Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Man Holding Stick Shot Dead By Oklahoma City Cop

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/police-shooting-oklahoma-city_us_59c23f23e4b0f22c4a8dce68

An Oklahoma City police officer shot and killed a man holding a stick on Tuesday, according to authorities. The shooting is under investigation.

The slain man had been a suspect in a hit-and-run that occurred on Tuesday evening, Capt. Bo Mathews, a police spokesman, told reporters.

At least two officers confronted the man, who was holding a stick, in the front yard of a home. One officer fired a Taser stun gun at the man, Mathews said, and the other shot the man with a gun.

The dead man, whose identity wasn’t released, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The identities of the two officers have not been released.

During a press conference ― footage of which was shared online by KOCO 5 News ― a reporter noted the slain man had been identified by several locals as deaf. Mathews said that he had no such information, and stressed that the investigation was in a “preliminary” phase.

The officer who shot the man, Mathews added, had been placed on paid administrative leave.

The Latest: Neighbor says man shot by cop didn’t speak

https://apnews.com/fc652ca4660848c3a6c6b4733ff74ada



OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Latest on a man holding a stick who was shot and killed by an Oklahoma City police officer (all times local):

4:15 p.m.

A man who saw Oklahoma City police officers open fire on his deaf neighbor says the neighbor was developmentally disabled and also didn’t speak.

Julio Rayos tells The Oklahoman that 35-year-old Magdiel Sanchez mainly communicated through hand movements. He says he believes Sanchez became frustrated trying to tell the officers what was going on, and that he shouldn’t have been killed.

Two officers investigating a hit-and-run involving Sanchez’s father Tuesday night shot Sanchez with a gun and a Taser after he left his front porch and approached them holding a metal pipe.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews said Wednesday that Sanchez didn’t obey the officers’ commands and that they didn’t hear witnesses yelling at them that Sanchez was deaf.

Sanchez died at the scene. The officer who fired the gun has been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.

Oklahoma City police officers who opened fire on a man who was approaching them holding a metal pipe didn’t hear witnesses yelling that the man was deaf, a department official said Wednesday. (Sept. 20)

___

10:20 a.m.

Authorities say Oklahoma City officers who opened fire on a man who was approaching them with a metal pipe in his hands apparently didn’t hear witnesses yelling that the man was deaf.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews said Wednesday that 35-year-old Magdiel Sanchez wasn’t obeying the officers’ commands before one shot him with a gun and the other with a Taser on Tuesday night. He says the officers didn’t hear witnesses yelling “he can’t hear you” before they fired.

Sanchez died at the scene. The officer who fired the gun has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Mathews says the officers were investigating a reported hit-and-run. He says a witness told one of the officers the address the vehicle had gone to and that Sanchez was on the porch when the officer arrived. He says Sanchez was holding the metal pipe, which had a leather loop on one end.

A neighbor told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Sanchez carried a stick to ward off stray dogs when he walked at night.

___

10:10 a.m.

A neighbor of a man shot and killed by an Oklahoma City police officer say he was either deaf or hard of hearing and often carried a stick to protect himself from stray dogs.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews says officers were responding to a report of a hit-and-run Tuesday night and said they found a vehicle that matched the description of the one in the crash. He says two officers confronted a man holding a stick near the vehicle.

Mathews says one officer fired a Taser and the other shot with a gun. The man was died at the scene. He has not been named.

Jolie Guebara said Wednesday that she didn’t know her neighbor’s name, but that he used notes to communicate with her and her husband and often carried the stick when he walked at night.

12:50 a.m.

Oklahoma City police say a man holding a stick was shot and killed by an officer on the city’s southeast side.

Police Capt. Bo Mathews says officers were responding to a report of a hit-and-run around 8:15 p.m. Tuesday when they found a vehicle that matched the description of the one in the crash.

Mathews says two officers confronted a man holding a stick near the vehicle. One officer fired a Taser and the other shot the suspect with a firearm.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Names of the suspect and the two officers have not been released.

Mathews says the officer who shot the man with the firearm was placed on administrative leave.

An investigation is ongoing.

[Andrea]

Rocklin PD: Officer arrested for using excessive force

Rocklin PD: Officer arrested for using excessive force

ROCKLIN, Calif. (KCRA) —

A Rocklin police officer was arrested Tuesday for using excessive force while arresting a DUI suspect, the police department said.

Officer Brad Alford, a 15-year veteran of the Rocklin Police Department, was taken into custody around 6 p.m. and booked into Placer County Jail on charges of assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily harm, assault under the color of authority and filing a false police report, police said.

The investigation into Alford stems from the arrest of a DUI suspect on Sunday, police said. Officers were in the 5400 block of South Grove Street around 6 a.m. to arrest the suspect.

Police said during the arrest, Alford “used a baton in a manner that appeared to be excessive.”

The officer’s actions were later reported to the police department. Investigators reviewed video footage and then “immediately” reached out to the Placer County District Attorney’s Office to conduct an independent review.

The district attorney’s office determined that Alford’s actions “rose to a criminal level” and decided to press charges against the officer.

Alford, who was on paid administrative leave during the investigation, was arrested Tuesday.

The district attorney’s office will continue the criminal investigation into the case while the Rocklin Police Department will conduct an internal investigation to determine if department policies and procedures were violated.

“This is a sad and unfortunate incident for all of those involved, including the community and our organization,” the Rocklin Police Department said in a news release. “This type of behavior will not be tolerated. As a department, we pride ourselves on working with our community and an incident like this tarnishes the reputation of the hardworking men and women who work here.”

Police Chief Chad Butler said during a news conference Tuesday night video of the incident will not be released per a request by the district attorney's office. The DA's office told Butler the video is part of an ongoing investigation and will not be released to the public at this time.

[Andrea]

‘You like that?’: St. Louis cops savagely beat handcuffed filmmaker while wife watched, suit says

https://thinkprogress.org/st-louis-filmmaker-beating-556a6d98b229/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_con tent=59cdbe3d04d30111925ef4c8&utm_medium=trueAnthe m&utm_source=twitter

On St. Louis’ most restless night of protests for some time, interim police chief Lawrence O’Toole seemed to embrace a tribal us-and-them attitude toward demonstrators in his city. Hours after reporters watched black-clad riot cops chant “Whose streets? Our streets!” at dispersing protesters, O’Toole boasted to press cameras that “police owned the night,” comments which Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) would criticize days later.

It all may have seemed hollow posturing and harmless banter. But a new lawsuit illustrates the very real abuses that such a domineering mentality from law enforcement can foreshadow. O’Toole’s cops allegedly beat, taunted, and repeatedly maced a handcuffed filmmaker that Sunday night, singling the Kansas City man out from a herd of arrestees to punish him physically for recording them. Drew and Jennifer Burbridge sued the city on Tuesday, alleging the kind of unprofessional, illegal mistreatment at police hands that’s routinely drawn protesters into American streets in recent years.

The Burbridges were present late Sunday night, September 17, when officers suddenly encircled a mix of protesters and reporters in a “kettle.” The tactic involves riot police cutting off all exit routes for a group of people and then arresting everyone. The Burbridges say they were not warned at any point to leave, or to avoid going to the intersection where they were filming protesters and police, before the sudden kettling. With the perimeter established, the suit says, officers began indiscriminately spraying pepper spray into the trapped group.

The couple sat down and held onto one another. Police moved inside the kettle. “One of the two officers…stated ‘that’s him’ and grabbed Drew Burbridge by each arm and roughly drug him away from his wife,” the suit says. Despite being told Burbridge was a member of the media and not a protester, the officers “then purposely deployed chemical spray into his mouth and eyes and ripped his camera from his neck,” according to the suit. Officers beat the man repeatedly, first with hands and feet as they got plastic zip-tie cuffs onto him and then going back for seconds with their batons after his hands were bound.

“Do you want to take my picture now motherfucker? Do you want me to pose for you?” one officer allegedly said to Drew during the beating. When the assault caused him to lose consciousness, Drew “awoke to an officer pulling his head up by his hair and spraying him with chemical agents in the face.”

The officers running the kettle and alleged beating were not wearing name badges on their uniforms and declined to identify themselves to either Burbridge throughout the encounter. Multiple officers seemed to taunt Jennifer as she watched her husband beaten, the complaint says. “Did you like that? Come back tomorrow and we can do this again,” one allegedly told her. Another, the complaint says, asked her, “What did you think was going to happen?”

An hour or so later, O’Toole and Krewson would appear on local television to praise their officers for effectively balancing the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters against the criminality of a small minority of those still present on the streets after dark.

The basis for the police crackdown that night was a handful of smashed windows downtown. But the vandals had been arrested hours earlier by the time the Burbridges arrived and got caught up in the kettle, according to local news reports from the night.

Wide array of unconstitutional tactics alleged in suit over chilling round-up that hit peaceful protesters, journalists, and anarchists alike.

The allegations of collective punishment, targeted brutality against non-resistant arrestees, and a seemingly intentional singling out of media members all echo a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C., over the city police’s handling of protesters during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The protests the Burbridges attempted to cover in St. Louis didn’t have anything to do with Donald Trump personally. The city is on edge because another white police officer has been vindicated in the suspicious slaying of a young black man, not because of any acute action from the White House. But the tone and momentum established for police forces around the country by the new administration in Washington has an influence on how both individual officers and whole department cultures view dissent, protest, and civil unrest.

Immediately upon Trump’s taking office, the administration made clear to law enforcement observers that any protest they deemed to be violent should be met with force. In the months since, the president himself has given aid and comfort to the enemies of civil rights, encouraging cops to knock people around after they are arrested but before they have been proven guilty of any crime or even formally charged with one. In his informal political alliances with men like David Clarke and his own speeches, Trump has repeatedly betrayed an affection for roughing up his critics — something a few optimists in political journalism had hoped he might leave behind on the campaign trail.

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Andrea

‘You like that?’: St. Louis cops savagely beat handcuffed filmmaker while wife watched, suit says

https://thinkprogress.org/st-louis-filmmaker-beating-556a6d98b229/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_con tent=59cdbe3d04d30111925ef4c8&utm_medium=trueAnthe m&utm_source=twitter

On St. Louis’ most restless night of protests for some time, interim police chief Lawrence O’Toole seemed to embrace a tribal us-and-them attitude toward demonstrators in his city. Hours after reporters watched black-clad riot cops chant “Whose streets? Our streets!” at dispersing protesters, O’Toole boasted to press cameras that “police owned the night,” comments which Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) would criticize days later.

It all may have seemed hollow posturing and harmless banter. But a new lawsuit illustrates the very real abuses that such a domineering mentality from law enforcement can foreshadow. O’Toole’s cops allegedly beat, taunted, and repeatedly maced a handcuffed filmmaker that Sunday night, singling the Kansas City man out from a herd of arrestees to punish him physically for recording them. Drew and Jennifer Burbridge sued the city on Tuesday, alleging the kind of unprofessional, illegal mistreatment at police hands that’s routinely drawn protesters into American streets in recent years.

The Burbridges were present late Sunday night, September 17, when officers suddenly encircled a mix of protesters and reporters in a “kettle.” The tactic involves riot police cutting off all exit routes for a group of people and then arresting everyone. The Burbridges say they were not warned at any point to leave, or to avoid going to the intersection where they were filming protesters and police, before the sudden kettling. With the perimeter established, the suit says, officers began indiscriminately spraying pepper spray into the trapped group.

The couple sat down and held onto one another. Police moved inside the kettle. “One of the two officers…stated ‘that’s him’ and grabbed Drew Burbridge by each arm and roughly drug him away from his wife,” the suit says. Despite being told Burbridge was a member of the media and not a protester, the officers “then purposely deployed chemical spray into his mouth and eyes and ripped his camera from his neck,” according to the suit. Officers beat the man repeatedly, first with hands and feet as they got plastic zip-tie cuffs onto him and then going back for seconds with their batons after his hands were bound.

“Do you want to take my picture now motherfucker? Do you want me to pose for you?” one officer allegedly said to Drew during the beating. When the assault caused him to lose consciousness, Drew “awoke to an officer pulling his head up by his hair and spraying him with chemical agents in the face.”

The officers running the kettle and alleged beating were not wearing name badges on their uniforms and declined to identify themselves to either Burbridge throughout the encounter. Multiple officers seemed to taunt Jennifer as she watched her husband beaten, the complaint says. “Did you like that? Come back tomorrow and we can do this again,” one allegedly told her. Another, the complaint says, asked her, “What did you think was going to happen?”

An hour or so later, O’Toole and Krewson would appear on local television to praise their officers for effectively balancing the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters against the criminality of a small minority of those still present on the streets after dark.

The basis for the police crackdown that night was a handful of smashed windows downtown. But the vandals had been arrested hours earlier by the time the Burbridges arrived and got caught up in the kettle, according to local news reports from the night.

Wide array of unconstitutional tactics alleged in suit over chilling round-up that hit peaceful protesters, journalists, and anarchists alike.

The allegations of collective punishment, targeted brutality against non-resistant arrestees, and a seemingly intentional singling out of media members all echo a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C., over the city police’s handling of protesters during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The protests the Burbridges attempted to cover in St. Louis didn’t have anything to do with Donald Trump personally. The city is on edge because another white police officer has been vindicated in the suspicious slaying of a young black man, not because of any acute action from the White House. But the tone and momentum established for police forces around the country by the new administration in Washington has an influence on how both individual officers and whole department cultures view dissent, protest, and civil unrest.

Immediately upon Trump’s taking office, the administration made clear to law enforcement observers that any protest they deemed to be violent should be met with force. In the months since, the president himself has given aid and comfort to the enemies of civil rights, encouraging cops to knock people around after they are arrested but before they have been proven guilty of any crime or even formally charged with one. In his informal political alliances with men like David Clarke and his own speeches, Trump has repeatedly betrayed an affection for roughing up his critics — something a few optimists in political journalism had hoped he might leave behind on the campaign trail.

This is just one of many tragedies occurring in the state of Missouri, but is so heartbreaking because isn't this the same state where the white cop was let off the hook for killing a black man too? There's so many disturbing accounts of horrible violence all over the country, but it seems to me that it's at an all time crisis point , way past the threshold of reported violence, deadly violence in Missouri. It makes me sick at heart to read that deadly violence committed by public law enforcement is occurring in epic proportions. So sad!

[Andrea]

Brooklyn teen claims NYPD detectives raped her after arrest on drug charge

http://www.nydailynews.com/amp/new-york/nyc-crime/nyc-teen-claims-nypd-cops-raped-arrest-drug-charge-article-1.3530054

A Brooklyn teen claims two NYPD detectives raped her after taking her into custody on a drug charge, authorities said Friday.

The 18-year-old victim’s stunning accusations are now the subject of two investigations by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

“I’m completely brutalized by the rape. My life is in shatters,” the young woman said through her attorney, Michael David. “Now every time I see any police, I’m in a panic.”

No arrests have been made, but the two detectives and their supervisor have been stripped of their guns and shields and forced on desk duty as the investigations proceed.

Internal Affairs also is looking into the detectives’ prior arrests and questioning confidential informants to see if there are any other victims, according to a high-ranking NYPD source with knowledge of the case.

Brooklyn South Narcotics Detectives Edward Martins and Richard Hall were conducting an undercover buy-and-bust operation in Brighton Beach on Sept. 14 with their supervisor, Sgt. John Espey, when the two detectives for some inexplicable reason drove off in an unmarked Dodge minivan, police sources said.

The pair reappeared at Calvert Vaux Park near Shore Parkway and Bay 44th St. at about 8 p.m. where they found the woman and two friends, both men, sitting in a car.

The cops stopped them “because they weren’t supposed to be in the park,” a friend of the victim who was at the scene said.

The detectives handcuffed the teen after finding marijuana and the anxiety drug Klonopin in a bag next to her and drove her away, according to the friend, who said he was suspicious about the cops from the start.

The two NYPD detectives reappeared at Calvert Vaux Park near Shore Parkway and Bay 44th St. at about 8 p.m. where they find the victim and two friends. Image by: Todd Maisel, New York Daily News/New York Daily News

“I had Prozac on me,” said the friend, who declined to be named. “They said that it’s supposed to be in the bottle but they just gave it back to me.”

They only handcuffed the woman, telling her friends that they were taking her to the 60th Precinct on W. Eighth St. in Coney Island for processing.

Instead, Martins and Hall allegedly took her to a secluded spot about two blocks from the 60th Precinct stationhouse, where she says she was forced to perform a sex act on both cops.

One of the detectives also raped her, David said.

“She’s a teenager and she was basically kidnapped into a police vehicle without any justification,” the attorney said. “She had her handcuffs on when they raped her.”

The detectives then forced her out of the minivan — about 45 minutes after taking her into custody — and drove off.

Her friend went to the 60th Precinct and found the victim nearby.

“She was like ‘They just f----- me,’ ” the friend said. “I couldn’t have done anything but it was definitely just one of those damn moments.”
Not Released (NR)

The friend took the victim to her parents, who rushed her to Maimonides Hospital for an exam. Doctors there found signs of sexual assault and called police who started the investigation, David said.

Internal Affairs hadn’t interviewed the detectives as of Friday as they wait for Brooklyn prosecutors to finish their investigation, but Martins and Hall told colleagues that the sex was consensual, according to the high-ranking police source.

David said his client was outraged by claims the sex was consensual. “She was in shock. She is a very emotional girl,” he said.

David has filed a notice of claim for a lawsuit against the city.

Martins and Hall were put on modified duty because of the allegations. Espey was put on modified duty for failing to supervise the two detectives.

Martins joined the NYPD in July 2006 and became a detective in May 2016. Hall became a cop in 2010 and was promoted to detective in April.

Ed Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said Espey was involved in an arrest at a different location during the incident. He called it “lunacy” for the NYPD to take action against the sergeant.

Espey, 41, has been a cop for 22 years. He was previously assigned to the 67 Precinct.

Michael Palladino, the president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, declined to comment on the probe. “The investigation is ongoing and the information is changing hourly,” he said.

[Andrea]

Convicted, but still policing

http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-police-officers-convicted-of-serious-crimes-still-on-the-job/437687453/

Jared Taylor choked a man until he blacked out.

Steven Brown fired a .38 Special during a confrontation with his fiancée.

Tom Bernardson punched a man so viciously that he put him in the hospital with a concussion.

All three were convicted in Minnesota courts.

And all three still work in law enforcement.

They are among hundreds of sworn officers in Minnesota who were convicted of criminal offenses in the past two decades yet kept their state law enforcement licenses, according to public records examined by the Star Tribune. Dozens of them are still on the job with a badge, a gun and the public’s trust that they will uphold the law.

The cases reveal a state licensing system that is failing repeatedly to hold officers accountable for reckless, sometimes violent, conduct.

In Minnesota, doctors and lawyers can lose their professional licenses for conduct that is unethical or unprofessional — even if they never break a law. Yet law enforcement officers can stay on the job for years even when a judge or jury finds them guilty of criminal behavior.

“The public trusts that we’re not going to act like that,” said former Prior Lake Police Chief Bill O’Rourke, describing an officer who kept his state license despite being fired for a violent outburst. “The public needs to trust that those officers are going to be held accountable.”

Records also show that scores of the convictions stemmed from off-duty misconduct — including brawls, stalking and domestic altercations — that raise questions about an officer’s temperament for a job that authorizes the use of force.

Law enforcement leaders say it’s important for citizens to have confidence that officers are held to the highest ethical standards — on duty or off duty. In fact, Minnesota’s model code of ethics says that officers shall not discredit themselves or their agency either on-duty or off. Yet Minnesota seems to have developed a culture of second chances for those who wear a badge, said Neil Melton, a former Bloomington police officer who ran Minnesota’s licensing board for 16 years.

“Benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt,” Melton said. “At what point do we say enough is enough?”

Records also show that Minnesota, once a pioneer in professionalizing police work, has fallen far behind other states on police discipline. Among 44 states with comparable licensing, Minnesota ranks 38th in revoking law enforcement licenses, based on numbers compiled by Seattle University criminologist Matthew Hickman. The national average for revocations is 12 times higher than Minnesota’s.

In Georgia, for example, the state board can revoke an officer’s license for committing any act “which is indicative of bad moral character or untrustworthiness.” In Minnesota, revocation almost always requires a criminal conviction.

In Oregon, officers lose their licenses for any criminal conviction with an element of domestic violence. The state, which has fewer police than Minnesota, revokes about 35 licenses each year.

Today, Minnesota revokes one or two.

Andrea: Clink link for rest of article.

[Andrea]

Michigan trooper resigns as ATV probe widens

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/10/03/trooper-atv-probe-widens/106253324/

The Michigan State Police trooper accused of using his stun gun on a 15-year-old ATV driver has resigned, while two other state cops involved in the fatal incident have been suspended, a state police official said Monday.

Meanwhile, Detroit police are investigating a state police sergeant who allegedly discarded evidence from the scene, three Detroit police sources involved in the case told The Detroit News.

Before Detroit and state police launched separate criminal investigations into Damon Grimes’ Aug. 26 death, the sergeant, a supervisor who had responded to the scene, collected one of the stun gun’s wires and prongs and later threw them into a trash can at a state police post, the sources said.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the sergeant was trying to cover up evidence, or was simply being careless by throwing the wire away, the sources said. The other wire used in the incident was left at the scene and taken into evidence, the sources said.

Detroit police detectives plan to submit warrant requests to prosecutors seeking charges against the sergeant, the driver of the state police cruiser and the passenger who deployed the stun gun, the sources said.

The passenger, trooper Mark Bessner, has resigned from the state police, MSP spokeswoman Shanon Banner said Monday. She added two other state cops have been suspended in connection with the incident, although she would not identify them or what they did.

“We have started submitting our reports to the prosecutor’s office, and now we want to respect them and let them carry out their role in this process,” Banner said. “We have conducted a thorough investigation and we want to be as transparent as possible, but we need to let prosecutors review our investigation report.

“As a result of our investigation, we thought it was appropriate to suspend two other employees,” Banner said. “Another (Bessner) has chosen to resign.”

Bessner was suspended Aug. 28, and resigned Sept. 22, Banner said. The two others were suspended Sept. 26, she said.

Bessner’s attorney Richard Convertino did not reply Monday to a phone call seeking comment. A message left with the Michigan State Police Troopers Association was not returned.

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office received a warrant request from the state police Friday and returned it Monday to the agency for further investigation, assistant prosecutor Maria Miller said.

Miller would not say what name or names were on the MSP warrant request.

As state police submit their reports to prosecutors, Detroit police investigators are still weighing which charges to seek against the three men, according to the Detroit police sources. If it’s determined the MSP sergeant was merely careless, investigators might seek a misdemeanor charge against him, the sources said.

Police Chief James Craig declined to comment. “It’s an ongoing investigation,” he said.

Stun guns deliver up to 50,000 volts of electricity by firing a pair of barbed electrodes attached to conductive wires. The cartridge containing the electrodes and wires is replaced after each use. For a stun gun to work effectively, both barbed prongs must lodge into the target’s skin to complete the electric circuit.

Stun gun wires and prongs could contain important evidence in a court case, legal experts said.

“If the Taser prongs go into the body, there could be DNA evidence to show (the Taser) actually hit the target,” said Curt Benson, a professor at the Cooley School of Law. “Police would want to save and conserve every conceivable piece of evidence at a scene.”

University of Michigan law professor David Moran agreed. “If the Taser prong is embedded in someone’s body, you’d expect their DNA to be present, and that could be evidence that could be used in a criminal prosecution.”

DNA from stun gun prongs has been used in trials, including a 2007 Monterey County, California, case in which police linked a man to a rape by extracting DNA from a Taser’s barbs after the stun gun was used on him in a separate incident. Some stun gun manufacturers list DNA extraction as one of the benefits of the devices.

State police say Grimes was illegally driving the ATV in the streets of his east side neighborhood when he was ordered to stop. Grimes didn’t comply before Bessner deployed his stun gun, police said.

The stun gun’s electrically charged barbed prongs hit Grimes, who crashed into a flatbed and died from blunt-force head injuries, according to the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Bessner was suspended two days after the incident for allegedly violating department policy by using his stun gun while in a moving vehicle. Bessner was previously accused of excessive force in two separate lawsuits, although the cases against him were dismissed.

All three suspensions related to the case were paid, Banner said. “If they are charged with a crime, we can move to an unpaid suspension,” she said.

In the wake of the incident, investigations were launched by state police and Detroit police. On Friday, officials with both agencies said the respective probes are winding down.

“We’re waiting on forensic analysis to come back from evidence items, although I won’t say what those evidence items are,” Craig said.

“The investigation is moving along like we’d hoped it would but when you talk about forensic analysis, those things don’t come back in a few days,” Craig said.

The chief added Wayne County prosecutors have been working with Detroit police investigators on the case.

Banner said the MSP investigation into the incident also is coming to a close. She said an internal investigation will be conducted after the criminal probe is finished.

“There are still some pieces that are outstanding that we continue to work on, and we fully expect the prosecutor’s office may request additional follow-up once they have the opportunity to review our reports,” Banner said.

The incident has sparked several protests, and prompted state police to temporarily pull troopers out of the 9th Precinct to avoid stoking animosity in Grimes’ neighborhood. Troopers had been assigned to the precinct as part of the state’s Secure Cities Partnership initiative.

Geoffrey Fieger, attorney for Grimes’ family, has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the state.

State police changed the agency’s policy in the city after the incident to match Detroit’s edict that officers refrain from high-speed chases unless they’re pursuing someone perceived to be a danger to the community. Prior to the change, state police routinely chased traffic violators and others committing nonviolent crimes.