02/02/02

TEXAS - Traffic cop's killer executed

Shouting rock music lyrics, a Dallas handyman was executed tonight for gunning down an Amarillo police officer who was responding to a traffic accident more than 16 years ago.

 Randal Hafdahl, whose execution was delayed because officials had difficulty finding a suitable vein for the lethal needles, expressed love for friends and relatives in his final statement. He choked back tears as he addressed his daughter, who watched through a window a few feet away.

 "Approximately 28 years ago, I looked at a bassinet looking at an angel and I'm looking at her right now," he said as his daughter broke into tears and sobbed uncontrollably. MO< After telling her and other friends that he loved them, he lifted his head from the death chamber gurney and shouted into the microphone, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends." He screamed, his faced turning crimson. "Rock 'n Roll!." he shouted.

 He regained his composure and said he could feel the drugs beginning to take effect.

 "I can feel it. Take me home. We got a party to go to," Hafdahl said. His voice rose again and he shouted "Remember Wet Willie. Keep on smiling. Keep on smiling."

 His eyes closed and he began to snore. He appeared to be falling to sleep. He took about 8 breaths and then stopped breathing. 11 minutes later, he was pronounced dead at 6:48 p.m.

 Hafdahl had a drug history and officials had difficulties locating veins in the usual spots, on the inside of the elbow. One needle went into his right hand and the other into his right leg.

 He never acknowledged his victim's relatives, who watched through another window a few feet away.

 Hafdahl released a statement criticizing Amarillo authorities, but apologized to the slain officer's family.

 "I leave this life with a clear conscious and heart." he said. "I truly am sorry for the tragedy that took place ... That's all I can give, that's all I will give you. Today my family becomes a victim.

 Hafdahl was the 4th condemned Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the 2nd in 2 nights.

 Hafdahl was convicted of fatally shooting Sgt. James Mitchell, who was returning home from work Nov. 11, 1985, when he saw a car veer off Interstate 27, cross a median and crash through a fence.

 Hafdahl bolted from the accident scene and when Mitchell ordered him to stop, Hafdahl opened fire with a 9 mm pistol. Mitchell, 43, married and father of 2 daughters, was struck 4 times. He had been on the Amarillo force 16 years.

 "Everybody liked James Mitchell," said James Farren, a former Amarillo police officer and now the district attorney in Randall County. "He was just a salt-of-the-earth guy. There wasn't anything glamorous or offbeat. He was a real by-the-book officer."

 Hafdahl said he didn't recognize the officer -- gun drawn -- as a policeman. Hafdahl contended Mitchell was wearing a windbreaker that concealed much of his uniform.

 "As soon as he fell back, I could see," he said last week from death row. "I guess I had the image that my life was over. I wish he hadn't been there. I wouldn't be here.

 "I was stoned, I was disoriented from the wreck and I thought someone was fixing to kill me," Hafdahl added, explaining that he had been drinking and taking hallucinogenics. "I wasn't thinking clearly.

 "I never denied shooting this man. I've had remorse from day one. I might be a big old idiot, but I take responsibility."

 At least nine witnesses, plus the two passengers in Hafdahl's car, said they recognized Mitchell as a policeman because his unzipped jacket was marked "Amarillo City Police" and carried a badge insignia.

 Hafdahl, known to other death row inmates as "Blue" because of the color of his eyes, had no previous prison record but at the time of the shooting had been named in a warrant for jumping bond on a charge of aggravated kidnapping from Grand Prairie, a Dallas suburb. He also had weapons and theft arrests.

 From death row, he insisted he was carrying the gun because he intended to pawn it to get some cash. He ran to the fence and ignored the officer's orders to stop so he could dispose of the gun, he said.

 "All those are just lies," Farren replied. "He was escaping because he knew there was a warrant out for his arrest."

 Hafdahl's appeals were exhausted.

 "I'm ready to get out of here," he said. "16 years is enough."

 The slain officer's family, frustrated by delays and continuous appeals, at one point 2 years ago picketed the federal courthouse in Amarillo, carrying signs demanding Hafdahl's punishment.

 Farren said Mitchell's widow remarried about 5 years after the shooting and that her second husband recently died of cancer "before we could carry out the execution of the man convicted of killing her 1st husband." On Wednesday, Windell Broussard, 41, convicted of fatally stabbing his wife and stepson in Port Arthur nearly 10 years ago, was put to death.

 At least 10 more condemned Texas prisoners are set to die in the next several months, including 2 in February.

 Hafdahl becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year and the 260th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Dec. 7, 1982.

 Hafdahl becomes the 8th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 757th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.