Investigation shows firings rare, payouts big when excessive force used

Sept. 15--With his hands in the air, Abraham Dudley obeyed police commands to walk backward toward two officers pointing their weapons at him.

What happened next Nov. 1, 2012, in the West Town Mall parking lot was captured on in-cruiser video. A gunshot rang out. Dudley slumped to the pavement.

Then-Knoxville Police Department Officer Christopher Edmonds yelled, "Oh, (expletive)."

"I was shocked," Dudley told the News Sentinel in a recent interview. "I really didn't even know I was shot, I guess, when the bullet hit. I fell to the ground. I was just scared and hoping I wouldn't die."

The bullet from Edmonds' gun struck the 32-year-old Dudley in the back, a mere 2 inches from his spine.

"I could have been paralyzed," Dudley said.

The city of Knoxville's$293,000 payout in taxpayer funds to Dudley was the single highest documented in records from both the city and county risk management funds reviewed by the News Sentinel in a monthslong probe of three years of claims.

The review showed that no matter the cost and the conduct, law enforcers involved in claims rarely were fired, whether they acted badly, violated someone's civil rights or simply fouled up.

In one case, a deputy remains employed at KCSO despite being involved in three separate incidents, two of which cost taxpayers $50,000 in total damages. The third case is pending in U.S. District Court, and, so far, the county is losing that legal fight. Another deputy twice accused of brutality in cases costing taxpayers $43,000 also is still on the job.

Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." Jones refused to be interviewed for this series of stories.

In only one case were officers fired and criminally prosecuted. That was a 2013 KPD case in which a homeless man was hogtied and beaten in full view of a North Knoxville neighborhood of citizens and a slew of in-cruiser video cameras.

Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch argues that even when officers aren't fired, their careers still suffer if the claims against them are substantiated. Reprimands, demotions and other internal punishment can affect an officer's pay, his or her job duties and opportunities for special training and promotion, he said.

"I think that has a big impact on an officer," Rausch said. "Your career is impacted."

Rausch also contends the city's decision to settle a legal claim against a KPD officer does not always mean the officer was at fault.

"There are times where we pay out when there aren't screw-ups," he said, adding it is sometimes cheaper to settle than defend a lawsuit. "That's unfortunate. You're not admitting guilt just because you paid (a claim)."

In cases involving alleged police misconduct, some payouts came after lawsuits were filed, the News Sentinel probe showed.

In others, however, the mere threat of a very public legal fight prompted a quiet settlement.

Fight in the parking lot

Abraham Dudley still hasn't fully recovered from the 2012 shooting, and he says he feels cheated of both justice and an apology.

"I feel like (Edmonds) should have been fired," Dudley said. "The officer knew he wasn't trained that way."

Rausch held a news conference nearly two months after the shooting to announce Edmonds indeed had violated departmental policy by having his finger on his department handgun trigger at a time when he was neither prepared to shoot nor would have been justified in doing so. Rausch did not fire Edmonds but stripped him of his police powers pending an internal probe.

KPD spokesman Darrell DeBusk said Edmonds resigned amid that probe and went into the civilian workforce. He did not say where.

Dudley went before a Knox County grand jury seeking criminal charges against Edmonds but was rebuffed.

"I feel like it was not a fair grand jury," Dudley said.

He did not sue the city. With Edmonds admitting in two words on camera his mistake, the city opted to settle.

The incident began as a domestic dispute between Dudley and his then-girlfriend. His young daughter was in the car. A passer-by called 911, reporting that a man was beating a woman and appeared to be armed. Dudley insists the caller erred in his account, but police later found a gun in the two-tone Mercedes-Benz from which Edmonds ordered Dudley to exit. Dudley, who spent a week in an intensive care unit, was not charged.

With his potential damages capped by law at $300,000 and a grand jury turning aside his bid for charges against Edmonds, Dudley said he at least expected an apology.

"To this day, they haven't given me an apology," he said. "Nobody (from KPD) even called me to say, 'Hey, Mr. Dudley, how you doing?'"

Rausch said the agency is often constrained by the City Law Department from admitting blame -- even if its officers are clearly at fault -- until the threat of litigation has passed.

But even now, with Dudley long having cashed his settlement check, Rausch said Dudley need not expect an apology.

"I'm not in the habit of apologizing to men who beat women," he said in an interview.

Dudley, convicted in 2006 of reckless endangerment and vandalism, is still receiving treatment for ailments related to the shooting. He says he is haunted by it.

"Every morning I wake up, it's just like a bad feeling in your stomach," he said. "I always have mild pain in my back. It's really affected me, but, still, I'm glad I'm here. I didn't know (then) if I was going to be here tomorrow."

'Dizzy bat'

Defense attorney John Eldridge didn't even bother citing the details of the mistreatment of his client, 19-year-old Terry Wayne Phillips II, at the hands of five Knox County Sheriff's Office deputies in October 2011.

"The actions of these officers has been broadcast in the media of late, so I will not go into any further specifics," Eldridge wrote in a letter to Knox County Law Director Richard "Bud" Armstrong two weeks after what came to be known as the "dizzy bat" incident. "Because of the media frenzy which has surrounded this incident, I am writing to offer Knox County the opportunity to settle this without further fanfare."

The county quickly agreed.

Taxpayers don't know it, but they paid Phillips $38,000 in damages via the risk management fund. The settlement was kept secret through a confidentiality agreement Phillips was required to sign. Neither Eldridge nor Phillips is allowed to talk about the case, Eldridge confirmed.

The amount paid to Phillips, however, is subject to the Tennessee Public Records Law because it was taxpayer money. The News Sentinel obtained Eldridge's demand letter and a copy of the payout via a public records request.

Phillips had been stopped at night on East Emory Road for speeding and reckless driving. He had four friends in his car, so Deputy Brian Rehg called for backup. Deputies Jeff Bryant, Brad Cox, Alex Slate and Jason Acuff answered his call, records show.

In-cruiser video showed the deputies used profane language in dealing with Phillips before Acuff got a baseball bat from his cruiser trunk.

Off-camera, the deputies offered Phillips a chance to escape a ticket: He'd put his forehead on the top of the vertical bat and run around it until dizzy. Then, he had to run around a cruiser, touching each corner.

Phillips agreed. The deputies laughed, a few so hard they cried. Phillips left, as promised, without a ticket. The nephew of a KPD officer, Phillips then filed a complaint against the deputies.

Sheriff Jones demoted the officers and stripped them of police powers.

Less than two years after the incident, Rehg, Bryant and Cox regained their police powers. Slate wound up quitting in June 2012.

Acuff remains assigned to jail duty. At the time of the "dizzy bat" incident, Acuff was already accused in two beatings of handcuffed suspects. County taxpayers forked out $12,000 to settle a civil-rights lawsuit filed in the March 2011 beating of Thomas Beaudreau.

A lawsuit is pending in a September 2011 incident in which Acuff admitted elbowing a handcuffed William Holt in the head, and an in-cruiser video showed Acuff bending Holt's finger back and repeatedly kneeing him.

U.S. District Judge Pamela Reeves has ruled evidence presented so far supports an excessive force claim against Acuff. The county is appealing.

Acuff suffered no punishment as a result of either excessive force claim.

Cox also had a prior brutality complaint for allegedly beating a man identified in court records as Carl Weixler in the parking lot of the Cotton Eyed Joe nightclub in 2009. The county paid Carl Weixler$5,000 in 2012 to settle the case, and the public intoxication charge filed against him by Cox was dropped. There is no record of disciplinary action against Cox for that incident.

North Knoxville beating

KPD managed, for a couple of months, to keep under wraps a probe into the February 2013 beating of Michael Allen Mallicoat, a homeless man who was handcuffed and hogtied. The News Sentinel revealed the investigation in April 2013.

That beating was not only captured on at least four in-cruiser video cameras but it also took place in broad daylight at the intersection of Grainger and Luttrell avenues.

Police were first summoned to the neighborhood by residents complaining the mentally ill Mallicoat was drunk and yelling. Eventually, five KPD officers joined the original two responding law enforcers, Haley Starr and Cynthia LeeAnn DeMarcus. Mallicoat, who had struggled with Starr and DeMarcus, was cuffed and hogtied. Officers bashed his head onto a cruiser hood and kicked, stomped and beat him as he lay on the ground.

Sgt. John Shelton and Lt. Brad Anders arrived on the scene to find Mallicoat bleeding and battered but sent him off to jail instead of the hospital. Jail officials turned Mallicoat away because of his injuries, and he was then taken to the hospital. He had suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Rausch last year fired three officers shown to be the primary aggressors -- Jeremy Jinnett, Christopher Whitfield and Ty Compton. They later pleaded guilty to criminal charges but received probationary sentences.

The remaining four officers -- Starr, DeMarcus, Richard Derrick White and Nicholas Ferro -- were punished with suspensions, ranging from 18 days to six. Anders, chairman of the Knox County Commission, received a written reprimand as did Shelton.

Like Eldridge in the "dizzy bat" case, Mallicoat's attorney, Cullen Wojcik, found no need to file a lawsuit. The city settled with Mallicoat for $200,000.

White was involved in a fatal shooting of a suspect in June. That suspect, Lonnie Flemming, fired first, striking White in the arm and hitting him in the chest. A protective vest saved him from a fatal chest wound, according to KPD.

The case remains under an internal probe.

Chief Rausch visibly flinched last year as he played for the media video of Mallicoat's beating when announcing the fates of the officers involved. He bristles today, however, when asked about an April 2011 case involving Henry Favire.

Favire, court records show, was at the Southland Bar and Grill on Central Street when a female patron played a prank Favire called a "beer shotgun" in which Favire wound up being sprayed with beer. When Favire returned the favor, the unidentified woman was outraged.

Favire left the bar, but the woman followed him outside. The two yelled at each other. The beer brouhaha drew the attention of KPD officers, including Officer Matthew Lawson. Favire said one of the officers told him, "Just walk away, man. She's drunk." So, he said, he did.

As he was walking away, Favire alleged Lawson tackled him from behind and handcuffed him. Favire said pain was emanating from his arm and shoulder.

"While in the police car, (Favire) complained about his injured arm and asked Officer Lawson why he had hit him when he was walking away exactly like (another) officer had instructed," a lawsuit states. "Officer Lawson responded, 'Because you looked like a big bully arguing with that girl.' "

A doctor later determined Favire's shoulder "had been broken in three places," the lawsuit states.

Rausch didn't deny Favire suffered a broken shoulder in the incident but questioned Favire's account of what caused a clash with Lawson. And he remains none too happy the city law department settled the case for $35,000.

"People don't like when we have to put them in jail, and they will fight us -- even to our death," Rausch said. "Our goal is to go home at the end of every shift, and they are trained to apply reasonable force."

Favire conceded Lawson offered him medical attention, but he refused.

Eva Hightower was not so lucky.

Childbirth in jail

Hightower's body was wracked with labor pains. She cried out for help from the staff at the Knox County Jail. A nurse dismissed her complaints despite the fact that Hightower, held on a minor charge, was 36 weeks pregnant, High- tower alleges.

As the contractions grew closer, Hightower begged the nurse for an examination. The nurse responded, "There is no way your contractions are back to back or you would be spitting that baby out," according to records.

Hightower began to sob as the nurse left her.

"Please don't leave me here like this," she cried.

Beating on the cell door and screaming in pain, Hightower watched in horror as the baby burst from her body and fell to the jail floor in a pool of blood.

"Here this baby comes popping out," her attorney, Herbert S. Moncier, recalled of the 2007 incident. "She's left there bleeding."

Hightower scooped the baby up. The newborn's umbilical cord had been torn in the fall to the floor, and blood poured from the gash. Hightower kept screaming. Eventually an ambulance was summoned.

KCSO initially denied fault. Inmates are notorious for crying medical wolf, and KCSO contended Hightower was overstating the length of her labor and lying about the callousness of the nurse. They could not deny, however, that Hightower had given birth in her cell unattended and unaided and that both she and her baby suffered.

And that was worrisome. Like all governmental agencies in Tennessee, KCSO is protected by state law from a trial by a jury -- surely to include citizens sympathetic to a young mother and child -- and claims for negligence are capped at $300,000. But then-Sheriff Tim Hutchison would not be shielded from public outrage should the case go to trial, and Moncier was no stranger to stirring up media attention.

The law department could have quietly settled the case. It didn't. Moncier filed suit in Knox County in 2008.

"They drug it out and drug it out," Moncier said.

The strategy, in Moncier's opinion, is common when the victims of negligence or misconduct by law enforcement are convicted criminals. High- tower had a drug problem at the time of her lawsuit.

"Almost always your client, the citizen, has been doing something you'd rather they not have been doing," he said. "The focus becomes shifting blame to the individual. Eva, of course, gets into more trouble."

Four years after Hightower's baby was born in a jail cell, the two sides settled. The incident cost county taxpayers $79,900. The baby was adopted.

"We got her the money we could get, but nothing happened, nothing changed," Moncier said of medical care afforded inmates. "There is no accountability for anything."

In fact, another woman died in the jail while Hightower's lawsuit was pending, records show.

Karen Sue Palmer, held on a violation of probation charge in 2010, "had some psychiatric issues," said attorney Ursula Bailey, who represented Palmer's husband. Her talk of suicide grew so serious a cellmate wrote a letter to alert jail staff and gave it to a corrections officer, Bailey said.

"The jailer put it in her pocket and went home without telling anyone," Bailey said.

Palmer hanged herself.

The only notation in the law department file reviewed by the News Sentinel says, "Woman in the jail hung herself. Family stating that jail should have watched her."

County taxpayers forked out $85,000 in that case sans any lawsuit filing.

Bailey said the fact that Palmer had a criminal history proved a good bargaining chip for the county in the amount of the settlement.

"(Palmer's husband) was not in an equal bargaining position," Bailey said.

Hazardous ride

Jail staff's lackadaisical medical care, in part, prompted Knox County Circuit Court Judge Dale Workman to award Sabrina Tarwater$50,000 in taxpayer money, court records show.

Tarwater had been placed in the back of a KCSO paddywagon in March 2011. She was handcuffed and shackled and ordered to sit on a bench in the back of the van. By design, according to the county's filings, KCSO does not outfit its paddywagons with any padding, seat belts, handholds or any other safety devices. The agency argues the stark steel cage in which prisoners are transported via the paddywagon is necessary to ensure officer safety -- although there is a protective shield between the driver and the inmates.

Workman ruled the paddywagon driver negligently failed to pay attention to traffic ahead of him on Washington Pike, forcing him to slam on his brakes to avoid rear-ending a car that had stopped to turn. Tarwater was tossed around in the back, breaking her clavicle and causing other injuries.

Once at the jail, medical staff ignored what Workman opined were obvious injuries, gave her two aspirins and told her to see a doctor in the morning when she was released.

"They had an immediate duty to, at a minimum, take her to the emergency room," Workman wrote.

In another case, Knox County Circuit Court Judge Wheeler Rosenbalm ordered the county to pay $15,000 to Michael Nomura when he too was thrown around the back of a KCSO transport bus that began rolling backward in 2009.

Also, the county agreed to pay Chastity Stout$4,500 for her medical woes inside the jail in February 2011. Court records show a deputy accidentally slammed a holding cell door on Stout's foot. Stout initially was denied care.

"Only when her podmates made the request for her did Ms. Stout get help," attorney Bailey wrote in a Knox County Circuit Court lawsuit.

Ten days passed before an X-ray was ordered. It showed her toe had been fractured. Jail medical staff put a half cast on her foot, but a doctor who contracts with KCSO to provide inmate care later opined the cast "had been improperly applied and the fracture was not healing correctly."

Stout, who was being held on a child support issue, eventually abandoned her efforts to get follow-up care inside the jail, according to Bailey's lawsuit. The Law Department filed no response to the lawsuit, instead quietly settling, the Knox County Circuit Court file shows.

KCSO is currently facing a federal lawsuit alleging its medical personnel in 2010 failed for more than two months to X-ray the neck of inmate Donald Nichols after he fell from a top bunk onto the concrete floor and exhibited symptoms of head injury. Nichols' neck was broken and his vertebrae crushed.

A federal judge has ruled the agency knew its medical staff had not been performing up to snuff for at least a year before Nichols' fall. A court finding that the county already was on notice of employee failures will make it tougher for the government -- and taxpayers -- to avoid damages if the case goes to trial. The county is appealing.

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