The Detroit News – by George Hunter
Detroit — Michigan State Police will investigate an incident in which officers from a multi-jurisdictional task force were captured on video hitting and kicking a carjacking suspect.
State Police Lt. Michael Shaw confirmed the agency would conduct the probe. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy had requested state police involvement and indicated she would be “actively monitoring” the investigation, according to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.
Earlier Tuesday, the Grosse Pointe Park police chief defended how officers handled the arrest. The man was suspected of carjacking a woman and her daughter at gunpoint before leading police on a quarter-mile foot chase.
The video, which appears to have been shot by a woman Monday and posted on Facebook, shows two officers beating the man while apparently trying to handcuff him, and then issuing more blows after his hands were secured behind his back.
Grosse Pointe Park Public Safety Director David Hiller said his initial investigation indicates the officers were justified, because he said the suspect was going for his gun.
(Note: The video below contains strong language)
At about the 23-second mark of the 9-minute-and-30-second video, one officer swings at the man seven times while the other officer delivers two kicks.
“Give me your arm,” one officer orders before apparently handcuffing the man. The officer then rears back and delivers another blow.
At one point, the suspect calls upon Jesus, which seems to upset one of the officers.
“What did you say?” asked the officer, who kneels on the suspect’s back and apparently cuffs him on the back of his head.
“Jesus? You’re calling Jesus? You (expletive)! Don’t you dare. Don’t you (expletive) dare!” the officer says.
The physical response by the officers is over by the 1-minute mark of the video, after which two officers can be seen giving each other a fist bump. After appearing motionless on the ground, the suspect is eventually stood up and searched. The officers found a pistol.
“That’s a justified (expletive) whipping,” a female officer says.
Ron Craig, 26, said his mother, Emma Craig, shot the video from her front door on Plainview on Detroit’s west side. Emma Craig was not home when The Detroit News interviewed her son Tuesday afternoon.
“He was in handcuffs,” Craig said as he stood near the spot where police had the suspect on the ground. “You had him captured. He was no threat.”
“It’s not a race issue, it’s a humanitarian issue,” he said.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan in a statement on Tuesday afternoon said he reached out to Worthy after he viewed the video.
“Prosecutor Worthy has asked that the matter be handled by an independent investigation by the Michigan State Police,” Duggan wrote. “The prosecutor has indicated that she will be actively monitoring the investigation. The Detroit Police Department will cooperate fully with the Michigan State Police investigation.”
Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality Director Ron Scott called the officers’ actions “disrespectful and sacrilegious.”
“If this kind of behavior is unchecked, it will provoke more adverse reaction from the community,” Scott said. “This is not just creating distrust of police officers by the community; it’s creating a reaction on the part of the public.”
The multi-jurisdictional stolen car task force, ACTION, includes officers from Grosse Pointe Park, Detroit, Warren, Harper Woods and Highland Park and is paid for by a Grosse Pointe Park police grant.
It was not yet clear which police agencies were involved in the arrest. Earlier Tuesday, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said there may have been a DPD supervisor at the scene who could have been a witness. But in a statement later, Craig clarified that none of the officers were from Detroit. He also said he had not seen a statement released earlier by the ACTION task force that bore his name, as well those of other chiefs involved in the task force.
“There were no DPD officers at the scene at the time of the arrest and I did not intend to express any opinion on the actions of the officers involved,” Craig said in the statement.
Hiller said the incident occurred at 11 a.m. Monday on Detroit’s northwest side after police were alerted to the suspect’s whereabouts by a tracking device.
“We’re looking at it, and we believe the officers actions were proper,” Hiller said. “In effecting the arrest, they had to kick to get his arms free because he was going for his gun, which was in his waistband.
“This subject was a parole absconder wanted for an armed robbery in Detroit. He was armed with a handgun,” Hiller said.
According to Hiller, task force officers were tracking a vehicle that had been carjacked two hours earlier. In that incident, police say the suspect pointed a gun at a mother and her two children and ordered them out of the vehicle, threatening to shoot.
The officers followed the vehicle to the area of McNichols and Evergreen, where it pulled into a driveway. The officers attempted an arrest but the subject fled on foot a quarter-mile before being tackled.
“The subject resisted arrest and in an attempt to restrain him an officer deployed a Taser,” according to a police statement. “However, it failed to take effect due to the subject’s heavy clothing. The subject continue(d) to reach for the area of his waist band and refused all orders to show his hands.
“He curled up in a ball and his right hand again went under his clothing. Fearing for their safety and those in the immediate area, an officer delivered a kick to the thigh area of the subject thus allowing the other officers the ability to arrest the subject. Located in his waist band was a loaded semi-automatic handgun.”
According to the video, a search of the suspect around the 5:15 mark shows police finding the handgun on the suspect.
“There, there’s the pistol right there,” says one officer.
“They found a pistol on this guy,” said the woman recording the search. “They just took the clip out.”
Grosse Pointe Park officers took the suspect into custody after the incident.
“We have not been presented with a warrant for the carjacking case yet,” said Maria Miller, spokeswoman for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
Hiller also said Tuesday the suspect didn’t shoot at the officers.
“They were required to utilize various techniques to affect the arrest,” according to the police statement. “Due to the totality of the circumstances, we believe the actions of the officers in effecting the arrest proper. We will continue to review the incident should additional information develop.”
Grosse Pointe Park police made headlines in 2013 over a videotape incident that critics said was racially insensitive.
In November 2013, five Grosse Pointe Park police officers were suspended for two months for their involvement in the controversial videotaping of a mentally impaired African-American man.
Three grainy cellphone videos showed a man singing and making odd noises. The man said the recordings “made me feel like a fool.”
The Police Department underwent sensitivity training to focus on dealing with people with mental disorders.
GHunter@detroitnews.com
(313) 222-2134
Detroit News Staff Writer Candice Williams contributed.
Who’s mental disorders? The cops?
Pathetic state of the American police. We use to see vidios of the 3rd world police acting like this. Today to see true violence every one looks to the American police. Very sad pathetic bunch in America as police today.