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Thread: Tommie Dale McGlothen Jr., (44) Killed by Shreveport Police and 4 Officers are charged for his death

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    Tommie Dale McGlothen Jr., (44) Killed by Shreveport Police and 4 Officers are charged for his death

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/u...ged-death.html


    Four Louisiana police officers were indicted Friday on charges of negligent homicide and malfeasance after they used excessive force and a Taser to arrest a mentally ill Black man and then failed to give him medical attention, prosecutors said.

    The officers with the Shreveport Police Department ? Treona McCarter, Brian Ross, D?Marea Johnson and James LeClare ? were charged in connection with the death on April 5 of Tommie Dale McGlothen Jr., 44, according to the Caddo Parish District Attorney?s Office.

    The Caddo Parish coroner, Dr. Todd Thoma, determined that Mr. McGlothen?s death ?was preventable? because the officers should have known he needed medical treatment, prosecutors said.

    The police had three encounters with Mr. McGlothen on April 5, and in each of those he ?exhibited signs he was a mental patient in need of medical treatment,? the district attorney?s office said.

    When the police were called for the third time, it was because Mr. McGlothen had blocked a driveway and followed a homeowner inside his house while mumbling incoherently and exhibiting signs of paranoia and emotional disturbance, the district attorney?s office said.

    Police officers used Tasers, mace and nightsticks to subdue Mr. McGlothen after he fought with the homeowner, prosecutors said. Cellphone video broadcast by a local television station, KSLA, in June showed officers wrestling Mr. McGlothen to the ground, punching him repeatedly and kicking him.

    Prosecutors said the officers had then placed Mr. McGlothen in a patrol cruiser on his head, limiting his ability to breathe. Mr. McGlothen was held in the cruiser, largely unsupervised, for 48 minutes and died at a hospital a short time later, prosecutors said.

    The district attorney?s office said the officers had used excessive force in violation of the Shreveport police?s Taser policy, had used excessive physical force that injured Mr. McGlothen unnecessarily and had failed to take him to a hospital or call for paramedics.

    Dr. Thoma found that Mr. McGlothen was ?not a candidate for incarceration? given his medical status, prosecutors said. They said the officers? actions had been ?substantial factors? in Mr. McGlothen?s death from ?excited delirium.?

    The American Medical Association has defined the condition as the sudden death of people ?who are combative and in a highly agitated state? and who have exhibited ?agitation, excitability, paranoia, aggression and apparent immunity to pain, often associated with stimulant use and certain psychiatric disorders,? the district attorney?s office said.

    The officers face up to 10 years in prison if convicted on both counts, prosecutors said.

    All four turned themselves in on Friday and were released on $20,000 bonds, according to the Caddo Parish Sheriff?s Office. The Shreveport Police Department declined to comment on the charges or to say if the officers were still on the force.

    Dhu Thompson, a lawyer for Officer LeClare, said he was ?extremely disappointed? in the indictment.

    ?I am confident based on what we know about the case that my client will be fully exonerated,? he said. ?We look forward to this trial.?

    It was not immediately clear if the three other officers had lawyers.

    Sgt. Michael Carter, president of the Shreveport police officers? union, said the union was ?extremely regretful? that Mr. McGlothen died. But he said the officers should not have been charged because they were engaged in a ?nasty street fight.?

    ?They had no choice but to engage with this man who would not stop resisting a lawful arrest,? Sergeant Carter said. ?This incident could not be de-escalated.?

    The charges came amid intense scrutiny of police brutality after the killing in May of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, who was pinned to the ground by a white police officer?s knee in an encounter captured on video.

    Mr. McGlothen?s death was also an example of what criminal justice experts consider a pervasive problem of fatal encounters between the police and people with mental illness.

    Mr. McGlothen had been given diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia and depression and was having a psychotic episode when he was arrested, according to James Carter, a lawyer for Mr. McGlothen?s family.

    Mr. Carter said the officers had brutally beaten and used a Taser on Mr. McGlothen and had then left him in the patrol car to die.

    ?It?s just a sad situation how the mentally disabled are dealt with and how law enforcement, when they have notification of these matters, act abusively and use excessive force,? Mr. Carter said in an interview.

    At a news conference with Mr. Carter on Friday, Mr. McGlothen?s father and son thanked prosecutors for presenting the case to a grand jury.

    ?I just appreciate the work the D.A. has done in bringing justice for my father,? the son, Tommie McGlothen III, said.

    Mr. Carter said the indictment was ?only one step toward justice.?

    ?The family has worked very hard,? Mr. Carter said. ?They are obviously exhausted but at the same time have a sense of jubilance. But there?s no mistake about it ? there?s still a long way to go on this matter.?
    Sadly if you are mentally disabled, poor and non white this is way too common to hear and the people connected to the President call them "Thugs" when its not even the case.

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    https://www.ksla.com/2020/06/08/ksla...r-with-police/

    SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - On April 5, Tommie McGlothen Jr., a 44-year-old black man, died while allegedly in the custody of Shreveport police, according to the Caddo Parish district attorney.

    At the time, SPD didn’t report McGlothen’s death publicly and 54 days passed before the district attorney’s office received an investigative file from police with D.A. James Stewart saying that file is “missing reports, statements, downloads and other vital information essential to conduct a thorough and complete review.”

    The district attorney is now asking citizens with video of the incident and eyewitnesses to come forward in the case. But none has until now.

    Four witnesses spoke exclusively to Chief Investigator Stacey Cameron describing the final minutes of McGlothen’s life and allowed him to use his camera to record cellphone video of McGlothen’s violent encounter with police.

    The first frames of the grainy video show Shreveport police wrestling Tommie McGlothen to the ground under a carport on Eilleen Lane.

    A few seconds into the nearly 4.5-minute clip come the first blows.

    A white male officer hits McGlothen as a black female cop tries holding him down.

    The video that KSLA Investigates recorded with a small camera off a cellphone gets shaky next showing the female officer rolling over and getting up, when the male cop kicks McGlothen.

    At this point it’s difficult to see on the wobbly video but when officers try rolling the 44-year-old man over to handcuff him, McGlothen appears to stiffen up.

    That’s when the male cop, now standing over McGlothen, punches him four times.

    McGlothen is then heard screaming out as witnesses say police began tasing him behind a parked car.

    Stacey spoke with four people witnessing the incident, each seeing McGlothen walking up and down the street minutes earlier saying he looked “thrown off in his head and not acting mentally right.”

    The witnesses say cops got called after McGlothen got into a fight and beat up by another man living on Eileen Lane.

    Just before the three-minute mark with three cops now holding McGlothen down, a fourth officer runs into the picture with witnesses saying – and video appearing to show – that white male cop punching McGlothen before another officer tases him at least three more times.

    The blurry video then captures an officer rise up and hit McGlothen with a baton before the same cop turns to strike four more blows to McGlothen’s legs.
    As the handheld video shakes, McGlothen is handcuffed and stood up.

    Coroner, attorney, city officials comment on Tommie McGlothen autopsy report, video of his arrest
    That’s when witnesses say – and video seems to show – an officer shoving him to the ground.

    Fifteen seconds later, back on his feet, officers walk McGlothen to a squad car.

    His face appeared to slam against the hood.

    What happens next is hard to see on the video; but four witnesses and a police source tell KSLA that McGlothen spit in the black female officer’s face and, in return, she punched McGlothen twice in the face.

    According to the witnesses Stacey spoke to, McGlothen then fell behind a police car; his head hitting the pavement.

    In the last seconds of the video, a white male cop is seen picking McGlothen up.

    Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins addresses Tommie McGlothen case in council meeting
    Witnesses say the officer put him in the back of a cop car, where McGlothen got quiet.

    Minutes later, according to the witnesses, McGlothen looked slumped over and unconscious.

    Now there is a second video, which Stacey watched but was not allowed to record.

    It shows an ambulance getting on scene.

    But according to three witnesses and the cellphone video, by then it was dark.

    Witnesses say they fear McGlothen was already dead because, according to them, the ambulance drove off slowly with no lights or siren.


    A police spokesperson told Stacey that all the officers involved were still on the job. No one had been placed on administrative leave, but the matter is under investigation.

    Police Chief Ben Raymond has since issued a statement June 8 in which he says four officers are on departmental leave.

    That statement, which also says Louisiana State Police is reviewing the case, was released after KSLA reached out to the Shreveport Police Department and the District Attorney’s office for comment.

    Both agencies initially declined to comment, saying the matter is still an ongoing investigation.



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