an English-language media outlet from jail, Ms Kolesnikova told the Telegraph earlier this week that she has “absolutely no regrets” about choosing a certain imprisonment over an exile. “When so many people are in jail, I couldn’t just leave them, betray my convictions and flee against my own promises,” Ms Kolesnikova, whose pictures of showing a heart shape with her hands to riot police became an indelible symbol of the Belarusian protests, said in a written message. “I physically could not resist and getting rid of the passport made my deportation impossible... it has foiled the plan of the intelligence services. It involved 5 different departments and 40 people in total.”

  • North Korea: Russian diplomats leave by hand-pushed trolley

    The diplomats had no choice as Pyongyang has banned trains from leaving as part of Covid measures.

  • In independence threat, Scotland's ex-first minister attacks government

    Scotland's former first minister Alex Salmond accused the nation's government on Friday of acting illegally and lacking leadership in a bitter row with his successor that threatens to damage the Scottish independence movement. The feud between Salmond and his successor Nicola Sturgeon, has reached fever pitch in recent weeks, pitting the former friends against each other in a sparring match that could eventually put pressure on her to resign. Sturgeon has denied his accusations.

  • Hernández: After trading Jared Goff, Sean McVay has nowhere to run if Rams fail

    Sean McVay is acutely aware of the Rams' shortcomings. With Jared Goff and Todd Gurley gone, it's up to the Rams coach to correct the team's direction.

  • Speaking at CPAC: Former Leader of Magical Cult That Channels Ghost of Trump

    HARUMI OZAWATOKYO—Even by the standards of the alleged kooks and conmen commonly found on the CPAC roster, one of this year’s speakers has an extraordinary background that includes fronting an organization that claimed—in all seriousness—to be able to channel Donald Trump’s guardian deity through a magical medium.The former political leader of a Japanese cult called Happy Science, Jay “Hiroaki” Aeba, is on the bill for Friday.Like Trump, Aeba has been accused of fraud back home but he doesn’t think that should be held against him.We asked Aeba for clarification but didn’t get a reply. He is now head of the Japanese Conservative Union although he said last year he was still a believer in Happy Science.Aeba’s guru, Ryuho Okawa, claims to be a Venusian god named El Cantare who created life on earth—and is also a reincarnation of the Buddha, just in case you were wondering. Okawa is not only a snazzy dresser and a self-proclaimed deity, but he says he has the power to channel the spirits of any person, living or dead. He claims to have had a great awakening in 1981 and subsequently founded the Happy Science religion (Kofuku no Kagaku) in 1986. In American terms, he’s like Billy Graham crossed with Shirley MacLaine. He’s channeled the spirits of Jesus, Kim Jong II, and in 2016, he even managed to obtain an exclusive interview with the guardian spirit of Donald Trump.In that amazing encounter, Trump’s spirit correctly stated, via Okawa, that he would be the next president.You’ve never quite seen anything like the spirit of Donald Trump possessing a Japanese visionary and discussing New York cheesecake as a political metaphor. It’s too bad that the God (Okawa) himself can’t make it to CPAC but at least his former disciple Aeba is speaking.CPAC, which runs through Sunday afternoon, features the best and the brightest of the Republican party and its allies, such as insurrection rousing Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, and the usual assortment of foxes and fiends from Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp. Aeba is scheduled to take the podium right after Donald Trump Jr. and speak about China’s threat to the U.S.This will not be the first time that Aeba has spoken at the event—indeed, he claims to be the first Japanese man to speak on the mainstage of the event. If you read Aeba’s online profile in English, there appear to be no outright lies at first glance, but there are what the Jesuits would call some sins of omission.He is a self-proclaimed conservative commentator and columnist and chairman of the Japanese Conservative Union (JCU) which was founded in 2015. The profile says, “Jay attended his first CPAC in 2011 and founded JCU in 2015 as a counterpart to the American Conservative Union (ACU). In 2017, JCU and ACU co-hosted the first-ever international CPAC in Tokyo, where experts from across the Indo-Pacific met to discuss such critical issues as the economic and military security of the region in the face of Chinese expansionism, the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, the development and regulation of the cryptocurrency market…. To date, JCU and ACU have hosted four Japanese CPACs”.All of this is true. What his biography fails to mention is that Aeba was a member of Japan’s Happy Science cult for many years, and was also a major figure in the creation of their political arm, the Happiness Realization Party.Ostensibly, the Happy Science cult teaches that Okawa, the founder, is a god, and only by following his teachings can one obtain happiness in this life and the next. They believe in aliens, reincarnation, and multi-dimensions. Some of the teachings are modeled after the Buddhist eightfold path and preach love, wisdom, and self-reflection. Yet at the same time, the cult also teaches that the Nanjing massacre never happened and that Japan must scrap its pacifist constitution, rearm to the max, and prepare for a cataclysmic war.One weekly magazine reported the group’s total capital as being close to $1.8 billion—money made from encouraging believers to buy copies of Okawa’s many books, from extracting lavish donations from followers, and for self-help seminars conducted by the organization. Of course, they also sell prayers and charms. During the pandemic, Happy Science found itself in hot water for selling “cures” for COVID-19.Happy Science—not content to just be a spiritual power—launched its own political party in 2009, and Aeba was the first party leader. He went on to serve as the research division chief and held many other positions within the party. In 2011, while attending his first CPAC, he was still an executive member of the Happiness Realization Party and presumably began networking with America’s conservative elite in the hopes of gaining the Happiness Party an aura of legitimacy.Aeba, who also used the alias Jikido “Jay” Aeba, and sometimes goes by Jay H. Aeba, was born in 1967 and graduated from the elite Keio University Law Division in 1989. In 1990, he joined the headquarters of Happy Science and in May 2009, he became their political leader. He served as the organization's public relations chief. In 2013, he became the chief of the research and investigation division. In 2015, he ostensibly left the party and created the Japanese Conservative Union. It’s not entirely clear what relationship Aeba has had with his former party after the creation of JCU but his relations with Happy Science seem strained—much like Trump’s relationship with the GOP. Although, in an interview published last year in SEIRON magazine, he said that he was still a believer in Happy Science.On April 6, 2020, he changed his name to Hiroaki Aeba. Three days later, on April 9, Happy Science publicly disavowed having any connection to Hiroaki Aeba aka Jikido Aeba and the JCU on their website. Why? Possibly because in April last year two magazines reported on a scandal within the JCU that seemed to implicate Aeba in possible fraud involving cryptocurrency. According to the articles, Aeba collected nearly $9 million to create a virtual currency called Liberty. In his fund-raising efforts, he used a photo of himself and Donald Trump in a pamphlet handed out to potential investors. The photo was enough to convince many of his credibility.The Japanese media reports that it is still a mystery as to what happened to the nearly $9 million in funding used to create the virtual currency, and it has resulted in internal fighting within the JCU.The JCU told The Daily Beast in an email about the alleged cryptocurrency misconduct: “Jay [Aeba] and JCU are proceeding to deal with and address this issue with the cooperation of experts including lawyers.”One thing is certain: the photo of Trump and Aeba is actually real.There are some similarities between Aeba and Trump. They are both political opportunists, charismatic speakers, adept at using celebrity connections to enhance their image—and both of them have been accused of fraud. For Aeba, his pictures and meetings with Trump have given him an air of prestige and access among Japan’s arch-conservatives. He may have used that for his own personal gain rather than for the benefit of the Happy Science cult, but it seems to be working out fine.While Aeba was a member of the Happiness Realization Party, the cult’s political arm, he gave them access to the wealth and influence of the Republican Party. JCU told The Daily Beast: “Since its establishment [in 2015] JCU has never had any relation with Happy Science (HS) or the Happiness Realization Party (HRP). As for Chairman Jay Aeba, he also has completely left the HS organization and HRP now. In terms of his personal religious belief, we do not know because the JCU has a policy of religious freedom for all members and staff.”Trump supporters at CPAC may worry that the Republican Party is trying to move on from the Trump era, but even if he returns as the presidential nominee for 2024, Trump is mortal, and unlike cult-leader Okawa, he doesn’t claim he will be reincarnated again and again and live on forever.That’s where the Happy Science cult comes in handy. Even after he’s dead, the ghost of Trump can keep calling the shots via a magical medium for years to come.Now, isn’t that something to be happy about?Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Prince Harry says 99-year-old Prince Philip just slams his laptop shut instead of hanging up at the end of Zoom calls

    The prince told James Corden that he'd had a few Zoom calls with his grandparents where they got to see Archie running around.

  • Trump lost because 'character counts.' That's why his CPAC speech won't change anything.

    The problem in 2020 was with the Republican candidate. That won't change in 2024 if Trump stays on top.

  • Runaway schoolgirl who joined IS cannot return to Britain, top court says

    A UK-born woman who went to Syria as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State should not be allowed to return to Britain to challenge the government taking away her citizenship, because she poses a security risk, Britain's Supreme Court ruled on Friday. Shamima Begum left London in 2015 when she was 15 and went to Syria via Turkey with two school friends. While there, she married an Islamic State fighter.

  • Lukashenko's son replaces father at helm of Belarusian Olympic Committee after ban

    Belarus on Friday appointed Viktor Lukashenko, son of President Alexander Lukashenko, to replace his father at the helm of their country's National Olympic Committee after both were banned from attending the Olympic Games. Alexander Lukashenko, who had served as the head of the Belarusian Olympic Committee since 1997, claimed his sixth presidential term in August last year in a vote the opposition says was rigged and marred with violations. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said in December last year the leadership of the Belarusian Olympic Committee had "not appropriately protected the Belarusian athletes from political discrimination."

  • Greek ex-theatre director ordered jailed over rape allegations

    Prosecutors ordered on Friday that the former director of Greece's National Theatre be remanded after hearing his plea over child rape allegations, his lawyer said. Authorities also launched an investigation into allegations that teachers were abusing students at a private school in Athens following a letter signed by nearly 300 alumni. Dimitris Lignadis, a prominent actor, resigned as head of the National Theatre this month and turned himself in on Saturday after an arrest warrant was issued following lawsuits filed against him by two men who say he raped them when they were minors.