Cincinnati Police Officers Beat Black Man to Death

Barry M. Horstman, Cincinnati Post staff reporter, writes:

Cincinnati police officers ordered Nathaniel Jones to stop resisting arrest and place his hands behind his back at least 16 times before, while and after they repeatedly struck him with their nightsticks in an effort to subdue him, videotape of the fatal confrontation shows.

The videotape, from cameras in multiple police cruisers that responded to the deadly encounter, is the critical piece of evidence in various investigations into yet another controversy that threatens to unravel the halting progress made in police-community relations in the 2½ years since riots erupted on Cincinnati's streets, and that has once again placed the city in an unflattering national and international spotlight.

Although the investigations center on whether police officers responded properly or excessively when the 350-pound Jones lunged and swung at them, the videotapes strongly suggest that the Cincinnati Fire Department also will face tough questions -- in particular, why fire paramedics who initially responded to a 911 call for medical aid left after police arrived.

When police officers realized that Jones, by then handcuffed on the ground, was not breathing, one glanced around, hoping to wave over the fire paramedics, only to be surprised to see that the fire truck had left, the videotape shows.

"Where'd they go'' one police officer asked.

"Are those firemen helping him or are they going to bail'' another asked.

"They bailed. They were just here,'' the first officer responded.

A few seconds later, another officer said disgustedly: "They call us, then they leave -- What a bunch of crap.''

Several minutes later, after police requested emergency medical assistance, a fire truck returned to the scene and its paramedics began treating Jones, who was pronounced dead shortly later at University Hospital. It is unclear from the videotape whether that truck was the same one that had left minutes earlier, or a different unit.

Chief Fred Prather, a spokesman for Fire Department, said Monday he is uncertain why firefighters and paramedics left the scene. That will be the subject of an internal investigation, he said.

On the issue of the delay in getting medical treatment for Jones, police also will have some explaining to do based on their actions -- or, more accurately, inaction -- on the videotape.

After detecting a pulse but noticing that Jones was not breathing after officers rolled him over onto his back, a half dozen officers stood around the 41-year-old Northside man for about two minutes without administering CPR or other first aid.

"Sir Sir Sir'' one officer standing over Jones said repeatedly, trying unsuccessfully to get a response.

"C'mon, big 'un,'' another officer said.

The Fire Department's departure and the police officers' failure to attempt resuscitation efforts before paramedics returned are among the questions raised Monday by an American Civil Liberties Union advisory panel to the landmark 2002 collaborative agreement that altered police use of force policies and established new procedures governing how allegations of police misconduct are investigated.

There will be at least four probes into Sunday's fatal incident, and more could be announced later this week. The Citizen Complaint Authority, the independent investigative body spawned by the 2002 pact, the police department's homicide and the police internal affairs sections will examine the case, and the Cincinnati chapter of the NAACP said Monday that it will conduct its own investigation. Other agencies, including the U.S. Justice Department, are reviewing the case before deciding whether to perhaps launch additional inquiries.

The debate at this early stage is breaking along familiar and predictable lines.

Police brass and some city officials defend the officers' actions as a justified, by-the-book response to a dangerous situation primarily of Jones's making.

While urging Cincinnatians and others to reserve judgment pending the investigations, Mayor Charlie Luken Monday offered at least preliminary support for the officers.

"These officers were assaulted, the assault was violent and they responded with the training they received," Luken said. "You could see on the tape, if you watched it, the troubled looks on their faces."

Critics, though, counter that officers could have -- and should have -- found a way to defuse a hazardous, but less than life-threatening, situation before it escalated into an episode from which one person would never walk away.

"Somehow the city of Cincinnati must find the will to end this nonsense of the death of African-American citizens in the process of and/or after being arrested by the Cincinnati Police Department,'' Cincinnati NAACP President Calvert Smith told a news conference.

The dramatic footage on the videotape gives both sides ammunition in that contentious battle.

When officers arrived on the scene outside a White Castle in Avondale shortly before 6 a.m. Sunday, responding to a call about a disruptive man, Jones clearly was the aggressor, the videotapes released Monday show.

The intiial 911 call had sought aid for an unconscious man, but when fire paramedics arrived, they found Jones both conscious and disruptive, prompting dispatchers to request police assistance. Preliminary results from an autopsy by the Hamilton County coroner's office showed that both cocaine and PCP, or so-called "angel dust,'' were in Jones's system at the time, perhaps accounting for the strange, aggressive behavior that officers viewed as a possible sign of mental illness, leading them to request backup from an officer specially trained in handling mentally ill suspects.

"Tell me what's going on,'' one officer said as he approached Jones.

"White boy, red neck,'' Jones shouted back.

"Back up! Back up!'' the officer said as Jones moved toward him.

An instant later, Jones lunged forward and threw a right fist at the officer, touching off a melee in which officers James Pike and Baron Osterman wrestled Jones to the ground and began attempting to handcuff him.

Throughout that violent scuffle, officers shouted at least 16 times: "Put your hands behind your back.''

Because of Jones's heft, officers had considerable difficulty handcuffing him. "This ain't going to work,'' one officer said. The task was accomplished only after four additional officers arrived and helped restrain Jones.

Jones can be heard moaning loudly during the struggle. "Ow, ow!'' he bellowed at one point.

If those are the key moments on the videotape that police defenders will point to, critics will focus on the extensive scenes showing officers pummeling Jones with their nightsticks. Alternately wielding their batons like a baseball bat or using them to violently prod Jones on his torso, buttocks and legs, the officers struck Jones more than 30 times in the portions of the struggle caught on the police cruisers' video cameras.

Publication Date: 12-02-2003

Posted by glenn at December 2, 2003 09:35 AM | TrackBack