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SOUTH BEND -- The South Bend police officer who broke a woman's arm last weekend was involved in another incident several days earlier that also resulted in a suspect's broken bone.
Cpl. Jess Elliott reportedly has had three allegations of excessive force made against him since February. He also had been investigated, then exonerated, for using excessive force in the arrest of an off-duty police officer from Columbus, Ind., who was visiting here in September 2002.
Elliott could not be reached for comment Friday.
Police Chief Thomas Fautz said Friday that department policy keeps him from talking about specific cases while they are pending, but he did confirm that the department is looking into a complaint filed by Derry Vaughn, a 43-year-old South Bend resident. Vaughn has a broken left wrist suffered while Elliott was arresting him May 23 on the northwest side of the city.
Vaughn said the way his arm was injured was similar to the way an Elkhart woman's arm was broken on May 30. Tanya Smith, 25, said Elliott used excessive force while arresting her in front of Benchwarmers, a downtown bar. She was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Vaughn said he had been released from jail on May 23 after posting bond on a driving-while-suspended charge.
An admitted cocaine and marijuana addict, he is a frequent inmate in the county jail and well known to South Bend police.
After returning home from jail, Vaughn said, he went to the Martin's store at Portage and Elwood avenues and shoplifted some cartons of cigarettes.
Elliott was off duty and working as a security guard at the store. The police report he filed later said he saw Vaughn outside the store and started to chase him, with Vaughn on foot and Elliott in a car.
When the officer caught up to the suspect, Vaughn surrendered the stolen cigarettes to him. Elliott wrote in his report that he told Vaughn he would not charge him with the theft if Vaughn would return to the store with him to receive a no-trespass order for Martin's properties.
Elliott wanted Vaughn to put his arms behind his back to be handcuffed for the transport back to the store, but Vaughn balked. He said he thought he was carrying marijuana and didn't want to be arrested for that.
So he ran, with Elliott in pursuit. Vaughn said they ran across yards and he jumped three fences in his effort to escape.
The third fence, a wooden one, fell when Vaughn tried to vault over it, and Vaughn sprawled on the ground, face down.
Elliott's report said the officer jumped the fence and landed on Vaughn's back. He said Vaughn continued to struggle and to use his left elbow to strike Elliott in the face and neck. He said Vaughn refused to cooperate.
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Vaughn said he was lying with his face pressed into the ground and Elliott's full weight pressing on him, and he couldn't breathe. That is why he was struggling, he said.
Elliott struck him in the face. Elliott's report says he used "a hammer fist'' to the right side of Vaughn's face, then to the left side. Vaughn claimed Elliott hit him with a police radio or cell phone. A police report says Elliott did not have a radio with him.
The officer finally managed to pull Vaughn's arms behind him to be cuffed. Vaughn said that is when his wrist was broken. He said Elliott pulled his arm behind him, then jerked it upward.
He said he complained that he might be having a heart attack. He was taken to Memorial Hospital, where he underwent surgery on his broken wrist. He also suffered an injury in his left eye, which remained bloody on Friday.
"He was trying to hurt me bad,'' Vaughn said of Elliott.
Vaughn is charged with two counts of resisting law enforcement. He is to appear in court on June 16.
He said he has filed a complaint against Elliott with the internal affairs department of the South Bend Police Department.
Fautz said an investigation has been started, but he could not comment further. Vaughn said police photographed his injuries as part of their investigation.
The internal affairs department reportedly is considering another complaint against Elliott filed in February by David Franklin, 20, who now lives in Indianapolis.
Tom Bush, police liaison for the NAACP, said Franklin had entered the Martin's store on Portage on Feb. 18 to look for a magazine. He left the store without buying anything, Bush said.
Elliott, who was working as a security guard at the store, reportedly followed Franklin out of the store and became verbally abusive while searching him and his truck. The officer reportedly did not find anything on Franklin, Bush said, and eventually let him go.
Fautz said he could not confirm whether Franklin has a complaint pending.
On Sept. 29, 2002, Elliott was involved in the arrest of Roderick Ivory, a former South Bend resident who now is a police officer in Columbus, Ind. Officers had gone to the 200 block of North Chicago Street to investigate a hit-and-run accident involving a car that belonged to Ivory.
Words were exchanged, and Ivory was grabbed, handcuffed and thrown to the pavement. The South Bend officers, including Elliott, apparently did not realize that Ivory was a policeman.
Police concluded months later that the South Bend officers had not done anything wrong, but suspicions of a cover-up persist in the black community. Ivory is black, and the other officers involved, including Elliott, were white.
Vaughn, Smith and Franklin all are black, too.
Staff writer Nancy J. Sulok:
(574) 235-6234