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Posted by: kwflatbed

By Patrick McGreevy and Richard Winton, Times Staff Writers
The Los Angeles Times

The LAPD on Monday was grappling with another controversial videotaped arrest, this one showing an officer shoving a handcuffed suspect into a patrol car, then leaning in with a can of pepper spray to douse the man's face before shutting the door.
The arrest occurred last year on the Venice boardwalk and was the subject of a lengthy LAPD investigation. But the tape was not revealed publicly until Monday by an attorney in an interview with The Times.
A source familiar with the investigation said top LAPD brass were "livid" after reviewing the incident, which also prompted a prominent police watchdog to call on the department to develop strict rules on when officers can use pepper spray on handcuffed suspects.
The officer who used the pepper spray resigned from the department before the investigation was completed. After reviewing the tape, the city attorney's office dropped charges that the suspect resisted arrest and committed battery on a police officer.
The suspect is identified in police reports as Benjamin Barker, a transient who frequents the Venice beach area.
Barker was arrested after getting into a scuffle with a merchant on the boardwalk. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery on the shopkeeper.
The videotape shows Barker in handcuffs as he is bent over a patrol car. As the officer pushes Barker into the car, Barker can be heard saying, "Why am I going to jail?"
Once Barker is in the back seat, he starts shouting: "I can't breathe! I can't breathe! Don't spray me!"
One officer is heard saying: "He knows what's happening."
Another officer takes a pepper spray canister from his belt, shakes it and leans in to apply it to Barker's face.
The officer closes the doors of the patrol car and steps back. Barker is seen holding his face up to the car window, his features contorted in pain.
The tape has been viewed by several top LAPD officials as well as police watchdogs.
Connie Rice, chairwoman of the Police Commission's Blue Ribbon Rampart Review Panel, said she was troubled by the officer's actions and referred the tape to LAPD officials for investigation.
"I could see no justification for pepper spray," said Rice, who reviewed the tape several times. "It's a very serious use of force and you have to have a serious threat such as someone reaching for your gun. I didn't see any kind of threat from a man who was whining and annoying but not posing a threat."
The tape was also viewed by an independent monitor appointed by the federal court to oversee the LAPD after the Rampart scandal, and the monitor was concerned enough to refer it to LAPD administrators for investigation, according to several department sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Venice incident comes as the LAPD and FBI have launched investigations into another videotape showing a police officer hitting a suspect in the face several times at the end of a foot chase in Hollywood.
As in the Hollywood case, LAPD investigators focused in part on whether there were differences between what is shown on the Venice videotape and what officers later said in their arrest report.
In the arrest report, the officer described Barker as combative and said pepper spray was used after Barker spit on him once and attempted to spit on him when he was in the patrol car. The video is shot at an angle that makes it difficult to determine whether Barker spit at the officer, but there is no physical assault seen from Barker. The tape shows the officer take the pepper spray out of its holster then raise it toward Barker's face, but the actual spraying is obscured by shadows.
The officer, identified in the police report as Officer Guiterman, resigned well before the investigation was completed, and officials would not say Monday whether his departure was related to the incident.
"The officer is no longer with the department," said Mary Grady, the LAPD's communications director, adding that she would not discuss the results of a personnel investigation into those involved in the incident.
An LAPD source said the officer left the department a few months after the incident for a job out of state. The investigation into the video didn't get underway for a few more months, the source said. The video was shot by a Venice resident who turned it over to Barker's attorney.
Grady said pepper spray can be used when a suspect is deemed to be combative, and in general "spitting at an officer is deemed to be combative."
"Basically, when a suspect is uncooperative and noncompliant and combative, officers are allowed to use the spray to de-escalate a situation," she said.
But Barker's attorney and Rice said using the pepper spray was unwarranted in the case of a handcuffed suspect who did not appear to be resisting an officer's orders.
"It appears that if you … are disrespectful, they will punish you," said his attorney, John Raphling. "He is running his mouth. He is whining and crying. But he is not being aggressive or threatening to them."
In the arrest report, Guiterman said Barker sat in the back of the patrol car but with his feet on the ground outside the car.
"Barker remained rigid and took a deep breath and began to spit at me. I moved my head to the left and avoided the spit," he wrote. "If I had not moved, it would have struck me in the face. The spit landed on my right chest/armpit area."
He said Barker then cursed at him.
Fearing that Barker might spit at him or kick him, he said, he sprayed Barker twice with two one-second bursts of pepper spray.
A sergeant supervising the scene said in the initial police report that the incident had occurred as they stood at the rear door of the car. But the report was later corrected to say it took place inside the car.
For Rice, the incident is more evidence that the LAPD brass needs to tell officers to change what they do in the field.
"The LAPD needs to say 'Don't pepper-spray handcuffed suspects that are subdued just because they are mouthing off,' " Rice said.
Grady, the police spokeswoman, said the LAPD did a thorough investigation of the incident but declined to say whether any officers faced discipline.
The Venice videotape comes five days after another video showing an LAPD officer trying to restrain a suspect in Hollywood made its way to the Internet site YouTube.
The 18-second tape shows an officer punching William Cardenas at least five times as he and his partner try to restrain and handcuff the man, a suspected gang member.
In a jailhouse interview with KABC-TV Channel 7 on Monday, Cardenas insisted that he never resisted arrest and said police used excessive force.
But several witnesses interviewed by the LAPD said Cardenas ran from officers and swung at them before they got him on the ground.


Copyright © 2006 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy

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Posted by: kwflatbed

L.A. Police Cleared in Pepper Spraying Incident

By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ
Associated Press Writer


A district attorney's investigation has cleared police officers of wrongdoing in a videotaped incident in which a transient in handcuffs was apparently pepper-sprayed in a police car, police Chief William Bratton said Tuesday.
The February 2005 incident came to light this week when the videotape, shot by a citizen, was released by the man's attorney.
The tape of Benjamin Barker's arrest surfaced on the heels of an 18-second video showing a Los Angeles officer repeatedly punching a suspect in the face while another officer tried to handcuff the man during a struggle on a Hollywood street on Aug. 11.
At a news conference, Bratton cited a Nov. 15, 2005, decision by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office in which prosecutors declined to file any charges against officers in the arrest of Barker, who had been in a scuffle with a Venice Beach merchant.
The officers were identified as David Guieterman, Victor Eguez and Peggy Thusing. Guieterman, seen in the video using pepper spray, left the department last year for reasons unrelated to the arrest, but remains in law enforcement, police said.
"Examination of the videotape clearly shows (the officers) did not use excessive force on Benjamin Barker, nor did they assault him under color of authority," Bratton said, quoting the decision. "The officers showed remarkable restraint and demonstrated professional courtesy to Barker despite his belligerent, threatening and combative behavior."
The tape shows Guieterman take pepper spray out of a holster, then raise it toward Barker's face, but the actual spraying is obscured by shadows.
The report found that officers arrested Barker after the merchant reported that Barker had hit him and customers.
The report, citing the videotape, says Barker resisted police efforts to put him in the police car, screaming and making a kicking motion toward an officer.
After he was placed in the car's back seat, he jumped out and lunged toward a fourth officer. Placed in the car a second time, Barker spit on the window and on Guieterman, the report says the tape shows. In response, Guieterman sprayed him twice with one-second bursts of pepper spray while Barker was in the back seat.
While being driven to jail, Barker kicked out a window, the report says.
"Barker's words and actions were resistive and obstructive," it says.
"The officers used that degree of force necessary to restrain Barker and maintain custody of him," the chief said, quoting from the decision.
Barker has since pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery on the shopkeeper.
Barker's attorney, John Raphling, called allegations that his client spit on the officer "nonsense."
"Once (Barker) is in the car, he's cuffed, hands behind his back, and he's not resisting. He's not a threat," Raphling said.
The district attorney's office also concluded that reports by two officers that said the pepper spray was administered outside the car were mistaken recollections and not intentional misstatements of fact.
The chief noted that a court commissioner who held a hearing in the separate Hollywood arrest also found the officers in that case did nothing wrong because that suspect was resisting.
Bratton said that an administrative review of the Barker incident is done and that he would decide soon about any administrative punishment.
The administrative review of the Hollywood arrest is ongoing, he said.


Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Posted by: Nightstalker

Bla bla bla.... All this means is there are more opening on the LAPD

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Posted by: Deuce

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightstalker Bla bla bla.... All this means is there are more opening on the LAPD

What a fucking loser...

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