Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Two Indiana Police Officers to be Charged After Video Shows Them Beating Handcuffed Man

https://www.propublica.org/article/elkhart-police-charges-tk?token=mEv2NmfUQDFn1rsX0e4aLy4sL9WqeQ2Y&utm_camp aign=sprout&utm_source=social&utm_medium=video&utm _term=twitter

Two Elkhart, Indiana, police officers who punched a handcuffed man in the face more than 10 times will face criminal charges — 11 months after the fact, and only after The South Bend Tribune requested video of the incident as part of an ongoing investigation with ProPublica.

The two officers, Cory Newland and Joshua Titus, will be charged with misdemeanor counts of battery, the police department announced Friday. Both have been placed on administrative leave pending the case’s outcome, department spokesman Sgt. Travis Snider said.

The department also released the video of the beating after 5 p.m. Friday — more than three weeks after The Tribune requested a copy.

Five months ago, the two officers were disciplined for this incident. But they received reprimands rather than suspensions or possible termination.

Speaking to the city’s civilian oversight commission in June, Police Chief Ed Windbigler said the officers used “a little more force than needed” with a suspect in custody, and “just went a little overboard when they took him to the ground.” But Windbigler offered no other details, saying nothing of the two officers punching the man in the face.
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The video was recorded in the police station’s detention area after the Jan. 12 arrest of Mario Guerrero Ledesma, who was 28 at the time. The footage shows Ledesma, in handcuffs, sitting in a chair while Newland, Titus and two other officers stand nearby. At one point, Ledesma prepares to spit at Newland, and the officer warns him not to.

As Ledesma spits, Newland and Titus immediately tackle him, and the back of Ledesma’s head strikes the concrete floor. The two officers then jump on him and punch him in the face repeatedly while one calls him a “piece of shit.”

Two other officers walk up casually as the punches are being thrown. “Stop,” one can be heard saying, as the beating ends.

Ledesma pleaded guilty in July to charges of domestic battery and resisting law enforcement, and was sentenced to a year in jail, with 133 days suspended.

The Tribune and ProPublica have been investigating criminal justice in Elkhart County, looking at police accountability, among other issues.

A Tribune reporter requested the Ledesma video after noting a disparity between Windbigler’s public description to the Police Merit Commission — the city panel that exercises civilian oversight — and what the chief wrote in personnel records.

In a June 12 letter of reprimand to Newland, Windbigler wrote: “I completely understand defending yourself during an altercation. However, striking a handcuffed subject in the face is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. We cannot let our emotions direct our reactions or over-reactions to situations such as this.”

The personnel files provided by the police department did not include any response from Newland or Titus to the disciplinary allegations.

Windbigler ended his disciplinary letters to both officers on an upbeat note: “I consider this matter closed!”

At the June 25 meeting of the Police Merit Commission, chairman James Rieckhoff asked Windbigler if anyone had been injured in this incident.

“No,” Windbigler said.

Windbigler, explaining why he opted for only reprimands, told the commission that Titus “had no previous complaints.” He said of Newland: “Here, again, he had no other incidents in his file, so this is his first incident of any type of force.”

“Any questions on this one?” Rieckhoff asked the commission’s other members.

“Just a comment,” commissioner Thomas Barber said. “I like how you police your own.”

“Yes, sir,” Windbigler said.

On Friday, The Tribune requested an interview with the chief, but Snider, the police spokesman, said the department would have no further comment beyond its announcement of the pending charges.

Neither Newland nor Titus immediately returned messages left at their department phone lines. Efforts to reach them at other phone numbers were also unsuccessful.

History of Misconduct

For Newland, the reprimand was not his first disciplinary incident. It was his ninth, according to personnel records gathered by The Tribune and ProPublica.

After being hired in 2008, Newland was suspended six times and reprimanded twice in his first five years.

In 2009, Newland was “very rude and unprofessional,” using profanity toward a member of the public while responding to a call, personnel records say. The police chief at the time, Dale Pflibsen, suspended Newland for one day. “You have been employed for just over one year and this is not the first allegation of you verbally loosing (sic) control towards the public,” Pflibsen wrote to Newland.

“I want to emphasize we will not tolerate this behavior from you towards anyone,” Pflibsen added. “If you plan on continuing your career at the Elkhart Police Department I suggest you seek counseling for anger management.”

The next year, in 2010, Newland was suspended one day for causing a car crash.

In 2011, Newland received a three-day suspension for conduct unbecoming an officer. After arresting a woman for public nudity — she and her boyfriend were having sex in their car, in Elkhart’s McNaughton park — Newland sent her a friend request on Facebook and seven text messages, asking to “hang out.”

“Needless to say you attempting to establish a relationship with this female, a defendant in a criminal case, is unprofessional,” Pflibsen wrote to Newland. “This type of conduct will not be tolerated by you or anyone else.”

One year later, in February 2012, Newland was suspended again, this time for one day. Newland, while off duty, flipped off another driver — who, it turned out, was a jail officer in St. Joseph County, according to a disciplinary letter. Newland also drove recklessly, “brake checking” the other driver, according to disciplinary records.

“Should there be another sustained allegation of this type of misconduct on or off duty I will seriously consider your termination from the Elkhart Police Department,” Pflibsen wrote to Newland.

Exactly one week later, still in February, Newland received a three-day suspension for not turning on his video-audio recording equipment “while on numerous calls and traffic stops,” a disciplinary notice says.

Newland’s last suspension — and his longest, for 35 days — came in the summer of 2013. Newland failed to investigate a woman’s complaint of domestic violence, then lied about it to his superiors, according to disciplinary records.

When asked directly by supervisors if the woman had said her husband hit her, Newland “indicated that she had not made any such statement, and only that there was some pushing involved,” a disciplinary letter said. But “within minutes of the end of the interview,” Newland “returned and informed his supervisors that the victim had, in fact, reported being hit by her husband.”

An audio recording captured the woman telling Newland she had been hit, and that her husband did so in front of her children, a disciplinary letter says.

Newland’s failure to be truthful did more than violate department policy, Pflibsen wrote to the civilian oversight board. If a police officer testifies as a witness, authorities must disclose if the officer “has been dishonest in his or her official capacity,” Pflibsen wrote, adding: “This incident has been referred to the Prosecutor’s Office and may have a significant detrimental impact on their ability to prosecute this case.”

[Andrea]

How did Joe Arpaio manage to lose fully automatic assault weapons?

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2018/11/01/joe-arpaio-managed-lose-assault-weapons-yeah-thats-not-good/1848778002/

Be on the lookout for 27 guns, some of them fully automatic weapons, lost by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

It seems that while then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio was running all over the county chasing brown people and running all over Hawaii chasing Barack Obama’s birth certificate and running from TV station to TV station chasing publicity, pieces of his agency’s arsenal were walking out the door.

Two of those weapons were found this week, used to shoot and wound three Department of Public Safety officers during a rush-hour shoot-out on Interstate 17, near Seventh Street.

Let me say that again: a high-powered rifle used to shoot DPS officers belonged to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
Rifle was missing for at least 3 years

Sheriff Paul Penzone says the rifle, and one other MCSO gun found in the suspect’s car, were last seen sometime between 2010 and 2015. Nobody knows where they went or how MCSO lost them.

He said that an 2016 audit shows 27 other weapons, some of them fully automatic, still are out there, somewhere.

"The fact that any dangerous individual in our community can acquire possess and use fully automatic weapons ... is unacceptable and intolerable," Penzone said during a press conference on Wednesday.

Arpaio seemed not all that concerned.

"Vaguely remember there were some weapons unaccounted for,” he said in a statement to ABC15. “I'm sure my staff looked into it and took whatever action necessary."

No doubt.

Really, should we be surprised?

I guess we shouldn’t be so surprised at this particular display of Arpaio-era department discipline. This is what you get when you have a politician rather than a professional cop running a law enforcement agency.

A sheriff who obsessed about our security with all those dishwashers and gardeners running about even as MCSO machine guns were walking out the back door.

Penzone has vowed to investigate how the suspect, who was killed in Monday's shootout, got the guns and to tighten controls to ensure that that more weaponry doesn't disappear only to someday surface and be used to shoot police … or you or me.

Meanwhile, there are 27 MCSO guns, some of them fully automatic, out there, somewhere.

[Andrea]

Former JPD officer found guilty of assault after 2017 incident

http://www.wlbt.com/2018/11/08/former-jpd-officer-found-guilty-assault-after-incident/



JACKSON, MS (WLBT) - A Hinds County judge finds former Jackson police officer Justin Roberts guilty of assault.

In 2017, Roberts was recorded by cell phone making an arrest and seen punching and kicking a handcuffed man.
Former Jackson Police officer Justin Robert was seen on cell phone camera hitting and kicking a handcuffed man. He was later fired from JPD but found work at Jackson State University as a campus police officer.
Former Jackson Police officer Justin Robert was seen on cell phone camera hitting and kicking a handcuffed man. He was later fired from JPD but found work at Jackson State University as a campus police officer.

Roberts arrested LaDarius Brown and according to his attorney, Carlos Moore, suffers memory loss and headaches since the violent encounter. The former police officer faces a $500 fine and seven days in jail suspended.

“We’re so glad that the prosecutor, Mr. Mumford, was able to get a conviction today. $500, a fine of $500, seven days jail, even though it was suspended -- that’s significant in that most officers get nothing," said Moore. “Those blows, caught on video tape, were brutal. My client did nothing wrong and was never found guilty for any infraction.”

Roberts was fired from JPD after the video of him kicking and punching a man surfaced on Facebook. He is currently employed at Jackson State University as a campus police officer -- which also worries the attorney.

“I am very worried," said Moore. "In 2013, I also represent Adrian Jackson. He was shot by Justin Roberts when he was a security guard. So he shot my guy Adrian Johnson in the back several times. In 2017, he does this to this guy (Brown), while he’s in handcuffs. What does he have to do before they take a gun from this man?

Francis Springer, the attorney for the former embattled officer sees the action fit the situation and that the Roberts was just doing his job.

“We’re going to probably appeal this. We’re looking at that," said Springer. “Every action and every blow that was taken there was justified and of course police work is brutal. That’s why officers carry guns, that’s why they carry tasers, that’s why they carry handcuffs, because it is brutal.”

[Andrea]

Kentucky jail video shows officer slamming inmate to floor

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/11/07/kenton-county-jail-investigates-brutality-claim-inmate/1889759002/http://

Newly released body camera footage shows a Northern Kentucky corrections officer slamming an inmate to the floor.

Corrections Officer David Nussbaum said in his incident report that Kenton County jail inmate Steven Jordan was disobeying orders.

Jordan says Nussbaum used excessive force.

The incident – which left Jordan with a large gash above his right eye – was captured on another officer's body camera. It is unclear from the video what prompted the scuffle, but Jordan and Nussbaum can be seen facing each other at the start.

Nussbaum pushes Jordan, who rocks back on his heels. Nussbaum then slams Jordan to the floor.

"What the f---, man?" Jordan cries. “Ow! Ow! Ow! What the hell did I do?”

A second officer handcuffs Jordan, and he is told several times to be quiet as he is lying face-down, blood pooling under his head. Jordan continues to swear, saying he needs to go to the hospital.

“You busted the s--- out of my head,” he says at one point.

At another, he says to Nussbaum, “That was a little obsessive, man," to which an officer - it's not clear which - replies, “Not at all.”

Jailer Terry Carl said he is investigating the incident. He would not say whether Nussbaum is on leave.

Nussbaum could not be reached for comment, but in the incident report, he said he told Jordan to stop looking through his bag of property.

"Inmate Jordan refused my verbal instructions and said, 'F--- you,' " Nussbaum said. He said Jordan slapped away his hand after Nussbaum grabbed Jordan's wrist.

Nussbaum said he tried to push Jordan against a wall. Then, because of Jordan's "aggressive" stance and his continued attempts to pull away, "I wrapped my arms around inmate Jordan's torso and muscled him to the floor."

Other officers corroborated Nussbaum's statement.

Jordan, 28, in a statement provided to The Enquirer, said he was simply looking through his property bag when Nussbaum confronted him.

"I was slamed (sic) against the wall and to the floor ... for no reason other than trying to explane (sic) myself," Jordan wrote.

He acknowledged he "exchanged words" with Nussbaum, but Jordan's mother, Pennie Tackett, of Taylor Mill, said Nussbaum was retaliating against her son because he complained about Nussbaum the day before.

In that complaint, Jordan said that Nussbaum, while driving inmates back to the jail from the courthouse, was braking the vehicle repeatedly, causing inmates to bounce around in the back.

Nussbaum started working for the Kenton County Detention Center in 2008 and was assigned to the jail's court team in 2011.

He got several positive evaluations but over the years was reprimanded for tardiness; for arguing with a police officer at the Covington F.O.P Lodge; and for interfering with a Dayton, Kentucky, police investigation that involved his brother.

In 2013, Nussbaum was suspended without pay for 10 days after a fist fight with another deputy.

In 2017, he was arrested in Florence for driving under the influence of alcohol. An evaluation from that same year notes he was "quick to go defensive and argue with others."

In June of this year, Nussbaum was given a written warning after he failed to turn on his body camera to record an incident with an inmate.

Jordan, who has struggled with addiction for several years, was in jail on a meth-possession charge and was in the process of being released to go to a treatment program.

Tackett, his mom, said she took Jordan straight from the jail to the hospital, where he got stitches. Jordan is now at Transitions Inc. of Northern Kentucky, a residential treatment center in Falmouth.

"I'm so angry. And sad," Tackett said. "This just didn't have to happen."

[Andrea]

Black security guard wanted to be a cop — then police mistakenly killed him, pastor says

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article221526770.html

For Patricia Hill, the pastor of Purposed Hill in Chicago, the police killing of 26-year-old Jemel Roberson is especially hard to understand.

That’s because Roberson, along with being a musician for nearby churches, had dreamed of being a police officer, Hill told WGN-TV. He was working at Manny’s Blue Room, a bar in Robbins, Illinois, as an armed security guard when shots rang out early Sunday morning, she said.

“The very people that he wanted to be family with took his life,” Hill told WGN-TV.

When police arrived to help, they found Roberson armed with a gun and on top of another patron at the bar as he tried to stop the fight until authorities arrived, witness Adam Harris told Fox32.

“The security guard that got killed, he caught somebody and had his knee on him the whole time,” Harris said, according to Fox32. “Just waiting on the police to get there. I guess when the police got there, they probably thought he was one of the bad guys, cause he had his gun on the guy and they shot him.”

But Harris told WGN-TV that “everybody” tried to warn the responding officers that Roberson was a security guard who was trying to subdue a suspect — and not a threat.

“Everybody was screaming out ‘security, he was a security guard,” Harris told the outlet, “and they still did their job and saw a black man with a gun and basically killed him.”

Sophia Ansari, a spokeswoman for the Cook County sheriff’s office, told The Chicago Sun-Times that officers first got word of gunfire at the bar sometime after 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. Four people had been shot inside the bar after an argument had broken out, police say, and a responding officer from the Midlothian Police Department fired at Roberson.

He later died at a nearby hospital, according to CBS Chicago, while the four others are being treated for their injuries.

The Midlothian Police Department told The Chicago Sun-Times in a statement that Illinois State Police are investigating the shooting.

“It is the policy of the Midlothian Police Department to utilize the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Task Force for any officer-involved shootings so we can ensure transparency and maintain public trust,” Midlothian police said, according to the newspaper.

As that investigation continues, some have questions about whether this could have been prevented.

Walter Turner, a pastor at New Spiritual Light Baptist Church in Chicago, said he shared a good relationship with Roberson, who played the organ at his church, according to WLS. He expressed confusion at 26-year-old’s sudden killing.

“How in the world does the security guard get shot by police?” Turner said, according to WLS. “A young man that was literally doing his job and now he’s gone.”

In 2012, 31 percent of the people killed by police officers in the U.S. were black — even though they make up just 13 percent of the overall population, according to an analysis of FBI data from Vox.

[Andrea]

Leaked video: Brusly officer slams middle school student twice; police chief shocked

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_61780be0-e867-11e8-a178-472292a1bc31.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twi tter&utm_campaign=user-share

Video footage of a police officer wrestling with a 14-year-old Brusly Middle School student last month has leaked in the midst of a Louisiana State Police investigation into allegations of excessive use of force by that officer and one other, authorities said Wednesday.

The footage shows former Brusly Police Officer Anthony "Kip" Dupre, who at the time had recently become the school resource officer, wrestling with the student and slamming him to the ground twice in the school's office as school staff watched on Oct. 5.

A top police official in Brusly said Dupre later claimed the student had reached for his pistol during the struggle, and the video appears to show Dupre handing his holstered weapon to a school staffer to get it clear of the melee on the floor of the school's administrative office.

WAFB broadcast the surveillance video of the incident Wednesday evening, saying it had been sent to the television station by an anonymous source.

Brusly Police Chief Jonathan Lefeaux said his officers obtained the school office surveillance video Oct. 8 or 9 and, once he saw it, decided to turn it over to Louisiana State Police for a possible investigation.

"Once I seen the video, I said, 'Oh, Lord,' … you know, so that's when I called them to look at it," Lefeaux said.

WAFB reported the State Police investigation is nearing completion, but Lefeaux told The Advocate he could not speak to that. Trooper Bryan Lee, spokesman for State Police Troop A, said the investigation "is still ongoing."

Tony Clayton, chief felony prosecutor for the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, said the office plans to bring the incident before a West Baton Rouge Parish grand jury no matter what the State Police probe finds.

"The optics to this one are bad, and I'm going to put it before the public and let them make the determination what to do with it," Clayton said Wednesday night.

Citing anonymous sources, WAFB's report says that the student later admitted to reaching for the officer's gun and that the student had previously fought with other officers on at least two occasions.

Lefeaux told The Advocate he was familiar with prior incidents related to the teen that happened outside the school but didn't share more details.

Lefeaux said Officer Dupre had originally been called to the school office the morning of Oct. 5 while he was heading to work. The youth was reportedly acting out and wanting to go home, Lefeaux said.

WAFB reported the student was trying to make a phone call to be picked up after getting into an argument with the vice principal.

Though the school surveillance camera appears to be mounted near the ceiling, a full view of the scuffle is blocked by the office's front desk. The officer and student appear to be on the ground below the front desk for much of the struggle, with only Dupre's head, shoulders, arms and the youth's feet visible for long stretches in the five-minute video.

In one, roughly 30-second period, however, Dupre can be seen rapidly thrusting his right shoulder and arm up and down apparently toward the youth, as if punching him, while the much larger man had the teen pinned to the ground. Lefeaux estimated Dupre is about 6-feet 2-inches tall and pushing 300 pounds.

Seconds after the right arm jabs, Dupre can be seen passing a gun back behind himself with his right hand to a school employee, who put the gun behind the front desk and away from the fray.

Dupre then appears to speak on his police radio just seconds before getting the teen in a headlock, lifting him upside down so his legs and feet were pointing up in the air and whipping the teen's body back around to the ground.

Dupre and the second officer, Dan Cipriano, who arrived near the end of the struggle, eventually get the student in handcuffs and escort him out of the office.

Dupre, who has about two decades of law enforcement experience, and Cipriano were initially placed on paid leave last month but resigned last week, Lefeaux said.

Lefeaux said he had asked for the officers' resignations because he believes the nature of the incident would have made it hard for them to continue to work in the community. Both men had been with the police department in this West Baton Rouge community for about three years.

Lefeaux added neither officer had his body camera on during the incident for reasons that remain unclear.

The police chief said he didn't know the student's status at the school. Attempts to reach school system officials Wednesday night were unsuccessful.

[Andrea]

KSP trooper accused of punching man remains on duty, but investigation remains hidden

http://www.wdrb.com/story/39491542/ksp-trooper-accused-of-punching-civilian-remains-on-duty-but-details-of-investigation-stay-hidden

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Kentucky State Police trooper accused of punching road construction workers is still on the job and facing a federal lawsuit, but state police won’t release details about its investigation of the incident.

The workers say Trooper Anthony Harrison drove too fast toward their work zone near Fort Knox late one night in September 2017, adding that he stopped his personal car abruptly, confronted the workers and started arguing.

They also said Harrison lunged for one of their phones and punched one of them. Four of the workers then pinned him on the pavement until police arrived. Much of the incident was caught on cellphone video.

Two of the workers said Harrison was angry about not seeing the crew and their equipment in a closed-off and marked traffic lane. He was off-duty at the time.

Harrison was not charged with a traffic violation or a crime. Instead, after an internal investigation, Harrison was suspended without pay for four days. He’s since transferred to Bowling Green, where he remains a state trooper.

Earlier this month, WDRB News obtained a memo closing the internal investigation that stated charges of “conduct unbecoming” were substantiated.

In spite of a request under the Kentucky Open Records Act from WDRB News last month for the full internal investigation, KSP only provided the disposition of the investigation and no other details.

“Full IA investigations are not available for release per open records,” KSP Spokesman Josh Lawson said. “The complaint and the final disposition is what is provided.”

Other agencies, such as Louisville Metro Police, do provide full investigative files after the disposition of the investigation.

Harrison is also facing a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by three of the workers involved in the incident. The lawsuit alleges that Harrison punched workers multiple times.

An attorney for Harrison could not be reached for comment.

The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.