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GREENSBORO — At 5:49 a.m. on April 19, 2008, Greensboro police officer Christopher Schultheis set about securing a crime scene unlike any in his 10 years on the job.

The 22-year-old victim lay on the street, bleeding from 10 bullet wounds. His girlfriend, hysterical, ran across the lawn toward his body.

Porch lights from nearby homes flicked on. Neighbors were roused by the predawn gunfire.

This wasn’t Schultheis’ first homicide, but the difference in this investigation didn’t sink in until other officers arrived and his adrenaline began to subside.

An SBI detective took Schultheis’ gun and sealed it in a clear plastic evidence bag.

In this homicide, Officer Schultheis was the one under investigation.

* * *

The victim, James Paschal Jr., was one of six people killed by local law enforcement officers in 2008, double the number in the previous six years combined.

In each instance, District Attorney Doug Henderson determined the officers acted appropriately to save their lives and the lives of others. Henderson made his decisions after reviewing investigative files from the State Bureau of Investigation, the agency that investigates all officer-involved shootings in Guilford County.

Five of the six victims were killed while attacking police officers. Paschal, the only unarmed suspect, didn’t have a weapon but acted as though he had a gun, Henderson said.

“Thank goodness, they’ve been pretty easy calls to make so far,” he said of the cases he’s had to review.

Henderson and police officials say there may be no reason behind the high number of deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers.

Henderson considers last year to be an anomaly. “I certainly don’t think anyone is quicker to pull the trigger.”

But police say the number of shootings is evidence that they are subjected to more hostility from suspects and that people they arrest are more likely to attack an officer than in the past.

Data on assaults on law enforcement officers do not clearly depict this increase. Police officials say that’s because even though officers are required to report when they use force, they are not compelled to report every time they are assaulted.

Use of force by Greensboro police officers has increased dramatically since 2000. According to department data, there were 168 cases in 2002 and 308 in 2008. The most common use of force is spraying Mace, followed by “physical force” such as holding, punching and kicking.

The increase in the use of force is the result of changing police philosophy and an increase in hostility toward officers, said Dwight Crotts, assistant chief of the investigative bureau.

The shift in philosophy is one that allows police to use pepper spray or a Taser to subdue an overtly uncooperative suspect rather than fight with the suspect and risk injury to the officer or the suspect, Crotts said.

* * * 

“If he would have taken off running, I probably wouldn’t have even chased him because I would have been so glad I didn’t have to shoot him,” Schultheis said.

The night of April 19, 2008, had already been a weird one. His daughter, a toddler who had never acted up when a parent left for work, threw her first tantrum, clutching Schultheis’ legs and screaming for him not to go. Ten minutes down the road from his house, he realized his holster was empty. For the first time in 10 years as a police officer, Schultheis had forgotten his gun and had to go back for it.

Schultheis wasn’t scheduled to work that day; he had agreed to pick up an extra overnight shift to help out. He’d just finished breakfast and was ready to coast through the home stretch of his shift. About an hour before he was to go off duty, he picked up a final call.

At 5:43 a.m., he was dispatched to check on a domestic disturbance, a common call for patrol officers. The caller didn’t give any information — just an address, 1818 Eastwood Ave.

When Schultheis arrived, a car was stopped in the middle of the road, its engine running and parking lights on.

“For days, I didn’t know if this guy was even the call I was called out on,” Schultheis said.

The car sped off, leading Schultheis on a short chase, one lap around the block.

Back in front of the house on Eastwood Avenue, Schultheis said he saw Paschal get out of the car.

He started walking toward Schultheis, then gestured as though pulling a gun out of the waistband of his jeans.

Schultheis ordered Paschal to stop.

Paschal kept coming.

Schultheis retreated, putting his patrol car between the two of them.

The officer said Paschal kept repeating, just audibly: “You’re going to have to kill me.”

“I believed he did (have a gun), and I know he wanted me to believe he did,” Schultheis said.

When he had retreated almost a complete circle around his patrol car and saw nowhere else to go for cover, Schultheis fired, striking Paschal 10 times before he fell.

“The only light was from my blue lights,” Schultheis said. “I could not tell if my shots were hitting him or not.”

* * *

State law says when an officer can use deadly force. The officer must believe that he or another person is in imminent danger of deadly force or that a suspect is escaping arrest or custody and is using deadly force in doing so.

Police get a great deal of training in deadly force as rookies and throughout their careers.

Greensboro police recruits get almost double the number of hours of firearms training required by the state; more than two weeks of the 27-week academy is devoted to it. That training also teaches the law and department rules and goes over situations in which force is and isn’t authorized.

Veteran officers receive 18 hours of firearms training each year.

The department has a training simulator that puts officers through a variety of scenarios. Its scripts are based on real situations that police across the country have encountered, and the simulator’s operator can control the actions of the characters.

“I don’t know if there’s a perfect solution,” said Capt. Richard Whisenant, commanding officer of the department’s training division.

But there is a limit to what training can accomplish, Whisenant said, referring to the department’s most recent shooting, a Feb. 9 gunfight involving seven officers and two fleeing bank robbery suspects.

One of the suspects, Demarchrisy Majors, was killed in the shootout. The other suspect, Christopher O’Neal Patterson, was seriously injured.

“How would you have prevented the Wachovia Bank shootout?” Whisenant asked.

* * * 

Schultheis returned to regular duty Aug. 22, four months after the shooting. He did administrative work for other officers while the SBI conducted a criminal investigation into his use of force.

The five Greensboro officers involved in fatal shootings in 2008 were pulled off their normal assignments for more than four months each while the SBI investigated.

In contrast, the three High Point officers involved in fatal shootings were back on the job after about two weeks each. A Guilford County deputy involved in a deadly shooting returned to work about a month later after an internal investigation and a psychological screening.

Greensboro police officials stand behind the department’s policy of waiting for officers to be cleared before returning them to regular duty, but that comes with a cost.

“The toll is significant in a couple of ways,” Crotts said. “First, in the pure lack of manpower.”

Officers involved in fatal shootings tend to come from small, specialized teams where their absences are felt acutely. Two officers involved in fatal shootings last year, William Symmes and Eddie Summers, are members of the department’s eight-man K-9 team.

February’s Wachovia Bank incident involved two K-9 officers, an officer from the tactical narcotics team and one of only four crash reconstructionists in the department’s special operations division.

Officers say they think the months of administrative duty amount to punishment for doing the right thing: stepping up and dealing with a difficult, dangerous situation.

And besides being boring, administrative duty can interfere with a family’s schedule and affect child care or a spouse’s work schedule, Crotts said.

Officers also lose the opportunity to earn extra money working off-duty security jobs, which can be a major hit to a family’s income.

But Greensboro’s policy is designed to assure the families of shooting victims — and other police officers — that officers are investigated without bias.

“It could look improper to someone if we put our officer back to work,” Crotts said.

And there is an emotional toll.

Jim Hightower retired from the police department in 1995 and now works as a private investigator for a security company. He still remembers the first time he thought his life was in danger and how he reacted.

It was almost 30 years ago, in 1980. Returning from his lunch break, he overheard a call on the radio — an armed man holding hostages. He responded.

The hostage-taker came out of the building and leveled a .38 at High-tower’s face.

“We drew our weapons and pointed at the same time,” Hightower said. “I fired it one time, and he went down.”

The shot went through the man’s body, paralyzing him, but he survived.

“That was a strange thing,” Hightower said. “I wondered if I did the right thing.”

Like other officers in that situation, Hightower was left wondering, “Why is he trying to kill me? You’re the good guy, you know?

“You know in your own mind that what you did was what you had to do,” he said.

 “The stress that comes with it is after everything is settled down. Just because you and your officers know it was a good shooting, some other person has to decide. ... The focus is on you. I’m the bad guy, potentially.”

* * *

 A year later, Schultheis is still reminded of Paschal.

Now a sergeant, the officer recently was dispatched to a call on the same street and parked near the spot where he killed Paschal. In another incident, he responded to a call placed by an unrelated person with the same name.

When he is reminded, he feels a tinge of anger at the young man for what he did to his family and to Schultheis.

“No matter what kind of person he was, he had people who care about him,” Schultheis said.

Mostly, Schultheis tries to forget the shooting ever happened, a perspective he said he learned from other officers who have experienced similar situations.

“If you start thinking about it, all you do is think about it,” Schultheis said.

“That would inhibit how you do your job, if you think about it all the time. If you thought about it all the time, it would wreck you.”