Opinion ID: 2324699
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: The facts of this case were hotly contested at trial. Minor's version of what happened, corroborated in part by three other witnesses, was as follows. Around 8:00 p.m. on May 19, 1992, Minor was sitting on a fence rail in front of his apartment house at the corner of 7th and O Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. He wore black jeans and a black shirt. An acquaintance, Steve Carney, came out of a building and walked past Minor on his way to the O Street Market. At that point, a police car came by but neither Carney nor Minor reacted in any way. Officers Kelsey and Fontz jumped out of the car, and Officer Fontz grabbed Carney and wrestled him to the ground. Kelsey told Minor You, bring your black motherfucking ass over here. Minor said he did not throw anything or place his hands in his pocket, and that before he could come down off the fence Kelsey grabbed him from behind and pulled him down to the ground, causing his back and head to strike the ground and suffer injury. Minor was handcuffed and frisked. Additional squad cars arrived and Minor was placed inside one of them. After about ten minutes, Minor was taken out of the car, his pockets were searched, and officers found a small penknife. Ten minutes later, he was again removed from the car and an unidentified police officer pulled Minor's trousers down to his knees and searched the rim of his underwear. At the time of the search, a crowd including a number of females had gathered and saw Minor with his pants down and underwear exposed. No contraband was found in either search. About ten minutes later, Minor was released. Minor suffered from a swollen lower and upper back and a knot on the head from being pulled down to the ground off the fence; he received emergency care, additional medical care for six months, and therapy. Minor further testified that he was embarrassed and humiliated by the way that he was publicly searched. Plaintiff's eyewitnesses Denise Kimlaw and Leroy Mills corroborated Minor's testimony that Steve Carney did not try to run when the officers arrived at the scene and that Minor made no attempt to leave the rail before Officer Kelsey grabbed him from behind and pulled him to the ground. Kimlaw, who witnessed the incident at a distance of 15 to 20 feet, testified that she did not see Minor put his hands in his pockets as the officer approached, nor did she see Minor flip anything in the air after Kelsey grabbed him. Mills stated that he had a clear view of Minor's hands, that Minor did not put his hands in his pockets, and that Minor did not throw any object out of his hands once he was grabbed by the officer. Both stated that there was no grass growing in the area at the time of the incident.
The District's primary witness was Officer Kelsey, who testified to the following version of events: Kelsey and his partner Officer Fontz received a radio report at approximately 7:45 p.m. stating that two individuals located at the corner of 7th and O Streets, N.W. were selling or holding narcotics. Kelsey testified that the report described the individuals in question as black males, about five feet eleven, in their twenties, wearing black shirts and black pants. They drove the squad car to 7th and O Streets, arriving within two or three minutes, and observed two individuals fitting the report description at the corner in question. Kelsey saw no exchange between Minor and Carney. As soon as the officers exited the vehicle, Carney started running. Kelsey walked toward Minor and told him in a very boisterous way not to move. [4] Kelsey testified that as he approached Minor, Minor made a sudden movement toward his pocket and, concerned about destruction of evidence or a weapon, Kelsey grabbed Minor in a bear hug and pulled him off the fence. Once he had grabbed Minor, a small object came out of Minor's hand and went up in the air, although Kelsey could not see where it landed because of the grass in the area. Kelsey said he never got a chance to look where the object had fallen because an aggressive crowd had formed and he feared for personal safety. Kelsey gave Minor a light pat-down search, found no weapons or contraband, and put him in a scout car. Kelsey testified that he did not search Minor after that. Kelsey's deposition testimony was read in court to contradict this statement. At his deposition, Kelsey testified that he had conducted a public search of Minor in which he unbuckled and dropped Minor's pants and looked in the waistband of Minor's underwear to see if he was hiding narcotics. No drugs, no weapons, and no large sums of money were found on Minor. At trial Kelsey said that he remembered that it was Carney, not Minor, that he had searched in this manner. Kelsey stated that, based on the radio tip regarding the two individuals selling drugs, he only had cause to do an investigatory stop of Minor. He subsequently was arresting Mr. Minor because of what I believed were narcotics that he flipped out of his hand. Although he testified that he had arrested Minor, in the report he filed on the incident Kelsey classified the detention as a stop and frisk, rather than an arrest, because Minor had been released and had never been brought in. This report did not mention the alleged flipping of a small package by Minor that Kelsey suspected to be drugs. Officer Angelo Hicks, one of the police officers with the Narcotics and Special Investigation Division who was involved in providing the tip to Kelsey, also testified. Officer Hicks testified that around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. on May 19, 1992, he and his partner, Sandy Austin, were in the vicinity of 7th and O Streets and received a tip from a paid informant who had given information concerning two subjects who were possibly holding narcotics [5] and that the informant had given a description of those subjects in the area of 7th and O Streets. [6] That information was relayed to other police units, although Hicks did not know whether he or his partner called in the tip. Hicks did not testify as to the content of the physical description. [7] Hicks, who was still in the vicinity of 7th and O Streets, saw the uniformed units arrive and the intersection quickly filled with 50 to 100 people who were loud and boisterous. Hicks personally saw the subjects but could not recall what they were doing or whether they spoke to one another, and he did not see them exchange anything. Hicks could not testify as to the informant's reliability because his partner was the one dealing with the informant. Expert witnesses for both the plaintiff [8] and the defense [9] testified that, based on a radio tip like that described by Officer Kelsey, an officer would only have reasonable suspicion to stop an individual and not probable cause to arrest under what they termed national standards. Both also agreed that if the facts were as testified to by Kelsey, i.e., that one suspect ran and the other flipped a small packet from his hands, this could raise the level of suspicion to that of probable cause to arrest. Klotz further testified that under national standards, an officer should state explicitly in a stop and frisk report such as Kelsey filled out all the relevant facts including, for example, that the suspect threw an object that matched, in the officer's experience, drug packaging. [10]