By Russ Bynum
Associated Press
August 19, 2020
SAVANNAH, Ga. —
A white police officer who slammed a Black man to the ground and broke
his wrist denies wrongdoing, saying he mistakenly believed the man had
an outstanding arrest warrant and used force because the man resisted,
the officer’s attorneys said in a legal filing.
Antonio
Arnelo Smith filed suit in federal court in June against Valdosta
police Lt. Billy Wheeler, as well as other officers and city officials,
saying they used excessive force and violated his civil rights.
The
lawsuit was filed amid a national outcry over police brutality against
people of color, sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd in
Minneapolis.
Police body camera
video of the Feb. 8 encounter in Valdosta, near the Georgia-Florida
state line, shows Smith handing his driver’s license to a Black officer
and talking cooperatively when Wheeler walks up behind him, wraps him in
a bear hug and slams him face-first to the ground.
“Oh
my God, you broke my wrist!” Smith, 46, screams as two more white
officers arrive and handcuff him on the ground. When an officer tells
Smith he’s being arrested on an outstanding warrant, he’s immediately
corrected by the first officer: They’ve got the wrong man.
The officers let Smith go and he declined to wait for an ambulance, walking away clutching his wrist.
Wheeler’s actions
“were objectively reasonable” and did not deprive Smith of any
constitutional rights, attorneys James Thagard and Matthew Lawrence said
in a court filing Tuesday.
They
also noted, as did lawyers for Valdosta’s mayor and police chief in a
separate legal filing, that no disciplinary action was taken against
Wheeler. In fact, his attorneys said, the police department promoted
Wheeler from sergeant to lieutenant at some point after Smith’s injury.
According
to an incident report, Valdosta police encountered Smith while
responding to a report that a man was harassing customers and asking for
money outside a drug store. Officers simultaneously found two suspects
nearby who fit the description. Officers questioning one of the men
learned he had an outstanding arrest warrant. The other was Smith.
Body
camera video shows Smith talking cooperatively with one of the officers
when Wheeler walks up silently behind Smith, grabs his right wrist and
pins both of his arms to his sides in a bear hug. Wheeler orders Smith
to put his pinned hands behind his back, then slams Smith to the ground a
few seconds later.
The
video shows that Smith’s treatment by police was “a travesty,”
Nathaniel Haugabrook, one of Smith’s attorneys, said last month.
Wheeler’s attorneys
said in their court filing that Wheeler acted “believing (Smith) was the
person with the outstanding warrants for his arrest.” They also said
the takedown was justified because Smith was resisting.
When
Wheeler grabbed Smith’s wrist he “felt (Smith) tense up and begin to
pull away from Wheeler,” the attorneys wrote, and Wheeler then
“encircled (Smith) with his arms and gave (Smith) room to put his hands
behind his back as he was being instructed to do.”
They said Wheeler took Smith to the ground because he “continued to press his arms outward against Wheeler’s.”
Smith’s
lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeks unspecified monetary damages. In a
letter sent to Valdosta officials seeking a settlement before the
lawsuit was filed, Smith’s attorneys asked for $700,000.
1 comment:
They may as well write the check.
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