Posted on 07/28/2006 4:52:22 AM PDT by abb
DURHAM -- Raleigh police have charged two Durham Police Department officers in connection with an incident that occurred July 20 outside a Glenwood Avenue sports bar.
The officers, Gary Powell Lee, 38, of 3588 Copper Creek Lane, Franklinton, and Scott Christian Tanner, 33, of 2516 Hiking Trail, Raleigh, both face counts of simple assault. Conviction on the misdemeanor carries with it, for someone with no prior offenses on their record, the possibility of a maximum 30-day jail sentence and a $1,000 fine.
Lee and Tanner are accused of assaulting Rene Dennis Thomas, a cook who works at Blinco's Sports Restaurant and Bar, 6711 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh. The charges stem from a parking-lot altercation that occurred late on July 20 as five current and two former Durham Police Department officers were leaving a going-away party for a departing officer.
A criminal summons issued Thursday alleged that Lee, a member of the department's Special Operations Division, tried to strike Thomas and tackled him, causing the cook to fall to the ground. A second summons alleged that Tanner, a motorcycle officer who works in the department's Traffic Services Unit, kicked Thomas in the head.
Thomas has told television reporters that as many as six men participated in the assault, which began with an exchange of racial slurs. But Raleigh Police Department spokesman Jim Sughrue said detectives in that city don't intend to charge anyone else in connection with the incident, or add later to the charges they've already filed.
"It's been extensively investigated, and we're confident that the responsible individuals have been charged," Sughrue said.
But Lee and Tanner -- and three of their colleagues -- could still face sanctions from the Durham Police Department. An internal investigation is continuing and should conclude in two to three weeks, Police Chief Steve Chalmers said at a news conference Thursday.
The Durham probe is focusing on a wider range of issues that include the alleged use of racial slurs. "The alleged conduct is something that is certainly deplorable to us, and something we don't want to be consistent in the way we operate and conduct ourselves," Chalmers said. "The entire allegation is disturbing."
Lee and Tanner had previously been restricted to administrative duties, and remain so. The other three officers in the case -- Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, Officer Richard Clayton and Officer James Griffin -- had also been restricted but on Thursday were allowed to resume their normal duties.
The decision doesn't mean the three have been cleared, but does indicate that based on "the facts we've already uncovered ... there's no reason we can't put these officers back on full duty," Chalmers said.
Asked later if that meant the three had played only a minor role in the incident, Chalmers said, "At least we can say it wasn't a major role."
All of the officers have the right to a lawyer's help, and two, Gottlieb and Lee, have retained the Durham firm of Clayton Myrick McClanahan & Coulter to represent them as the internal investigation and criminal case unfold.
A lawyer there, Allen Mason, confirmed Thursday that senior partner Jerry Clayton had spoken to Gottlieb and that another of his colleagues, former Assistant District Attorney Freda Black, had spoken to Lee.
One of the two former Durham officers involved in the case, James Kennedy, has also retained Clayton's firm and has talked with Mason. Kennedy is a former motorcycle officer who left the department late last year. The other former Durham officer who was present remains unidentified.
Asked if the lawyers and their clients would speak up to offer their version of what happened, Mason said there's "not a chance in the world" of that happening outside formal channels.
"We're not Duke lacrosse lawyers," Mason said alluding to the year's most highly publicized Durham Police Department case, one that Gottlieb and Richard Clayton, who's no relation to lawyer Jerry Clayton, have both worked on. "We don't practice that way. We don't comment about pending cases, we don't do interviews, we don't make statements."
The Raleigh charges were notable for the fact that they didn't address what Thomas has said was the first act of the confrontation, a move by one of the men involved to poke him in the shoulder with a finger. The charge against Lee addressed an act Thomas alleged was committed immediately afterward by a second man, and the charge against Tanner addressed something that happened after Thomas fell to the ground.
The shoulder poke was likely a criminal act under North Carolina law, given court decisions that have held "the merest unauthorized touching of another [person] is an assault," said Barry Winston, a criminal-defense lawyer in Chapel Hill.
A judge "who strictly interprets the law would, I suspect, hold that North Carolina law requires him to convict someone who walks up to someone and in an antagonistic fashion pokes that person with his finger," although that's "not what the average person thinks of as assault," Winston said.
Raleigh detectives filed Thursday's charges after consulting prosecutors in Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby's office, a move Sughrue said is standard in officer-involved cases. The spokesman declined to say why there wasn't a charge addressing the alleged shoulder-poke.
"Based on the investigation of the case, and facts present, it was determined that these two charges were the appropriate charges to bring," Sughrue said.
Thomas was surprised Thursday to hear that the charges involved the officers they did. "Lee and Tanner? Huh. OK. Check that again and call me back," he said before cutting off a brief interview. "I don't think you have the right guys."
The cook did not elaborate, and did not return a call placed to his cell phone late Thursday afternoon.
The Raleigh department's decision to issue a criminal summons for each of the officers, rather than an arrest warrant, saved Lee and Tanner an appearance before a magistrate and possibly the need to post bail to avoid detention. Sughrue said the officers didn't receive any special treatment.
"That is very typically the way a simple assault case is handled," he said. "That's very consistent with the way we'd handle the same case if the suspects had not been law enforcement officers."
Also routine was the Raleigh department's decision to assign detectives from its own internal-affairs unit to work the case. No matter what agency they work for, when police are "suspect in a case in Raleigh, the case is investigated by internal affairs," Sughrue said.
Elected officials said they're watching how the criminal case plays out.
Mayor Bill Bell said the allegations, if true, are unfortunate. "If in fact it did happen, I'd hope they'd be prosecuted to the fullest extent," he said.
City Councilman Eugene Brown agreed. "It's always problematic when you have those hired and paid for enforcing the law breaking the law," he said. "I want to withhold judgment, but so far, this is just embarrassing."
Lee has worked for the department since 1999. Tanner joined the force in 1997, and was recently the beneficiary of a department-organized fundraiser intended to help him and another officer pay for cancer treatments. He suffers from Hodgkin's
I also just emailed my congressman about this hate crime,
and the re-emergence of racially biased attitudes
among southern police, and the need for our society
not to tolerate this in the 21st century; and calling
upon him to ask the FBI to investigate this as a hate crime.
(Maybe the FBI won't respond to me, but maybe they will if a congressman forwards my inquiry.)
The more noise the better.
Does anybody think this is the ONLY time the Durham PD has harassed blacks? Or that this is the FIRST time?
Or that they won't do it AGAIN if they get away with it now?
The more congressmen asked to ask the FBI to look into this, to prevent a return to attitudes which existed in the 1950s but which have no place in the 21st century, the better.
I live in Metro Atlanta.
No way, no how.
I would not live to make that one phone call.
Trial strategy :
“There's been a feeling in the past that Duke students are treated differently by the court system,” Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong says.
“There was a feeling that Duke students' daddies could buy them expensive lawyers and that they knew the right people."
Someone needs to tell nc-cathy at CTV
1. Cops usually find a watering hole outside their county of business in a smaller urban area.
2. All but one of the named cops live outside Durham County.
3. 3 of the cops live in Wake County
Because they are DPD officers, Durham is involved.
ADA Stormy Ellis used to work In Wake County--those offices do have connections to one another.
None of that in and of itself proves anything, of course. None of it is a bad thing.
It only illustrates each county IS NOT an isolated island.
“There's been a feeling in the past that Duke students are treated differently by the court system,” Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong says."
So somebody else got a break and now we'll take it out on somebody else?
That's typical of Nifong. Remember the white guy charged with rape, who got off when Hardin (Nifong was his deputy then, AFAIK) accused an innocent black guy instead?
Ya' think? ;-)
"All but one of the named cops live outside Durham County."
Subpoena their home addresses, they are potential witnesses and we need to make sure they show up for the trial.
Coffee is finally kicking in, abb.
Nifong's presser is today:
http://www.wral.com/news/9589993/detail.html
"Subpoena their home addresses, they are potential witnesses and we need to make sure they show up for the trial."
I also want their credit card info to see what they were buying and how much they were spending at sports bars.
Subpoena their police logs for the 24 hours before and after the incident.
mark
(note: the BALD guy is referred to as the initial perpetrator in this article)
"F—- you, nig——-!" Thomas said the initial perpetrator responded (to his WOO-HOO)
"F—- you, cracker!'' Thomas said he replied.
The car stopped, he said, and the man who allegedly screamed the epithet got out. Thomas said the man walked over to him, POKED him on the shoulder with his finger, and said, "You don't know what you're getting into, BOY."
We are supposed to believe that these white cops, in front of their fellow cops who are african-american, suddenly threw out the n-word at the cook?
Sorry, but that's not how these things go down. Just as in the case of the Duke lacrosse party, where we are supposed to believe that these white college students, in front of their african-american teammate who has stated he has never detected any racism in his teammates, suddenly starting calling the two strippers the n-word?
What is more believable is that both the strippers and the cook fully realize that by claiming that whites started the altercations by using the n-word, they can shift the ground of defense and shield their own words and actions from scrutiny.
I have no problem believing the Durham cops could easily have initiated the PHYSICAL aspect of the altercation, and the ones who did should be hit with assault & battery charges.
"My son has asked why I no longer watch "Law and Order" and "CSI,"
I can't watch them either. I used to like them; but they
are just, as you said, fairy tales; (and painful ones at that); for better fairy tales I can go to Disney.
Rut Roh Raggy!
Nothing new from Nifong, unless the asked him some questions (a more detailed account is necessary)
http://www.wral.com/news/9589993/detail.html
Friday morning Nifong admitted there's some justification to criticism about how he handled the media with the Duke case."Could I have done things differently? Certainly, but would it have made a difference -- I don't know," Nifong said.'
(snip)
Nifong also said there was evidence he hoped to have in the case, such as DNA, but that it didn't pan out."There were things we hoped to have in terms of evidence that we ended up not having," Nifong said.
But Nifong said that he stands behind the case."I have not backed down from my initial assessments of this case," Nifong said.Nifong said that no case has been ignored because of the attention to the Duke lacrosse rape case.
Any word on Nifong's press conference? Was it cancelled?
I guess Mike doesn't think the lying hooker is to blame for that.........
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