Posted on 02/16/2012 2:42:51 PM PST by nickcarraway
A Seattle police officer has been caught on tape talking about "making up" evidence while two wrongly arrested men sit in jail. It's the latest shocker uncovered by a KOMO 4 Problem Solver investigation into the Seattle Police Department's vanishing dashcam videos.
Josh Lawson and Christopher Franklin filed a claim against the city Monday for excessive force and wrongful arrest.
The two were arrested at gunpoint on November 16, 2010 and said the incident changed their lives forever.
"I thought I was gonna die," Lawson said about that night.
Franklin said it was "the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced."
Both men said they suffered facial bruises and swelling after one was kicked and the other man-handled into the pavement while being arrested. But then listen to what an officer says on an audio recording after he takes the two to holding cells: "Well, you're going to jail for robbery that's all."
You then hear Franklin ask, "for robbery?" And the officer responds, "Yeah, I'm gonna make stuff up."
Franklin believed him.
"He showed me that he has the power to do whatever he wanted that night," he said. "He has a badge, and all we can do is nothing."
We watched the partial video of their arrest together with Lawson and Franklin. Neither man has a criminal record and they were not charged with anything after the arrest. They both work full-time and go to school. But the night of their arrest they were in the neighborhood near Seattle Center, several blocks away from where an assault was reported.
In a 911 call, a witness described those assailants: "It was two tall, skinny African Americans."
Lawson is six feet tall, and Franklin is just five feet nine inches tall.
The person who called 911 to report the attack told a dispatcher the assailants "were both wearing jeans."
But in police booking photos Lawson is wearing white sweat pants.
A booking photo shows that Franklin's jeans are allowed to fall to his knees after his shoes are taken away, and at the scene an officer pulls Franklin's hood up over his head.
"I felt like he was making me look like the part," Franklin said.
"These guys are guilty of being black in Seattle," said attorney Lizanne Padula, who represents Lawson and Franklin. She believes if they'd been white "I think the most that would have happened with those kids police officer would have rolled down his window and said, 'hey, were you guys over in this area?'"
But Officer Brad Richardson, the arresting officer, never questions the two about an assault. Instead, Richardson makes what's called a felony stop, taking cover behind his car door with his gun drawn.
In a "Use of Force" report filled out after the arrest, Richardson wrote, "both males ignored his commands to stop and continued walking right toward him."
Franklin and Lawson say that's crazy -- that there's no way they'd keep walking toward a cop who had a drawn gun.
"We got on the ground and we froze," Franklin said.
Lawson said he was terrified. "I thought I was gonna be murdered in cold blood."
We showed Seattle Police Sergeant Sean Whitcomb the arrest video, and he admits the 'make stuff up' comment was inappropriate. But he says the department's Office of Professional Accountability investigated the complaint and exonerated the officer.
"I can tell you we take (complaints) seriously but people have to believe that and they have to trust the system they have to trust the process," Whitcomb said.
Another problem: none of the arrest is caught on tape -- only the aftermath, once the two are on the ground in handcuffs, with Lawson's angry questions of why Officer Richardson kicked him in the face, which Richardson disputes saying he only "kicked him in the chest."
For more than a year the KOMO 4 Problem Solvers fought to get access to the Seattle Police Department's video database, knowing that dash cam videos could play a critical role in citizen oversight of the troubled department. We are now suing SPD for what we believe is a violation of the Public Records Act. Our investigation uncovered, among other things, that the department had lost tens of thousands of dash cam videos.
Attorney Padula contacted us, wondering if her clients were among that group.
"It wasn't really until I was able to communicate with you and your knowledge of what's out there and what the videos mean and your investigation that it was like 'oh, wait, there's not just one video that we don't get - there's more.'"
We discovered at least three other dash cam videos exist of the Lawson/Franklin arrest. But none show Officer Richardson during the critical time period, when he had Lawson and Franklin at gunpoint and later kicked Lawson.
We asked Whitcomb if the department was going to hold officers accountable when dashboard cameras aren't turned on.
"We do, we actually do, look at our OPA reports," Whitcomb said. But when we reminded him it didn't happen in this case, he said, "well maybe not in that case, but there's other cases."
Attorney Padula's take on the lack of dash cam video? "I think it's reprehensible, to me there's no excuse for that."
We've learned that the arrest video could have been salvaged from the hard drive in Officer Richardson's dash cam system, but wasn't.
I see a two week suspension, with pay, in this guys future...if I know anything about Seattle.
Revenue collectors are more concerned about collecting revenue than preventing crime nowadays.
Cops like him not only they should be fired but tried for a felony abuse of power !
Vee haf vays of makink you trust ze zystem! Those who have insufficient trust in the system will be arrested, convicted and maybe tried.
Stupid Police officer. Looks to me like they had every reason to detain the two men for questioning, but then felt it necessary to go overboard and actually rough them up.
Two tall black men at night assault somebody, then police see two tallish black men sometime later near the vicinity. Cut and dry reasonable suspicion to me even though the descriptions weren’t an exact match. They often aren’t.
WA Ping
Not good in light of the other recent problems here.
Cops shouldn’t even have access to a switch that lets them turn the dash camera off. Nor should any confessions not on videotape be allowed in court.
I used to trust police officers implicitly, but I am older and wiser now. Most of them do a difficult job with complete honesty and bravery, and deserve our thanks, but unfortunately, we are finding out that there are just too many bad apples and they are too frequently protected by their brethren.
Operators at the station will be able to provide backup and assistance (looking up plates, facial recognition, geeky stuff the officer on the street shouldn't be bothered with) along with recording everything that occurs.
Bad apples would quickly be forced out and citizens will finally feel comfortable knowing an officer can't go rogue or lie with impunity anymore. The officer will be afforded protection as well from litigious abusers along with having "eyes" in the back of the head and never being alone.
I was in traffic court with my daughter and watched a case ahead of us, that made be just shake my head and say to my daughter, “driving while Black.” The officer didn’t even bother to show up and the ticket was dismissed.
The same thing happened to my daughter, who also had been written a ridiculous ticket.
I was in traffic court with my daughter and watched a case ahead of us, that made be just shake my head and say to my daughter, “driving while Black.” The officer didn’t even bother to show up and the ticket was dismissed.
The same thing happened to my daughter, who also had been written a ridiculous ticket.
It should be an automatic FELONY and TERMONATION for ANY COP to even touch his video camera, let alone turn it off. With ttha being said, why anyone would ever believe anything a COP says is beyond me.
I think these days that more and more folks are coming to the conclusion that if they don’t have it on film, it didn’t happen. I couldn’t trust a cop to testify to the time of day without having footage that noted it.
I had a black friend who was pulled over with her husband in Seattle. The cop accused him of drunk driving, making all kinds of noise about what kind of people they were, etc.
My friend was a doctoral student and Microsoft employee, pretty straight arrow. Her husband was a minister. Neither ever drank, and of course he was not drunk driving. I know they were pursuing suing the city, but don’t know how it was resolved.
This stuff can happen to anyone, no matter what their background, but it’s interesting that in the liberal bastion that is Seattle, this kind of garbage would go on against minorities.
I’m one to usually try to give cops the benefit of the doubt. They’ve got a tough job, one that I wouldn’t do for double or triple the money. Here in Washington I think most police departments and sheriffs are pretty good. The State Patrol especially, typically stands out as a top-notch professional outfit.
But the Seattle police have some kind of systemic problem and it goes back many years. The few interactions I’ve had with them have ~all~ been negative. Especially their marine division— really bad. I keep hearing things from my friends, and then there’s stories like this... and that disastrous WTO fiasco. In fact whenever there’s -any- sort of protest-gone-wild they’re worse than useless. I don’t know what they think they’re doing out there but protecting and serving isn’t part of it.
You guys ever heard of sarcasm? Ever wonder why they chose not to play the conversation before or after that comment from the dash camera? Stop to realize it was sweeps week for TV?
Jeez....we expect cops to be human then when they make a sarcastic comment we get bent out of shape because they are human.
There is a reason why violent crime is skyrocketing in Seattle so far this year...
Bring it.
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