THE SHOOTING: VIOLENCE VISITS SCIENTOLOGY

Thursday, September 26, 1996

By Bryan Smith and David R. Anderson

of The Oregonian

Seven months ago, Jairus Chegero Godeka threatened to kill everyone in the Portland Church of Scientology unless they gave him $50,000 for ruining his life.

On Wednesday, police say, Godeka walked into the church's downtown Portland office and shot and wounded four people, including a pregnant receptionist.

Godeka set a fire and briefly took another woman hostage at the church's Portland Celebrity Centre before a police officer persuaded him to surrender.

The attack brought activity on Southwest Salmon Street and Broadway to a halt as police and firefighters massed in front of the office. Workers in and around the Scientology center scrambled for cover after hearing shots, some turning back to see a bloody victim clutching his chest stumble onto the sidewalk.

Godeka apparently was motivated by a grudge against the church. He blames the organization for ruining him financially and thinks it has kept him from bringing his sister here from Kenya to study, according to police reports.

In San Francisco, where Godeka lived recently, he sent a remote-controlled toy tank in front of the Church of Scientology branch, with the message: "Next time, it will be real."

In February, he called the Portland offices, repeatedly demanding money for the ruin of what he described to police as a San Francisco company that sold lighting equipment.

The receptionist, Helen M. Burke, apparently was the primary target of Godeka's threats because she was the one who answered the phone.

Burke, 44 and pregnant, was in critical condition Wednesday night at University Hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest and an abdominal injury. Doctors said she had some paralysis from the bullet, which lodged near her spine, but that it was too early to tell whether the condition would be permanent. Burke is in her second trimester; the fetus was unharmed.

Two other victims, Steven Roy Crandell, 45, and Carlos Colon, 24, were in serious condition. Crandell, executive director of the church, was shot in the abdomen. Colon, a visitor from the church's Clearwater, Fla., branch, suffered a gunshot wound to the chest.

A third man, Jim M. Stone, was shot in the hip but did not realize he had been injured until nearly an hour later, when he pulled out his wallet and discovered a bullet had pierced it. He smiled and waved as rescue workers wheeled him to an ambulance. He was treated and released.

Wednesday's attack occurred as the lunch crowd began to fill the downtown sidewalks near the church's center at 709 S.W. Salmon St., across from the Heathman Hotel.

Police said the gunman walked in the front door, carrying a red plastic gasoline container and a .45-caliber Ruger semiautomatic handgun. He shot Burke, who sat in the lobby just inside the door. Crandell and Colon came downstairs, and he shot and wounded them. Others hit the floor, while workers upstairs fled through a back door.

The gunman spread gasoline and started a fire that set off two sprinklers. He grabbed a woman, Jacqueline Stone, the wife of Jim Stone, and headed through interior passages to a fire exit on the west end of the building.

Meanwhile, witnesses rushed to call 9-1-1, including a man from inside the church who ran to Macheezmo Mouse next door.

"He was frantic," said Jen Kneedler, 21, who was working at the restaurant. "He kept asking where a phone was and said that a person had been shot next door. . . . He said he had been shot at."

Charles Mann, a course instructor who was upstairs in the church office, said, "We knew we had to get out of there. We just heard shots and took off."

Mel Murphy, on his way to lunch with a co-worker, saw men running and flames inside the building. Crandell was hobbling down the sidewalk.

"He said, 'I've been shot, I've been shot, I've been shot,' " Murphy said.

Murphy, who had called 9-1-1 on a cellular phone, saw a second man, Colon, who had been shot in the stomach.

As Murphy helped with the two men, a co-worker Mike Picco tried to get in a door to help Burke. Before he could, he said, "Someone yelled, "Gun! There's a guy with a gun! Everyone dives behind cars."

Portland firefighter Rob L. Burson was among the first to arrive. He rushed to the office door just as the gunman burst out with his arm around Jacqueline Stone, a gun to her head.

"I saw what was going on, and I knew I didn't want to be there," he said. "I yelled 'gun' and then ran and told others to get back."

As the gunman opened a metal fire door, Portland police Officer Tom Mack and homicide Detective Sgt. Dave Rubey were on the sidewalk.

The gunman stepped back inside.

"My assessment was he wanted it to end right there," Mack said. "He said, 'I don't want to die. I don't want you to shoot me.' "

Mack decided a quick resolution was better than pushing the gunman back into a burning building with Stone.

Mack talked him into opening the door a crack. He convinced the gunman that police wouldn't hurt him.

"My word wasn't good enough for him," Mack said.

The gunman wanted Mack to put down his gun. First Mack tried to hide his gun behind his leg.

"He's not that crazy," Mack later reflected.

Mack agreed to put his gun down if the gunman did. Mack knew there were other officers nearby.

Mack holstered his gun first.

But the gunman balked when he spotted another officer across the street with a gun.

So Mack went a step further, turning his back, briefly, on the gunman. Mack told the officer to move.

"I think that was the turning point," Mack said.

The gunman allowed Stone to kneel and then put down his gun behind her. Then Godeka knelt and let Mack handcuff him.

Mack said everyone stayed cool during the standoff, which didn't last much longer than a minute.

Even the hostage did well.

Stone yelled through the closed door that Godeka was trying to talk to Mack. She also told Mack to step closer and show his empty hands.

"She seemed pretty calm," Mack said. "I thought she handled herself really well."

Firefighters quickly doused the blaze.

Godeka is accused of four counts of attempted aggravated murder, arson, kidnapping, three counts of first-degree assault, one count of second-degree assault and a count of burglary. He will be arraigned today.

Wednesday's attack was apparently the culmination of Godeka's longstanding grudge against the Portland and San Francisco Church of Scientology offices.

Godeka has listed several addresses in Portland and San Francisco after numerous arrests on traffic violations, including drunken driving and driving without insurance.

In February, Godeka pleaded no contest to attempted coercion in connection with the calls to the church's Portland branch.

"He could give me no specifics of what we had actually done to him and what his business was," Burke told Portland police in February. "He said he had lost everything that was dear to him."

At one point, Godeka told Burke that his anger stemmed from something that had happened at the San Francisco branch, but that the Church of Scientology is all "the same thing."

She said Godeka first came to the Portland office five or six years ago and took a free personality test and bought some books. She thinks he might also have signed up for a home study course.

At least one earlier police report involved extortion attempts against the church, but details were not available Wednesday.

After Godeka was introduced to Scientology, "they imprisoned my mind to do what they wanted me to do," he told police in February. He also complained to police that the church got him deported to Kenya in 1986 and that Burke was controlling his mind.

The organization is a self-enhancement movement that emphasizes counseling and an approach to problem-solving called Dianetics that was created by church founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Jeff Quiros, special affairs director for the San Francisco church, said Godeka also had threatened workers there in recent months.

"He was just babbling and threatening to kill everybody. He was just saying things that didn't make sense," Quiros said.

The news Wednesday shocked the San Francisco church.

"How can you make sense of senseless acts of violence?" Quiros said. "It's a scary thing. I don't know what would make someone do something like that."

"It's disturbing, and it's shocking," added Angie Mann, public affairs director for the Portland center. " Scientologists are honest, ethical people who want to help. Our goal is toward a world without crime and a world without insanity."

Peter Farrell, Laura Trujillo and Chastity Pratt of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report.

GODEKA'S ODD ACTIONS TRACE BACK TO 1987

Friday,October 4, 1996

By Phil Manzano

of the Oregonian Staff

Jairus C. Godeka conversed freely with the television set. He would laugh aloud for no reason. He said the FBI was watching him and bugging his telephone. He heard voices that commented incessantly on his behavior.

Godeka spun out these and more suspicions and fears during a 1987 interview at a Northeast Portland mental health clinic. But never once did he mention what was to become a grinding obsession - the Church of Scientology.

Godeka is scheduled to be formally arraigned today on 13 counts accusing him of shooting and wounding four people, holding a fifth person hostage and trying to set fire to the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre in downtown Portland on Sept. 25.

Church officials say Godeka wasn't a member and are baffled by the attack and his claims that Scientology drove him crazy, ruined his business and owed him $50,000.

Godeka's mental state and fixation with Scientology are apt to be key issues in his trial. No trial date has been set.

But a review of public documents and an interview with his former wife show Godeka already was a troubled soul in a foreign land, lost in dreams of success and alcohol-fueled paranoia long before he walked into the Celebrity Centre with a .45-caliber Ruger semiautomatic handgun.

He was a long way from home.

"He came here to get an education in business and marketing," said Christina Hamilton, who was married to Godeka for several years in the 1980s. "He wanted to make his parents proud."

Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Godeka, 38, is the second-oldest of nine children. He came to the United States about 1979 and was a student at Clark College in Vancouver, Wash. He was working at a restaurant when he met Hamilton. On Dec. 27, 1980, they married.

"It wasn't so bad when we were first married," Hamilton said, but it soon soured. She said she left when she couldn't handle Godeka's drinking and fighting.

Hamilton said Godeka had an almost-daily drinking habit, but underneath it all, he was a good and intelligent man. He spoke four or five languages and wanted to succeed.

"He wooed me off my feet," Hamilton recalled, and he also impressed her parents, who often took him camping and fishing.

She thinks it was about 1985, with their relationship almost over, when Godeka first mentioned Scientology to her. He had gone by their downtown center at 709 S.W. Salmon St., bought a few books and possibly taken a personality test.

- Church not mentioned again

She was angry that he had spent the money, about $200, but he never talked about it again.

Scientology spokeswoman Gail Armstrong said Godeka did buy some books but said the most he would have spent was $60. In police reports, Godeka said he only gave the church $40 one time.

"That would've been the long and short of it," Armstrong said.

She and other church officials are galled that Godeka blames Scientology for his troubles. They see the shooting as evidence of their belief that psychiatric treatment doesn't help its patients but instead makes them worse or violent.

By 1987, Godeka's marriage was finished and his mental state crumbling. Godeka's longtime friend, Ahmed Brima, took him to the North/Northeast Community Mental Health Center in Northeast Portland.

Brima was concerned about his roommate's bizarre behavior: talking to the television set, hearing voices and laughing oddly.

Godeka denied he had any problems, but an intake assessment said he admitted hearing voices, feared the FBI was watching him and harbored suicidal thoughts.

But he had no plans to harm himself, "especially since this would bring shame to his parents in Africa," the mental health center report said. "He would rather go home to Africa than to hang himself in the United States."

- Clinic prescribes medicine

The report said Godeka admitted drinking heavily but that he had tried to quit cold about six weeks earlier. He exhibited signs of paranoid schizophrenia, for which the clinic prescribed medication.

Two days after the exam, Godeka was arrested in Vancouver when he threw a brick through the window of a bank. He was released after several days but never showed up for his trial.

After police caught up with him, he pleaded guilty in November 1988 to malicious mischief and bail jumping. The troubled thoughts he described at the mental clinic in 1987 became part of that court record.

By 1989, it was clear Godeka had a fixation with Scientology. He had stopped seeing his Vancouver probation officer. After their last visit in July, the officer wrote that Godeka appeared confused and agitated.

"He stated that his deteriorating mental condition was brought on by the Church of Scientology, where he had taken a communications skills class four years ago in Portland, Oregon, and whenever he goes to Portland they have mind control over him, and he can no longer control his behavior."

In February 1993, Godeka was living in San Francisco and had his own business, called Phoenix Lighting, where he went door-to-door to downtown businesses and sold lights.

- More contacts with church

But Godeka's contacts with Scientologists escalated. Church officials in San Francisco said Godeka appeared outside the church occasionally during the past two years and threatened them. One time, they said, he showed up at the church with a remote-controlled toy tank bearing the sign "Next time, it will be real."

In Portland, Scientology officials called police in February 1994 because Godeka called and allegedly demanded $50,000 or he would kill them.

Then in February, Portland police arrested Godeka after he demanded money and made death threats at the Celebrity Centre. Police confiscated two handguns and ammunition from Godeka's North Portland motel room.

Godeka was jailed briefly, then released. He returned to San Francisco, where he got into trouble in July. He attacked a man on the street with a hammer, but the victim was afraid to pursue the case.

Hamilton hadn't seen Godeka for nearly 10 years. Then on Sept. 25, she saw her ex-husband's face, a photograph on television.

"I was shocked, horrified, dumbfounded, at a loss for words," she said. "He must have been drinking to have done that kind of violence. His face had that look he used to have when he was drunk. That was not the face of the man I married."

Thursday, a Multnomah County grand jury indicted Godeka on 13 counts, including attempted aggravated murder, kidnapping, and arson. He is being held at the Justice Center Jail on nearly $800,000 bail.

All but one of the four people shot at the Celebrity Centre that day are recuperating at home. Helen Burke, 44, remains in fair condition Thursday at University Hospital. Carlos Colon, 24, and Steven Crandell, 45, have been released from the hospital and are expected to make full recoveries. Jim M. Stone, 43, who was only grazed by a bullet, was treated and released the day of the shooting.

Godeka's lawyer, Kerry Chipman, said his client will plead not guilty.

Stuart Tomlinson and John Painter Jr. of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report.

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COURT PLANS TO CONSIDER SCIENTOLOGY SHOOTINGS

Friday,March 20, 1998

By David R. Anderson

of The Oregonian

The man who went on a shooting rampage and set fire to downtown Portland's Scientology Celebrity Centre probably will agree to be found guilty but insane today.

Jairus Chegero Godeka, 39, could spend the rest of his life in the Oregon State Hospital, said his attorney, Kerry Chipman.

``Given the facts of the case, it's certainly a better resolution than several consecutive 20-year terms in prison,'' Chipman said.

At the least, Godeka probably would spend 20 years in the hospital under the supervision of the Psychiatric Security Review Board, Chipman said.

Psychologists chosen by the state and Godeka's defense agreed that Godeka suffers from schizophrenia, Chipman said. For about the past 15 years, Godeka has heard voices and thought he is controlled by other people and that ideas are being planted in his mind.

That was the case on Sept. 25, 1996, when Godeka walked into the Scientology center at 709 S.W. Salmon St. Police said he went into the center's reception area with a red can of gasoline and shot a woman at the lobby desk. The gunshot paralyzed her from the waist down. Godeka also is accused of shooting two men who went to the woman's aid in the center. A third man discovered he had been wounded about an hour after the incident. All four survived the shooting. Godeka held a fifth person hostage before police talked him into surrendering.

``He truly believed the Scientologists in general had ruined his life, had controlled him with mind control and got him to do things unconsciously,'' Chipman said. ``He was quite convinced that Scientology was a threat to the world at large.''

Godeka had limited contact with Scientologists in Portland and San Francisco before the incident.

Under medication and treatment at the state hospital since January 1997, Godeka was found in February to be able to help in his defense.

``When he's not delusional, he's a very nice guy,'' Chipman said.

Greg Horner, a Multnomah County deputy district attorney, confirmed Thursday that Godeka faces a stipulated facts trial today before Multnomah County Circuit Judge William Keys. He would not comment further on the case.

In a stipulated facts trial, the defense and prosecution agree that witnesses and police would testify to certain facts, if there were a trial. Police reports will be presented to the judge, but no one will testify.

Godeka faced four counts of attempted aggravated murder, arson, one count of kidnapping, three counts of first-degree assault, one count of second-degree assault and one count of burglary.