Opinion ID: 1690639
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: officer smith's testimony

Text: At the evidentiary hearing below, Officer Smith testified that he worked as a patrolman for the Duval County Sheriff's Office in Jacksonville, Florida, for twenty-four years and recently retired in good standing. He testified extensively concerning the actions of Officer Lynwood Mundy, who was among the first officers on the scene at Jones' apartment after the shooting. Officer Smith explained: Q. What did did Officer Mundy tell you about Leo Jones? A. We, we talked about it several times. He told me that he kicked in a door and that he just started beating people. He says his intention was to kill somebody, and that another officer stopped him from doing it. Q. Did he indicate who he intended to kill? A. He said whoever was inside the building. Officer Smith stated that Mundy routinely fabricated charges and misrepresented facts on police reports: Q. Did you have occasion to actually patrol with Officer Mundy? A. Yes, sir. .... Q. To your knowledge, did Officer Mundy make up charges? A. Yes, sir, he did. Q. Did you refuse to sign reports because Officer Mundy had misrepresented the facts? A. Yes, sir, I did. To explain Mundy's penchant for violence, Officer Smith related the details of a prior arrest in an unrelated case: A. There was a robbery at the Trailways Bus Station one night, and several of us responded to the call. By the time I arrived, they hadan officer had one of the suspects in the rear of a police car. Officer Mundy pulled up. He got out of his car, walked over to the back of the other police car, opened the door, started questioning the suspect. The suspect wouldn't give him any answers. Officer Mundy then closed the door, went to the trunk of his vehicle, got out a pair of vise grips [i.e., large pliers]. Officer Mundy then came back to the police car, opened the rear of the car, told the suspect to place his legs outside the vehicle while he was still seated. When the suspect did, Officer Mundy grabbed his genitals with the vice grips, and made him tell everything he [i.e., Mundy] wanted him to tell him. When Officer Smith was asked what prompted him to come forward after all these years, he explained: A. To be honest with you, I never kept up with the trial. What happened was, I was reading the paper in September, and I read in the paper where Mr. Jones stated that Lynwood Mundy beat a confession out of him. He said the confession was beaten out of him. And the time I read it, I said, it's true, Lynwood beat the confession out of him, because I had never heard that before [i.e., Jones' allegation that he had been beaten].... .... THE COURT: How can you say it's true? THE WITNESS: It was the stories that Lynwood had been telling me. Just prior to the present crime, officers had specifically been ordered to target Leo Jones: A. And it was brought up at roll call that an officer had had a fight, a very serious fight, and that the suspect involved was a Mr. Jones. We were told to do everything in our power to put Leo Jones in jail. When asked why he had not come forward before, Officer Smith was straightforward: Well, I'll be honest with you: I wanted my pension. After he testified that Mundy had tried to implicate him in criminal activity (by getting him to lie on police reports), Officer Smith was asked why he had never turned Mundy in to Internal Affairs: Q. Okay. Then if he was trying to implicate you in a crime, why didn't you ever come to me or somebody else in our office and say you need to know about this man? A. Because I didn't' trust anybody. Q. Are you saying you didn't trust me? A. I didn't trust anybody. Q. Why didn't you submitwhy didn't you give confidential affidavits to Internal Affairs when they were trying to fire Lynwood Mundy? A. When I went to Internal once about a police officer pistolwhipping an 11-year-old kid. By the time the investigation was over, I was told I didn't see what I thought I saw and if I didn't keep my mouth shut, that I could have serious problems. Mundy's tactics were common knowledge at the departmentand in fact were viewed by other officers as a resource: A. Everybody knowsit was common knowledge that Officer Mundy was like a hit man on the police department. .... A. The point I'm trying to make is that Officer Mundy has certain leeways that he was allowed. He was allowed certain things that go on. In fact, he was called to certain problems in order to beat suspects up. Officer Smith related Mundy's account of his actions when he entered Jones' apartment: A. Well, I asked him [i.e., Mundy], I said, What happened? He says, Man, you should have seen it. He says, Man, I just went and I kicked the door open. He says, There was this guy in there and I just started beating him and beating him and beating him. I said, Beating who? He said, A guy we put in jail. I said, How did you know that was the one? He said, Man, we didn't care who we got. We were going to get somebody. In discussing Mundy's reputation on the force, Officer Smith explained that Mundy was recognized as an enforcer: Q. And in the course of cross-examination, you were asked about Lynwood Mundy's reputation. What exactly was Mundy's reputation? A. Mundy was an enforcer. Plain and simple. That's what he was. If somebody had somebody that was giving them a hard timeyou hear it all the time on the radio, I need Officer Mundy. And everyone knew what it meant. Officer Mundy was going to kick somebody's butt. Officer Eason, the officer who obtained Jones' confession hours after the crime, also had a dubious record: Q. And what was Hugh Eason's reputation? A. He was a rapist, possible murderer. .... A. An extortionist. In conclusion, Officer Smith recapitulated his account of Officer Mundy's actions on the scene: A. Well, like I say, he told me the story several times, and each time he would add a little more and a little more, and it all basically stayed the same. It was basically the same story: That he kicked that door down and that he just started beating people. He didn't care who he was beating; he just started beating people. .... Q. And did he indicate that he knew that it was Leo Jones as the individual he was beating? A. To be honest with you, I don't think he really cared who he was beating, as long as he was beating somebody.