Posted on 10/21/2009 5:31:18 AM PDT by marktwain
A Multnomah County jury Monday ordered the city of Portland to pay three men a total of $175,000 for a 2007 encounter with police at a downtown parking garage in which the men accused officers of battery, assault and false arrest.
The jurors found the testimony of two independent witnesses especially compelling. The witnesses, a young college couple, saw the entire episode and corroborated the stories of the three men: Harold Hammick, Ri'Chard Booth and Alex Clay.
"Justice does work," Clay said after the verdict. "The system does work."
A city attorney had argued last week during the trial that police were acting within the law when they stopped and detained the three man in the early morning after St. Patrick's Day 2007.
The confrontation ended successfully, Portland city attorney Bill Manlove said, because there were "no injuries, no gunshots, no deaths, no high-speed chases, no foot pursuit.
"Everyone went home safe," Manlove said.
But the three young men claimed they were frightened and confused about why they had been stopped by officers who, they say, never offered an explanation.
Greg Kafoury, the attorney for the men, said that the city's defense had invoked an ugly stereotype of young black men as belligerent, confrontational and profane.
All three men have clean records, with no history of violence. Clay is a graduate of Portland State University and works with at-risk youth at Head Start. Booth assembles mattresses, and Hammick is a computer technician.
Hammick, Booth and Clay had come downtown to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Portland's entertainment district. According to Kafoury, Hammick and Booth had returned to an SUV in the parking garage at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Alder Street when they encountered the police. Clay showed up later after stopping at a pizza parlor.
The men sued the city for $300,000 for what they described as 40 minutes of terror in which they were held at gunpoint while officers searched their car and checked to see whether the handgun Hammick was carrying was stolen.
The city tried to portray Hammick as an angry man with a gun who may have been involved in an altercation on the street before the encounter with police.
Officer Leo Besner testified that there was a big crowd on the street that morning, shouting and getting ready to fight. One group wore white T-shirts, and another group wore black T-shirts.
Besner said he saw Hammick on the street, running in a white T-shirt when the two groups were shouting at each other. He later came across him in the parking garage in the SUV about 2:45 a.m.
Early in the encounter, Hammick told Besner he had a gun and handed over his concealed weapon permit, Besner testified.
After Hammick indicated the gun was in his waistband, Besner drew his weapon and took a half-step back. Two other officers on the scene also pulled their weapons.
A short time later, Besner said, he cut Hammick's seat belt because he didn't want Hammick to reach near the gun to unbuckle the safety harness. Then, he told Hammick to get out of the car and took the handgun.
Hammick, Besner testified, was "definitely unhappy ... From the get-go, he was argumentative."
But Kafoury told a different story. All three men, he said, were wrenched from the SUV and handcuffed.
Kafoury also said that Besner punched Hammick twice in the groin and questioned his manhood during the confrontation, accusations the officer denied.
"We know that the plaintiffs were not confrontational," Kafoury told the jury during his closing. "The word they used more often than any other was 'please.'"
Hammick, he added, had tears streaming down his face.
The men also said that police told other people in the parking garage to move along, Kafoury said in closing arguments, "because they did not want witnesses."
The two witnesses who scrunched down in their car seat so they could watch the confrontation said all three men pleaded with passers-by not to leave them alone with police.
Those witnesses were a key to the jury's verdict, said forewoman Karen Nootenboom. She also said jurors felt as if Hammick, Booth and Clay "were at the wrong place at the wrong time," Nootenboom said, "and seemed to be targeted."
Race was discussed only briefly during deliberations, she added, as jurors wondered whether white men would have been treated the same.
Besner has been at the center of controversy before. In 2005, while he was a sniper with the Special Emergency Reaction Team, Besner shot a suicidal man who was holding a weapon in the backyard of a duplex. The man was on the phone with a police negotiator at the time. The city paid the man's family $500,000.
Detective Mary Wheat, a Police Bureau spokeswoman, said after the verdict that "Officers were concerned about the public's safety and their own safety and making sure nobody got hurt. And no one did."
If it were not for those good citizens, those three young black men might have ended up like Besmer’s last victim (the one that cost the city a half million dollars).
Sooooo looks like Besmer’s tally is up to $675,000 now, maybe he’ll reach a cool million before the city decides he’s too expensive to keep on the payroll.
F*ckin’ damn Nazis, let’s hear from the ‘cops are right no matter what’ crowd, they’ll be along shortly.
‘Officer Friendly’ my ass.
Just part of the 95% who give the other 5% a bad name
Police are becoming as much of a threat to the general populace as they are to criminals. I know it is only a small percentage of them, but where I used to trust the police implicitly, I am becoming more and more skeptical of them and concerned about the possibility of false arrest...give a punk a badge and gun and you’ve got a real problem just waiting to happen.
they’ll be along shortly to accuse whoever shines the light of reason on their "heroes'" actions of being criminals, druggies, etc. Just watch.
And let there be no mistaking where I stand, I support local police WHEN they are operating within the Constitution of the United States and obeying the Law.
Unfortunately, the numbers of rogue cops have increased almost exponentially, and because of the traditional ‘Blue Code (or Wall) of Silence’, seldom is anything done about the misfits who can’t handle themselves properly.
Only if and when the good cops purge their ranks of the criminal element that operate with impunity in any damn way they see fit, will their deteriorating public image improve.
they did get away with it, the Taxpayers were punished.
Why haven’t they been arrested and prosecuted for KIDNAPPING, remember what OJ is in jail for right now, same thing the way I see it. LIFE in PRISON for the thugs. I personally believe that anyone REQUIRED to Take an oath to.... Should be automatically jailed for making deliberate false statements. what the Jury needs to do is File Criminal Charges against the Jack Booted Thugs with the Attorney General, after all They are the sole judges of Fact in all TRIALS. Based on their judgement of the facts in this case they have determined that the Police are Guilty and should be unanimous in their PLEA for CRIMINAL CHARGES against All Involved, maybe even the DA for CONSPIRACY. The State will be REQUIRED to PROSECUTE.
3 officers with guns trained on a single individual, who presents his concealed weapons permit - yet the badged 'Punks' determine that it's faster and safer to destroy someone's personal property, instead of pressing a button? Good thing these young men didn't have a pet in the car; I am positive the police would have felt it necessary to execute a pet in front of these young men. Just to be safe, right?
I can only imagine you bash all minorities when one does something wrong. Right? Then you print something like, “soon the minorities are always right crowd will be along.” Right?
And let there be no misunderstand of my position. I consider every one of the police who engage in these actions to be worse than common criminals because they are betraying a public trust and operating under the color of law, and further I consider every cop who is aware of actions like these, but fails to arrest his "brother officer" equally complicit in the crime.
That reminds me of a time when my husband got stopped and I was behind him in another vehicle, I stopped too and the cop made me leave, it must be SOP...make sure there are no witnesses. I would stay today, I know a lot more about my rights than I did then.
I’m not sure that the number of rogue cops has increased, but rather our awareness of a problem that has been with us for eons has increased ever since the Rodney King videos made handicams and picture pnones a savant vehicle of truth and emboldened a watchful citizenry to “turn the trick” on the surveilance state. Technology is inherently democratizing. When a bulletproof lie detector apparatus becomes available, you’ll see a great chugging consternation settle upon those forces of bureaucracy trying to play fear and ignorance like a royal flush.
“Cops” is a blanket term. “Minorities” is a blanket term. If some are bad, point it out, but dont blame everyone.
pretty soon itll be damn dangerous to accidently witness a leo stop...
Wonder how much they would have gotten in a "real" arrest?
I’m not blaming everyone. I’m blaming the cops that are now on the hook for $175,000, one in particular costing the city $675,000.
Don’t worry about it.
This isn’t much of a surprise. Portland’s had a history of having really bad police chiefs, current one is no exception.
When incompetence and corruption dominate the highest levels, it’s hard to get rid of.
Dont throw a handgernade on the table and then tell people not to worry about it. If you need attention, get a sandwich board and stand on the street corner selling pizza.
Get a life.
Q - Why does the St. John’s River flow north?
A - ‘Cause Georgia just sucks!
BWHAHAHHAAA!!!
GO GATORS!
Now I understand, I didnt realize I was dealing with a kid.
Yeah, whatever. Go get yourself a pizza board and sell sandwiches on the street corner while you mutter about “handgernades”, quit whinin’ ya loser.
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