Grand juries

A grand jury declined to indict Tennessee officers who beat and tased a Black man for alleged traffic violations. Video of the incident went viral over the summer.

• Brandon Calloway, 26, allegedly drove through a stop sign going 12 mph over the speed limit. An officer attempted to initiate a traffic stop but Calloway kept driving until he reached his home. When told that he was going to be detained, Calloway ran inside the house. The officers then kicked down the front door, chased him through the house, beat him with batons, and tased him.
• After Calloway’s violent arrest, HuffPost reported that one of the officers that beat him with a baton has a history of excessive force violations. Officer Eric Richardson has a “rocky personnel record” including “incidents of excessive force during arrests, on-duty personal misconduct, and inappropriate behavior with women.”

Two Colorado deputies involved in the death of a 22-year-old who called 911 for help after his car got stuck on a boulder were indicted by a grand jury last month. Clear Creek County Sheriff’s deputies Andrew Buen and Kyle Gould were charged for shooting and killing Christian Glass while he was still locked in his car.

…the indictment signed by Clear Creek County District Attorney Heidi McCollum last week said that officers were never in danger of being hurt or killed by Glass.

“Deputy Buen fired his service pistol five times into Mr. Glass,” the indictment said. “Chief Williams was at no point ever in danger of being stabbed by Mr. Glass.”

…It’s unclear why Gould made the decision to force Glass out of the vehicle because the supervisor muted his body camera footage during his conversations with his deputies, according to the indictment.

Louisiana District Attorney John Belton convened a grand jury to consider indicting white state troopers for the death of Ronald Greene. The 2019 arrest of Greene, an unarmed 49-year-old Black man, turned fatal following a high-speed chase. Officers stunned, punched, and placed Greene in a chokehold before placing him in handcuffs. While handcuffed and shackled, Trooper Kory York dragged Greene face down along the ground. They then left him unattended on his stomach for at least nine minutes. Greene was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

“I’m your brother! I’m scared! I’m scared!” Ronald Greene can be heard telling the white troopers as the unarmed man is jolted repeatedly with a stun gun before he even gets out of his car along a dark, rural road.

• Louisiana officials did not release footage of the arrest; it took two full years for the AP to obtain and publish video.
• Troopers initially lied about the cause of Greene’s injuries and death, saying that he died by crashing into a tree. One officer, Lieutenant John Clary, lied about having body camera video of the arrest and lied about immediately rendering aid to Greene.

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New charges

Five Connecticut officers were charged with misdemeanors for causing and failing to adequately respond to a transportation incident that left a man paralyzed. Randy Cox, 26, was arrested on suspicion of illegally possessing a handgun in June. Sitting in handcuffs but without a seat belt in the back of a transport van, Cox was thrown head-first into the van’s back wall when Officer Oscar Diaz abruptly hit the brakes. The officers continued to the detention center despite Cox indicating that he could not move and believed he broke his neck. They placed him in a wheelchair and “dragged him to a cell” while still in handcuffs.

Body camera footage shows New Haven officers dragging Cox out of the van, moving him into a wheelchair and asking him, “How much did you have to drink?” followed by statements like, “He is perfectly fine.”

• All five officers involved in the incident were released on $25,000 bond and are scheduled to appear in court today.

A Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputy was charged with assault for shooting and killing a father of three who was in the midst of a mental health crisis in 2021. Deputy Remin Pineda was charged with assault with a semi-automatic firearm and assault under color of authority, both felonies. Pineda was one of four deputies who responded to a call of a suicidal person. They found David Ordaz Jr. armed with a knife, asking officers to shoot him. Instead of de-escalating the situation, officers fired and killed Ordaz.

“After Ordaz fell to the ground, had dropped the knife and laid with his back facing the deputies, Pineda is accused of continuing to fire his handgun,” the DA’s office said in the statement.

“[Ordaz’] head was still up, he was still alive,” [Ordaz’s sister Hilda] Pedroza said. Then a deputy fired one more shot, “and we knew he was dead,” she said.

Three white Georgia sheriff’s jail guards were arrested last month for the beating of a Black inmate caught on video. Camden County Sheriff’s employees Mason Garrick, Braxton Massey, and Ryan Biegel were charged with felonies for violently assaulting Jarrett Hobs, a 41-year-old Black man in a small detention cell.

Security video from that night shows Hobbs standing alone in his cell before five guards rush in and surround him. At least three deputies can be seen landing punches before Hobbs gets dragged from the cell and hurled against a wall…Two other sheriff’s employees are facing disciplinary action in the Sept. 3 incident, according to the sheriff’s news release.