Mayor Toni Harp announced late Tuesday afternoon that she has directed the police chief to put a patrol cop on desk duty pending the completion of an internal investigation into an arrest during which he slammed a handcuffed 15-year-old girl to the ground.
Markeshia Ricks Photo
It was the second protest in two days over the March 15 arrest, which was caught on a citizen video that went viral. Harp’s words might have buoyed the hopes of protesters and angered the city’s rank and file police officers, whose union president called “pissed off” an understatement of the union’s reaction. (Click here, here and here to read about the incident, the investigation, and a previous protest.)
More than 20 people crowded into Harp’s office with signs and megaphones demanding an audience with Harp. They said they came to obtain answers to questions that the cops couldn’t answer a day earlier during a protest at 1 Union Ave.
One question: Why did the officer in question, Joshua Smereczynsky, remain on patrol during the investigation — when another officer, Najea Poindexter, was first placed on desk duty, then barred from the building, after a separate, unrelated internal investigation was opened on her? Smereczynsky is white, Poindexter African-American.
They also wanted to know why the 18-year-old who also was allegedly fighting was not arrested too.
At first staffers told them Harp meets people by appointment made three weeks in advance. The protesters would not be put off. They chanted, “We want Toni! We want Toni!”
When Harp emerged from her office she said that she spoke with Police Chief Dean Esserman. Even though he told her that the investigation of the St. Patrick’s Day parade arrest is not similar to the investigation of Officer Najea Poindexter, she asked him to put Smereczynsky on desk duty for the duration of the investigation, Harp said.
The mayor said that she had seen the video that had sparked the community’s outrage. She cautioned them that additional footage is a part of the investigation that is being reviewed that possibly shows more of the story.
She offered an apology, and vowed to investigate allegations that the events that ultimately led to the girl’s arrest are connected to bullying that had been reported prior.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the crowd. “I have seen the video and I would not want that to happen to my child, in that way.”
The protesters thanked her for coming out to talk to them and for making sure the officer was off the street.
Meanwhile police union President Louis Cavaliere Jr. called Harp’s announcement “a total slap in the face of the rank-and-file officers of this department.” He said the mayor let “an angry mob dictate who can work and where they can work over an allegation of excessive force.”
Cavaliere said that Police Chief Dean Esserman had just told officers in two roll calls Tuesday afternoon that the controversy swirling around officer Joshua Smereczynsky’s handling of the arrest would not turn “political.” Cavaliere called Harp’s decision “all politics” and Smereczynsky being relegated to desk duty “unprecedented.”
“She bowed down to an angry mob,” he said. “To say that we are pissed is putting it lightly. This mayor should have used her backbone and stood up for what is right.”
Previous coverage of this story:
• Video Captures Cop Slamming Girl To Ground
• This Time, Cop Kept On Streets During IA Probe
• Anybody Home?