Sorrell's Report contradicts itself in numerous ways. Some of these flaws can be discerned by reading the report even without the benefit of any of the evidence on which it claims to be based.

The report claims to base it's conclusions on "all the facts and circumstances" and yet:
- It mentions that Woody was requesting sanctuary, but does not explore the meaning or legal basis for such a request.
- It fails to account for whether the officers were wearing body armor, and how that could have affected the level of threat they reasonably perceived.
- It does not explore the alternative tactics that could have been used.
- It glosses over details about the bullet wounds.
- It does not address the bullet found in Woody's back, in light of it's implicit promotion of a theory that all of the shots were fired while Woody was advancing toward the officers. The bullet is mentioned only in the SUMMARY FINDINGS.
- It fails to even mention evidence that should have been subject to forensic analysis, such as blood-spatter patterns or the shirt that Woody was wearing.
It strenuously paints Woody as "highly psychotic", yet it prominently features alleged quotes by him that he "assaulted" the officer as if they have legal significance.

It claims "We gave particular weight to statements made just after the shooting, certainly within 24 hours of its occurrence ... we paid extra attention to statements that uniformly seemed most consistent with the weight of the accounts of the other eyewitnesses." yet:
- It supports the account of the shooters only with alleged paraphrases of 4 church eyewitnesses from March interviews, which contradict their December statements.
- It ignores the concensus that is apparent in the December 2nd and 3rd eyewitness interviews -- that Woody did not threaten others.
- It features the accounts of the three officers as if they are fact, even though they are directly contradicted by the body of witness statements.
It claims "we did not question the veracity of any of the key witnesses" yet:
- It uses an arsenol of techniques to discredit eyewitness testimony, never acknowledging that the civilian eyewitnesses had nothing to gain from lying.

It claims the shooting was justified while avoiding stating a theory of the moments of the shooting. It goes only so far as to hold that Woody made a "forward motion in the direction of Parker with the knife still in his hand", not even specifying if that motion was by his body mass or merely a body part, and not indicating in which direction the knife was pointing.

page last modified: 2008-07-20