Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Baltimore officer indicted on assault, misconduct charges

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-cop-indicted-20161202-story.html

Body camera footage helped a grand jury indict a Baltimore police officer who investigators say used unnecessary force to make an arrest.

Donald B. Gaff, a three-and-a-half-year veteran, faces assault and misconduct charges in the Sept. 11 incident near East Patapsco Avenue, police said.

Police said he used "unjustified force" but provided no details Friday on the case, including the type of force Gaff was said to have used.

Internal investigators were doing a "routine review" of body camera footage, when they saw the alleged abuse. The detectives presented their findings to the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office for prosecution. Gaff's police powers have been suspended, police said. He was assigned to the Southern District.

"This incident again demonstrates our capacity and willingness to hold police officers engaged in misconduct accountable," Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said in a statement. "His actions do not represent the professionalism exhibited by the men and women of the Baltimore Police Department on a daily basis."

Police said they will not release the footage of the incident, and have turned it over to prosecutors.

A call to Baltimore police union president Lt. Gene Ryan was not immediately returned Friday afternoon, and no attorney was listed in court records representing Gaff.

In January 2015, Gaff fatally shot a man at a child's birthday party in the 1900 block of McHenry Street after he was flagged down by a resident. Police said a man was carrying a knife at the party and threatening to stab people. After being asked to drop the knife, police said, Gaff shot him once in the upper chest, killing him.

In that case, then-deputy police commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said Gaff had "courageously" confronted the man and was in the "right place at the right time."

"I think it's safe to say that through the officer's quick actions and the fact that the officer was deployed here and was able to quickly respond, this scene could've been a lot different," Rodriguez said at the time.

[Andrea]

Retired Corrections Officer Claims Garden City Police Mistakenly Beat Him

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/12/02/corrections-officer-sues-garden-city-police/

A retired Nassau County corrections officer claims he was beaten by officers in a case of mistaken identity.

Ronald Lanier said he was shopping in the Western Beef Supermarket in Mineola on Nov. 30 when he was tackled, handcuffed and beaten by officers with the Garden City Police Department.

“I’ve never been cursed, physically abused, beaten and treated like a slave as I was two days ago,” Lanier said, breaking down as he described how he landed in handcuffs and in a hospital. “For somebody to grab me by the neck in the supermarket, and I’m telling you, ‘I’m one of you,’ and you disrespect it — it was like you’re just another black dude.”

“They cursed at him, they abused him verbally, they then start to beat him,” his attorney, Fred Brewington, told 1010 WINS. “He was taking blows with his hands cuffed behind him as he laid facedown.”

Lanier, who retired after two decades as a Nassau County corrections officer, claims he complied and explained to the officers that he was law enforcement, but they just laughed.

The officers, who are white, claimed they were searching for a black shoplifting suspect, who was later apprehended on the roof of the building.

“They didn’t have a good description of who they were looking for. That doesn’t give you the right to go into a store and grab the first black person you see and throw them to the ground,” his attorney, Fred Brewington, told 1010 WINS. “The fact that he happened to be a black male in the store does not make him a culprit, it does not make him a suspect.”

Lanier intends to sue the Garden City Police Department, accusing them of violating his civil rights. He wants the officers stripped of their badges.

“I’m tired of hearing officers constantly talking about we have to retrain. We don’t have to retrain, we got to let them be held accountable for their actions,” Lanier said. “Imagine if I had my gun at that time. It could have went either way.”

“We are hoping Garden City Police Department will come forward with respect, identifying their officers, disciplining their officers,” said Dennis Jones, with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

The Garden City Police Department declined to share its side of the story with CBS2, but provided context, saying they were chasing a fleeing shoplifting suspect who abandoned a getaway car on the railroad tracks and fled into the supermarket, Carolyn Gusoff reported.

Brewington said his client spent 20 minutes inside a squad car before he was let go without receiving an apology.

“The sergeant, without any apology or any other way of making it clear that they were acknowledging the mistake that they had made, just said cut him loose,” Brewington said.

Western Beef does have interior security cameras, but would not share the video with CBS2.

[Andrea]

Former Roanoke police officer pleads no contest to sexually assaulting female prisoners

http://www.roanoke.com/news/crime/roanoke/former-roanoke-police-officer-pleads-no-contest-to-sexually-assaulting/article_aead7093-cdae-5096-aa3b-a393cf8904bd.html

A former Roanoke police officer has resolved the two criminal cases against him, both involving sexual assault claims by prisoners who were in his custody.

Francisco Alberto Duarte, 30, was indicted earlier this year on charges of aggravated sexual battery and forcible sodomy.

He was due to go to trial on the former case on Thursday morning and on the latter case in January.

At a hearing Thursday in Roanoke Circuit Court, Duarte pleaded no contest to amended counts of felony carnal knowledge with an inmate and misdemeanor sexual battery.

Through a plea agreement with prosecutors, Duarte received six months to serve on each charge, with five years in suspended time. He likely will end up serving about three months on the misdemeanor offense and another six on the felony. He was taken into custody as soon as the hearing ended.

Based on the statute under which Duarte was charged, he will not have to register as a sex offender, his lawyer said.

In a summary of the prosecution’s evidence, Roanoke Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney John McNeil said the two offenses occurred while Duarte was on duty and was taking female prisoners to the Roanoke City Jail.

In the first instance, which occurred Dec. 2, 2015, McNeil said security camera footage showed Duarte bringing a woman into the jail, talking with her briefly, then leaving with her and going back out to his car.

McNeil said the woman can be heard telling Duarte, “No one has to know.”

The woman later told investigators they rode a short distance from the jail, parked and then engaged in oral sex.

“The mere fact that she was in custody and he was a police officer made her feel like she had no choice in the matter,” McNeil said.

He said the woman reported the incident while she was being processed into custody. Duarte was interviewed by police officials and “taken off the road” within hours.

A police spokesman said earlier this year that Duarte’s last day with the force was Dec. 3, 2015, but he declined to elaborate, saying it was a personnel matter.

The second incident came to light in March. McNeil said a woman charged with a petty offense in Roanoke County told investigators that she had been arrested on a shoplifting charge in Roanoke in September 2015. While being taken to jail by Duarte, he had stopped in a motel parking lot where he parked, exposed himself and placed her hand on his privates, she said. McNeil said she rejected the advance and they continued on to jail from there.

Neither woman is being identified in this story because The Roanoke Times does not name victims of sexual assault.

“These are cases we have wrestled with for months,” McNeil told Judge David Carson. He said the circumstances of the cases complicated the prospects of going to trial. Both witnesses had expressed reluctance to testify, he said, and they approved of the agreement.

“They both want to move on,” he said.

Defense attorney David Damico added that there were “significant issues that would’ve potentially affected the credibility of the witnesses,” and that there was little evidence that force had been involved in either case.

Under the initial indictments, Duarte had faced the possibility of maximum sentences of life plus 20 years in prison.

“He exercised monumentally bad judgment,” Damico said. “We see this as a pragmatic solution to a difficult situation.”

Asked by Carson whether he wanted to make a statement before his conviction, Duarte declined.

Both sides in the case have exercised extreme discretion as the matter has moved forward through the courts. Most relevant court documents were placed under seal, and members of the media were barred from an evidentiary hearing in September — on a motion from the defense — while recordings were played. The windows of the courtroom doors were also covered during that hearing.

[Andrea]

Video: Miami Cops Throw Legless Woman to Ground

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/07/video-miami-cops-throw-legless-woman-to-ground.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl



Video emerged Wednesday of two Miami-Dade police officers handcuffing a legless woman and throwing her to the ground from her wheelchair. Mary Luis Brown, 52, was panhandling outside as gas station on Saturday night when cops arrived to ask her to leave. Bystanders filmed the unnamed officers manhandling Brown, cuffing her and throwing her to the ground as she shouted, “Stop hurting me!” The police department admits the two officers acted improperly and noted that “we need to provide our law enforcement officers additional resources to aid them in facilitating the transport of disabled individuals, so that situations such as these are handled in a more amicable manner in the future.” Brown was arrested for trespassing and transported to a local hospital for treatment.

Andrea: Clink link for video

[Andrea]

Cops Gagged and Smothered a Man to Death, Then Fist-Bumped

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/08/cops-gagged-and-smothered-a-man-to-death-then-fist-bumped.html?via=desktop&source=twitter


Police handcuffed Ben Anthony C de Baca, threw him on his stomach, pulled a mask over his face, and planted their knees in his back. While he cried that he couldn’t breathe, the officers were busy laughing at a joke. They stopped laughing when they realized he’d gone limp.

“Anthony,” one officer said, wiggling the dead man’s arm. “Anthony.”

“Fuck,” another one said.

He was dead.

Twelve minutes after that, two officers fist-bumped.

Medical examiners ruled C de Baca’s Sept. 6, 2015 death a homicide from “excited delirium (cocaine intoxication) complicated by means of physical restraint.” An investigation by New Mexico’s Rio Rancho Police Department found no criminal intent by any of the three police agencies involved in the arrest. But C de Baca’s family says his death was a senseless act of police brutality and incompetence.

The family is planning a wrongful death suit against the three law enforcement agencies involved in his arrest, family attorney Ahmad Assed told The Daily Beast. Meanwhile, Sandoval County District Attorney’s Office prosecutor told The Daily Beast it is investigating C de Baca’s death for potential criminal charges.

C de Baca had a history of mental illness, his wife said, according to a police report. Doctors had recently changed his medication, and he had been “acting very paranoid all week,” she said. On the day of his death, his wife said he had experienced “schizophrenic episodes,” which came to a head at a McDonald’s.

While waiting in the drive-through line, C de Baca began acting irrationally, telling his wife that there were people in the trunk. She humored him, promising to check the trunk, at which point he flung his legs into the driver’s side of the car and slammed on the gas, sending the car speeding into another vehicle.

C de Baca then fled on foot to a nearby Wal-Mart, where he began throwing soda and smashing televisions. He shouted, “‘You are all murderers, you killed my kid’ and other things that didn’t make sense,” a Wal-Mart employee told police.

Workers called 911. Officers from three departments arrived on the scene, due to the Wal-Mart’s location near the intersection of three jurisdictions. An officer from the Rio Rancho Police Department responded to a report about C de Baca’s car crash outside the nearby McDonald’s, while officers from the neighboring Bernalillo and Santa Ana police departments responded to the call from inside the Wal-Mart. (The Rio Rancho Police Department decline to comment on this story. The Santa Ana and Bernalillo police departments did not return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.) Bernalillo and Santa Ana officers found C de Baca in the store, where they cuffed him on the floor, body camera footage shows.

“Stand up or we’re going to drag you out, one way or another,” an officer is seen telling the restrained man. But C de Baca continued to struggle, allegedly biting one officer on the leg.

“A fucking bite mark, dude,” the officer is heard telling another on camera. “This cunt fuck bit the fuck out of me, dude. I had to punch his ass off of me.”

Officers pulled C de Baca outside, where they placed him on his stomach in the parking lot, shackled his legs, and placed hands and knees on his back. They placed a spit sock over his head to prevent him from biting again, the police report says. An officer began questioning him, presumably for an incident report. C de Baca initially cooperated, giving his name. Then he cried for help.

“I can’t breathe,” he said.

“Anthony, what’s your date of birth?” the officer taking the report called.

“I can’t breathe,” C de Baca repeated.

“What’s your date of birth?” the officer asked again. His colleagues continued placing pressure on C de Baca’s back, pinning his cuffed hands behind him.

“I’m dying,” C de Baca pleads. No one appears to listen. The conversation returns to the bite mark on one of the officer’s pant legs.

“He hit bone?” an officer asked, alluding to the other cop’s penis.

“Always with the jokes,” the bitten officer said, confirming that the bite didn’t break the skin.

The officers were still laughing when they realized C de Baca had gone limp under their hands and knees. An officer shook his arm, then his shirt, attempting to rouse him. The “spit sock” was still over his face.

As police watched the paramedics attempt to revive him, one officer’s body camera showed two officers fist-bumping near the body, apparently in greeting. It was one of several casual gestures that may appear insensitive in the immediate aftermath of C de Baca’s death. Later, two different officers are seen discussing the man’s death.

“You alright?” one officer asked another several minutes after C de Baca’s pulse stopped.

“Yeah, I’m good, dude,” the second answered. “I fucking hate when people put us in a position like that.”

“No, I’m asking are you OK,” the first asked. “I don’t care about that,” he said in apparent reference to C de Baca’s death. “Are you OK?”

Assed, a lawyer for C de Baca’s family, said conversations suggest a fundamental lack of concern for C de Baca’s life.

“He’s telling him essentially that Mr. C de Baca has passed, and he’s like ‘I don’t care, I’m asking how you’re doing,’” Assed told The Daily Beast. “It’s really telling if you look at that particular part of the video.”

Assed said C de Baca’s family is preparing a civil suit against the three police departments involved in the arrest. But Assed said his primary concern is not the officers’ attitude on camera, but their treatment of C de Baca during what should have been a routine arrest.

“I’m really more concerned about why they hogtied him, dragged him out, placed him face down with three guys kneeing him in the back,” Assed said. “A guy is screaming for his life saying he can’t breathe and that he’s hurting, and then they claimed to put a spit sock on him for what reason I have no idea, because it doesn’t prevent anything.”

The use of the spit sock in C de Baca’s death is central to claims that the officers mishandled his arrest.

Spit socks are intended to prevent individuals from spitting at officers, but are not meant to prevent the person from biting, or to impair their breathing. But C de Baca’s case was unusual. Police placed the sock over his head after he allegedly bit an officer.

The spit sock was mesh, with a “thick cotton portion,” a sergeant reported during an investigation into C de Baca’s death. During C de Baca’s arrest, the spit sock’s cotton had covered C de Baca’s “face, nose, and mouth,” while the mesh bunched up around his forehead, the sergeant told investigators, adding that “he had not seen a spit sock used in that fashion before.”

An independent report by the New Mexico Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that an “improperly placed” spit sock has the potential to suffocate a person. The examiner wrote that they could not rule out suffocation as a contributing cause in C de Baca’s death.

“They used it in a different fashion than in the training I hope they received,” Assed said. “I doubt they received any training. If there was training, it certainly wasn’t consistent with how they used it.”

The Bernalillo Police Department, which placed the spit sock on C de Baca’s head, did not return a request for comment. The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, a separate entity from the Bernalillo Police Department, outlines a standard spit hood policy in their officer manual.

“When Deputies are faced with prisoners who spit, have spat, or indicate they are likely to spit, the following procedures will be followed,” the document reads (PDF). “No other methods will be utilized to control or prevent this action. The Transportation Hood will only be used to deter spitting and will NOT be used for any other purpose.”

The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s officer manual also outlines policies that could have saved C de Baca’s life. Police are required to pay special attention to individuals displaying signs of cocaine psychosis, which medical examiners identified as a contributor in C de Baca’s death.

“Deputies will seek immediate medical attention for the prisoner if signs or symptoms of cocaine psychosis, excited delirium or positional asphyxia are observed,” the manual reads.

The manual also warns against placing a handcuffed person on their stomach.

“Deputies must guard against leaving the individual or allowing the individual to go to the chest down position as this could cause Positional Asphyxia,” the manual says. The police sergeant who told investigators that the spit sock had been misapplied also said that he instructed officers to not to place C de Baca on his stomach, a suggestion that went ignored.

While law enforcement’s internal investigation into C de Baca’s death found no criminal intent by the officers involved, charges might still come from a district attorney in New Mexico’s Sandoval County.

David Foster, an attorney with New Mexico’s 13th Judicial District told The Daily Beast that the incident was under investigation, but could not comment on the nature of the ongoing probe.

But Assed said the family planned to sue all three police departments for wrongful death. The pending lawsuit will likely address the officers’ apparent lack of training about the spit sock, in addition to their overall conduct during the arrest.

“They placed it in a way that I believe wholeheartedly contributed to Mr. C de Baca’s death,” Assed said. “To place him on his face and place that spit sock on him, with three people on him, it’s ridiculous. It’s crazy."

[Andrea]

UPDATE: 4 EPD officers suspended; termination recommended for 3

http://www.courierpress.com/story/news/crime/2016/11/04/state-police-investigating-claims-against-epd-officers/93282382/

Four Evansville police officers were suspended without pay following improper use of force during an arrest Oct. 29, Evansville Police Chief Billy Bolin said at a press conference Friday.

Three officers were investigating a garage burglary in the 700 block of Florida Street early Saturday morning and arrested Mark Healy, 36, of Evansville. The case report indicates officers used force, so an on-duty motor patrol sergeant reviewed materials and reported the officers’ actions were justified.

On Monday, further review by another supervisor led to a formal investigation, which found information in the case report was inconsistent with what was shown on body camera video.

The case report claims Healy was running from police when an officer caught him and Healy poked the officer in the hand with a used, open syringe. The syringe allegedly contained liquid methamphetamine. The report also claims Healy struggled and pulled away from officers when they tried to handcuff him.

Body cam video released by police Friday contradicts the affadavit. It shows Healy was handcuffed without incident and an officer searching him poked his hand on a needle in Healy's pocket. The video, taken from the body camera worn by the officer who was poked, appears to show that officer throwing Healy to the ground and yelling at him.

The video is obscured and dark for about 18 seconds after Healy is thrown to the ground and later shows an officer holding his hand over Healy’s mouth and shaking the man’s head. Three officers were on-scene when this happened.

"Two officers are seen using force on Mr. Healy, while verbally insulting and screaming at him," Bolin said during the press conference. "The third officer watched the incident, but did nothing to intervene or stop the actions of the other officers."

Evansville police held a press conference related to three officers being suspended after involvement in use of force investigation.

The probable cause affidavit filed in the investigation indicates the three officers at the scene were Nick Henderson, Mark DeCamps and Marcus Craig. When asked to confirm the names, Bolin said he would have to wait for the Evansville Police Merit Commission, a civilian board responsible for final actions on discipline in the department, to release the names of the suspended officers and sergeant.

The three involved officers were suspended for 21 days without pay after the formal investigation was completed Thursday, with a recommendation that they be fired. The sergeant who initially reviewed the report was also suspended 21 days without pay, with a recommendation to the Merit Commission that he be demoted.

The three involved officers and the sergeant were placed on paid administrative leave Monday until the formal investigation was completed Thursday.

“Multiple department policy violations were discovered during the investigation,” Bolin said during the press conference.

At one point, Healy is taken out of handcuffs so he can turn out his pockets and take off the sweatshirt he is wearing over a t-shirt.

In the video, officers yell at Healy and ask him if there are more needles, then threaten him multiple times.

One officer says, “I’ll [expletive] shoot you in the [expletive] back if you run,” and another says, “I’m going to beat the holy [expletive] out of you again.”

The Evansville Police Department manual states deadly force – using firearms, for example – is only legally justified “when necessary in the defense of a member’s own life” or another person’s life, or “when necessary to prevent the escape of a felony suspect whom the member has probable cause to believe poses a significant threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others.”

Video shows another officer arriving and speaking with the three officers on scene. That officer has not been identified.

On Friday morning, Indiana State Police spokesman Sgt. Todd Ringle said his agency was asked to look into the case by Evansville police officials. Taking on such a request requires the approval of state police superintendent Doug Carter, which was granted Thursday, according to Ringle. He did not know when police department officials first asked state police to look into the incident.

"Typically," Ringle said, "when another agency requests that our agency investigate an incident, it's simply because there is a possibility of criminal charges being filed or that there had been some sort of crime that may have been committed."

The next regularly scheduled Police Merit Commission meeting is November 14. Police have indicated they will not release further information or comment on the case again before the meeting.

[Andrea]

Unarmed man, 73, shot and killed by police in California

http://www.kcra.com/article/unarmed-man-73-shot-and-killed-by-police-in-california/8494248

Authorities in California say a Bakersfield police officer answering a report of a man with a gun shot and killed an unarmed 73-year-old as he stood in a neighbor's driveway. The man's family says he was in the early stages of dementia.

The Kern County coroner said in a statement that the man, 73-year-old Francisco Serna, was declared dead at the scene about 1:15 a.m. Monday.

Police Sgt. Gary Carruesco tells KBAK-TV and the Los Angeles Times that police had arrived about 12:30 a.m. and when a witness pointed to Serna, one officer fired several rounds and killed him.

Carruesco said no gun was turned up in a search of the scene.

Serna's son Rogelio Serna tells the Times his father was a retired grandfather who didn't own a gun. He says he was suffering from delusions and other early signs of dementia.