Whipped Cream Difficulties

I wish I could explain why the Otto Zehm story makes me so angry. After all, The Agitator is on my blog roll; surely I get my fill of police abuse stories from there? Why is this one different from all the other ones?

I don’t know. Maybe what makes me so angry isn’t just that a police officer beat a defenseless unarmed man to death and tried to lie about it, but that his superiors – from the chief of police and the mayor on down – tried to cover for him, and are still in denial that he actually did anything wrong.

But surely there are other things going on in Spokane, Washington, right?

Yes. Yes, there are.

A jury on Friday awarded more than $700,000 to a Spokane police detective they say was wrongly fired and retaliated against by Chief Anne Kirkpatrick.

The gentleman in question, Detective Jay Mehring, was arrested in March of 2007 on charges that he’d threatened to kill his wife (apparently, they were divorcing, and the split was not friendly). At that time, he was placed in “unpaid layoff” status. That’s fair, right? You don’t want someone facing criminal charges working as a police officer.

Detective Mehring went to trial in October of 2008, and was acquitted of the charge. The Spokane city attorney recommended at that time that Detective Mehring be reinstated and given back pay.

He’s since been reinstated but is on paid administrative leave in what his lawyer, Bob Dunn, told jurors was retaliation for his lawsuit.

Here’s an additional tidbit for you:

Before deliberations began, [Judge Kathleen] O’Connor issued a partial verdict in Mehring’s favor, ruling that the City of Spokane committed a violation when it laid Mehring off pending the resolution of his felony charge. Jurors then ruled that the city violated Mehring’s rights to due process, and that the city of Spokane and Kirkpatrick intentionally or recklessly inflicted distress.

But here’s what really set me off:

Marlene Feist, spokeswoman for the City of Spokane, said the verdict likely will be appealed.

She said Kirkpatrick “is trying to hold her officers to high standards, so we’re supporting her in that effort.”

High standards? High standards?! Let me remind you what Chief Kirkpatrick said:

“Based on all the information and evidence I have reviewed, I have determined that Officer Karl Thompson acted consistent with the law.”

And this was after the release of the security video that contradicted Thompson’s story. Chief Kirkpatrick knew Thompson was a liar, and knew the Feds were investigating. But she continued to support Thompson, because beating an unarmed man to death apparently doesn’t violate her “high standards”.

Some three dozen Spokane Police officers and other supporters stood when someone yelled “Present Arms” and saluted Thompson as he was led away by U.S. Marshals without being handcuffed.

(Previously.)

Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. of the Spokane, Washington police department was convicted in Federal court yesterday of civil rights violations and obstruction of justice.

What did Officer Thompson do? He confronted a man named Otto Zehm in a convenience store. I apologize for the length of this excerpt, but I want to give you a full picture.

Prosecutors said Thompson was acting on a vague report from some teenagers who had seen Zehm behaving in an odd manner at a nearby ATM. They said they weren’t sure whether any money had been taken. It turned out Zehm was probably trying to figure out how to cash his paycheck, which was found in his pocket.

Security video from the convenience store introduced at trial showed Thompson running into the store and drawing his baton as he ran at Zehm from behind. Witnesses testified that Zehm appeared to be unaware that anyone was approaching him as he picked up the soda to purchase.

Less than 2.5 seconds after Zehm turned to see Thompson running toward him, the police officer delivered two baton blows to his head, knocking him backward to the floor, according to the prosecution and witness testimony.

“Witnesses testified that Thompson then stood over the victim and fired Taser probes down into [his] chest as he was in the fetal position on the floor beneath him,” the prosecution said in a statement. “The victim never returned to his feet, but Thompson continued to deliver overhand baton blows, including a final flurry of seven baton strikes in eight seconds.”

Several other officers arrived as backup, and Zehm was hogtied on the floor, his face covered by a plastic mask, purportedly to keep him from spitting at the officers, according to court documents. Within minutes, he stopped breathing. He was revived and hospitalized but never regained consciousness. He was pronounced dead two days later. The cause of death was lack of oxygen to his brain.

Let me repeat that. Thompson hit Zehm twice in the head, knocked him to the ground, tased him while he was down and in a fetal position, and then hit him seven times in eight seconds while he was down and in a fetal position.

But wait! It gets better!

Store security videos contradicted Thompson’s version of the encounter, but Spokane police detectives still cleared him of any criminal wrongdoing and Spokane City Hall continued to back his version of events even as evidence mounted to the contrary.

The FBI later opened its own investigation, leading to grand jury indictments against Thompson in 2009 on charges of excessive force and lying to investigators. Spokane City Hall continued to back Thompson’s version of events, even after learning that Assistant Chief Jim Nicks told federal investigators that Thompson had violated department policy in the encounter with Zehm.

Here’s a timeline of events from the Spokane Spokesman-Review. Reading over it:

• The police initially claimed Zehm had been previously arrested for assaulting a police officer. They retracted this assertion six days later.
• “Thompson describes Zehm as having refused orders to drop a plastic soda bottle, prompting the use of a police baton to ward off an expected assault.” With a plastic soda bottle. “Look out! He’s got a broken milk carton!”
• Detective Terry Ferguson, who investigated the case, did not turn over information to county prosecutors, and omitted information from her report.
• “Zehm’s fingerprints were not found” on the plastic soda bottle the police claimed he was wielding.
• “After learning that some Spokane media outlets are pursuing footage of additional security camera angles, [Acting police chief Jim] Nicks instructs Ferguson to review the tapes again. Within the hour, Ferguson tells Nicks that a fourth camera angle shows Zehm holding a Pepsi bottle, which did not appear in any other camera angle. The video shows Zehm on his back and using the bottle to protect his face from Thompson’s blows.”

And Thompson had the support of the mayor and police chief (not Jim Nicks: just wait):

I’ve looked into the details surrounding this incident,” [Mayor Mary] Verner says in an interview with The Spokesman-Review, “and I just don’t think the behavior of the officer rose to a criminal behavior.” Says [Spokane Police Chief Anne] Kirkpatrick: Thompson “has my unequivocal support. Based on all the information and evidence I have reviewed, I have determined that Officer Karl Thompson acted consistent with the law.”

On the other hand,

Aug. 5, 2011: Documents are filed in U.S. District Court signed by now-Assistant Chief Nicks indicating that Thompson violated several use-of-force policies in his initial contact with Zehm and that the department’s investigation into the fatality was poorly done.

It sure looks to me like Thompson and company beat a man to death for no reason, and then the Spokane PD and city of Spokane tried as hard as they could to cover it up; it took the Feds becoming involved for the whole dirty story to come to light.

The prosecution is apparently asking for six to eight years in prison for Officer Thompson, who is 64 years old. Otto Zehm was 36 years old when the Spokane PD murdered him.

Three stories from the NYT:

1. The Orleans Parish district attorney’s office has a problem. A big problem. A Supreme Court level problem. And this isn’t their first go-around at the rodeo: they’ve been before the Court twice in two years. What’s their major malfunction?
   

   Each of the cases involves charges of prosecutorial misconduct, and in particular the failure to turn over crucial evidence to the defense, a constitutional violation that defense lawyers, former prosecutors and four Supreme Court justices have said was at least at one time “pervasive” in the district attorney’s office here. In the case last year, one of the key issues was not whether the misconduct took place, but just how widespread it was.

   …

   The Orleans Public Defenders office, in a brief supporting Mr. Smith, said that 28 convictions obtained by the district attorney’s office were later ruled to have been tainted by violations of this kind.
   The district attorney’s office disagrees, saying the correct number is 13.

2. Todd Remis didn’t like his wedding photos. So he decided to sue the photographer. Fair enough, right? Well:
   • The wedding took place in 2003. Mr. Remis waited six years to sue.
   • Mr. Remis doesn’t just want his money back: he wants an additional $48,000 to “recreate the entire wedding and fly the principals to New York so the celebration can be re-shot by another photographer”
   • “Re-enacting the wedding may pose a particular challenge, the studio pointed out, because the couple divorced and the bride is believed to have moved back to her native Latvia.”

3. “This spate of unrelated corruption prosecutions, and what some see as the Internal Affairs Bureau’s spotty record of uncovering major cases involving crooked officers, raise questions about the department’s ability to police itself, said nearly a dozen current and former prosecutors who have handled corruption cases, as well as some current and former Internal Affairs supervisors and investigators.”

Edited to add: I don’t get this. When I preview this post, the numbered list shows as a numbered list (1,2,3) and the nested unordered list shows with bullets instead of numbers, exactly the way it should show. But when I look at it in Firefox, I get two nested numbered lists. Anyone see anything different in other browsers?

How bad does a police department have to get before that’s the only thing left to do?

Story #1:

…nearly 50 sworn officers in New Orleans have been booted from the force in the past 18 months or have resigned or retired while under investigation or awaiting punishment.

…

Every 10 days on average so far this year, an NOPD officer or higher-ranking cop either is fired or leaves the force while under investigation, according to records from the department’s Public Integrity Bureau.

Story #2:

As 16 police officers were arraigned at State Supreme Court in the Bronx, incensed colleagues organized by their union cursed and taunted prosecutors and investigators, chanting “Down with the D.A.” and “Ray Kelly, hypocrite.”

…

Members of the news media were prevented by court officers from walking down the hallway where more than 100 off-duty police officers had gathered outside the courtroom.

The assembled police officers blocked cameras from filming their colleagues, in one instance grabbing lenses and shoving television camera operators backward.

The unsealed indictments contained more than 1,600 criminal counts, the bulk of them misdemeanors having to do with making tickets disappear as favors for friends, relatives and others with clout. But they also outlined more serious crimes, related both to ticket-fixing and drugs, grand larceny and unrelated corruption. Four of the officers were charged with helping a man get away with assault.

Edited to add: Knew I left something out. Hattips: David Codrea for the NOPD link, TJIC’s retweet of Declan McCullagh for the NYPD link.

Fifteen police officers began surrendering to the authorities in the Bronx at about midnight on Thursday to face criminal charges after a long-running grand jury investigation into the widespread practice of fixing traffic tickets for colleagues, family members and friends, people with knowledge of the matter said. A 16th officer was arrested earlier Thursday night.

Ten of the officers involved are “officials” in the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (aka the NYPD police union).

About midnight Thursday, some of the accused officers began arriving at Central Booking at Bronx Criminal Court, at 215 East 161st Street. About 60 off-duty officers crowded in the main foyer to support their comrades. They formed a human wall, four-deep, between reporters and the some of the accused officers as they came out of a hallway. At three different times, when three of the accused men showed their faces, the crowd burst into applause. The accused men waved and pumped their fists in the air. An official came out of the hallway and stared down the crowd, drawing insults. A woman told the assembled officers to meet in the morning to support the accused officers at their arraignments.

…

On Thursday afternoon, the union sent a text message to 400 of its delegates encouraging them to fill the courtroom in the Bronx with officers in a show of support for the implicated union members. The idea was for those delegates to spread the message to rank-and-file members, the person said.

(Hattip: TJIC on the Twitter. Though oddly enough, NYT links on his Twitter feed always come up with the NYT asking me to subscribe. That doesn’t happen with freeNYTimes or other Twitter feeds.)