A rare indictment for a taser assault
by digby
They did manage to indict this police officer, so that’s something. We’ll have to see if a jury thinks he’s guilty:
A federal grand jury has indicted a former Independence police officer who used a stun gun last fall to subdue a 17-year-old driver who nearly died during the encounter.
The four-count indictment unsealed Friday stems from an FBI investigation into whether Timothy N. Runnels used excessive force after he pulled over Bryce Masters of Independence on Sept. 14 at East Southside Boulevard and Main Street.
The indictment charges Runnels with two counts of deprivation of Masters’ constitutional rights, based on force Runnels allegedly used, and two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly making a false report and giving false statements afterward to investigators.
Runnels entered not guilty pleas during his first court appearance late Friday afternoon. His attorney, J.R. Hobbs, said Runnels denies the allegations.
[…]
The indictment said Runnels continuously deployed the stun gun while Masters was on the ground and not posing a threat to the officer, and that Runnels deliberately dropped Masters headfirst onto the ground while the nonthreatening teen was handcuffed.It also said Runnels knowingly filed a false police report and omitted details to Independence police about the force he used.
Masters and his parents sat in the back of the courtroom during the brief court hearing. Masters’ father is a Kansas City police officer.
In a written statement released after the hearing, the Masters family said it has a unique perspective of what police officers face each day. Bryce Masters was not treated in a reasonable manner by a law enforcement officer, they said.
“This was evident during the traffic stop itself, the nebulous reasons for the contact, and by the lack of adequate medical care thereafter,” the statement said. “Bryce was exercising his right to politely ask questions regarding his detention.”
The family said the teen did not have a warrant for his arrest, and the car he was driving was properly registered to his parents and did not have a warrant associated with it.
That contradicts what Independence police said shortly after the incident, when officials announced the car’s license plate was associated with a woman wanted on an arrest warrant.
At that time, Independence police also said Masters refused to comply with Runnels’ demand to exit the vehicle, and that Masters physically braced himself to prevent the officer from pulling him out.
They also said Runnels reported detecting the odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle.
Masters used his iPhone to record the encounter, according to a court document that police filed to request a search warrant for the car.
After Masters refused to exit the car, the officer used his stun gun, handcuffed Masters and told him to move to the curb. When he didn’t comply, Runnels dragged him there.
A witness recorded a portion of the incident on a cellphone.
Masters sustained brain damage after he went into cardiac arrest. Doctors placed him into a medically induced coma that included lowering his core body temperature. Since then, Masters has received physical therapy.
Daniel Haus, the attorney for Masters, said Masters is a senior at Truman High School in Independence, although the incident set back his studies. His condition is improving, Haus said.
If convicted, Runnels would face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the two constitutional rights violations. He would face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the other counts.
This behavior happens every day. POlice do not believe that using a taser is a form of brutality and that they can get away with using it indiscriminately to force citizens to submit and respect. If there hadn’t been a camera showing that he dropped the kind on his head deliberately it’s very unlikely they would have indicted this officer. He would have claimed that the kid resisted arrest, had “excited delirium” with super-human strength which made it impossible to subdue him any other way.
There is apparently a lot of video and most of it has not been released to the public (but was presumably shown to the Grand Jury.) This is some witness footage filmed after the stop:
But several witnesses told a different story, that Runnels yanked Bryce out the car when he started recording, handcuffing him and dropping him on his face on the sidewalk, which sent him into convulsions, causing his heart to stop.
One witness who began recording after the incident captured Runnels standing over Masters’ limp body with his foot on him as if to prevent the handcuffed teen from standing up and sprinting away. At no time during the 3:20 video did Runnels seem concerned for Masters’ “medical emergency.”
You can see the convulsions in the beginning. The officer actually nudged him with his foot a couple of times as if to see if he was still alive. And then he wandered away. Neither of the cops in that scene showed even the slightest concern that there was a teen-age boy in handcuffs lying unconscious on the sidewalk.
h/t to @tarkloon
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