Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Beating verdict was predictable
Tuesday, May 5, 1998
By Sylvester Brown Jr.
One year ago, Gregory Bell, a mentally retarded young
man, was severely
beaten by the police in his home in the 3400 block of
Oregon. As many as
12 police officers were in his home during the beating,
which included five
blows to the head with an ASP baton.
To many people in St. Louis, Bell's case offered
irrefutable proof that, when
it comes to African-Americans, the use of deadly force
is not a last resort but
the force of choice. Despite the fact that neighbors,
white and black, came
forward to tell the police and the media of the horrors
they had witnessed
(the slapping of high-fives among officers once Bell
was outside his home, for
instance), only one officer, police Sgt. Thomas Moran,
was charged with a
crime.
On Friday, he was acquitted of all charges.
There has been no justice in the Bell beating case. It
was the usual system of
coverups that allows police officers to act without
fear of punishment. The
Police Department's code of silence, the circuit
attorney's insulting pre-trial
antics and the judge's in-your-face rulings against the
prosecution made
Moran's case the clearest example of how ill-equipped
(and uninterested) St.
Louis is in handling police brutality cases.
The outcome of the case against Moran was predictable.
No one could have
been so foolish as to believe that the Police
Department would find evidence
powerful enough to withstand reasonable doubt against
one of its own
decorated veteran officers. Such faith would be better
placed elsewhere - but
not in St. Louis Circuit Attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes,
either.
Media watchers have become accustomed to prosecutors
who act out their
disgust, pain and anger on behalf of victims of crime.
That was not the case
for victim Bell. In an interview with my magazine last
year, Joyce-Hayes said
of Bell's injuries, "They weren't that severe. I mean
they look horrible when
that happens, but there was no permanent, long-term
injuries."
It is clear that Joyce-Hayes' office was, at best,
ill-prepared to proceed in the
case against Moran. An internal memo leaked to the
media from within her
office disclosed that one of her own assistants,
Douglas Pribble, believed
there were far too many inconsistencies in the case to
proceed to trial.
Pribble's "concerns" about the strength of the people's
case against Moran
offers the only possible explanation for his sudden
incompetence earlier in the
case when he failed to oppose Moran's defense motion
for a change in
venue. The "error" resulted in the trial being moved to
Kansas City, where it
was heard before an all-white jury.
Moran seems to have friends in high places. His
strongest ally, however,
seems to have been seated on the bench. Retired Circuit
Judge Jack Koehr
ruled that Bell's mental retardation could not be a
matter brought before the
jury. In essence, the ruling tied the prosecutor's
hands. No victim profile
could be offered nor could an explanation be made for
why Bell could not
take the stand to tell his story. Comments about Bell's
sweetness, childlike
innocence and inability to understand what was
happening during the April
14, 1997, police incident could not be made because
those characteristics
are intricately connected to his retardation.
In stark contrast, officers were allowed to testify as
to Bell's behavior and
comments at the time of the beating. Most astonishing
is that one officer,
Richard Booker, testified that while trying to subdue
Bell, Bell said, "You're
making me mad" and "I'm not going to jail!" The jury
wasn't told that a
retarded young man opened the door to the police,
dressed in only jogging
pants, dog at his side; and that a melee ensued.
If the jury believed that this was just another young
black suspect refusing to
cooperate with the police, instead of a frightened
retarded youth, there was
no allowable testimony to refute it.
Some day St. Louis is going to have to face the fact
that there is a serious
problem in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police
Department. In recent years,
there have been an adequate number of cases to
substantiate the cries and
complaints of many in the African-American community
regarding police
brutality and misconduct. A reluctance to prosecute
police officers on the
part of the circuit attorney's office, the code of
silence within the Police
Department and secret grand jury hearings all work
together to provide
police officers immunity from conviction in each and
every police misconduct
case in St. Louis.
The city had an opportunity to make an example of all
the officers involved in
the beating of Gregory Bell. It could have advocated
for a 19-year-old
mentally challenged man who was savagely beaten by the
police and worked
to correct a system that has gone miserably awry. What
Bell, his family and
the entire community got instead was St. Louis' own
unique brand of
retarded justice.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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