NHPD
Confrontation begins inside Whalley Market Dec. 3
Aneurin Canham-Clyne Photo
Rashae King outside court Friday.
A prosecutor Friday offered to have the state nolle charges against Rashae King, the 36-year-old man whom cops tased repeatedly in a controversial incident caught on police body-camera video inside a Whalley Avenue bodega. King says he wants the case against him dismissed.
The state made the offer, and King’s public defender responded with the request for dismissal of the misdemeanor disorderly conduct and interfering charges, in Superior Court on Elm Street in an appearance before Judge Philip Scarpellino.
Judge Philip Scarpellino refused to dismiss the case, which has become a public test case of whether police will become more accountable for their actions now that they have all begun wearing body cameras on the job.
Scarpellino stated that officers claimed King appeared intoxicated the night he was arrested. Scarpellino stated that police overreaction is irrelevant to the misdemeanor and disorderly conduct charges.
King, wearing an olive drab green jacket that he also wore the night of his arrest, denied having been intoxicated. The judge responded that that wasn’t the legal issue here — what matters is that the police believed he was intoxicated.
“The police were the disorderly party,” King’s public defender, Margaret Moreau, told the judge.
Police on the night of Dec. 3 were responding to a report that a man was behaving erratically; they spotted King, whom they had seen acting bizarrely on the street hours early, into the Whalley Food Mart, where he was calmly purchasing lottery tickets. (Click here for a detailed story about the incident.)
Moreau said that police conduct — including repeated firing of their tasers — had scared King, and that it is difficult to comply with shouted instructions from three different officers. Moreau referenced the body-camera footage, which shows officers firing tasers at King while he tries to shield himself with a sheet of cardboard. No one, Moreau said, could see where King interfered with the police. The state’s attorney responded that King had interfered with the police.
Judge Scarpellino said that if he were to dismiss every case involving police misconduct, he would be dismissing a huge number of cases.
“It’s particularly egregious,” Moreau said of the body-camera footage.
Scarpellino said the officers involved “deserve to be held responsible.” The judge then asked whether King would accept the prosecutor’s offer of a nolle, which means the charge would get removed from his record if he avoids getting arrested again over the next 13 months.
King consulted with Moreau and asked for time to consider the offer. Scarpellino scheduled another hearing on the matter for Jan. 23.
Civil Suit Looms
Meanwhile, King has retained a private attorney to pursue a civil lawsuit against the cops. “We’re moving ahead with the suit,” that attorney, Michael Skiber, told the Independent Friday. “It serves notice to the police that when cameras are on, the police have to live up to standards.”
“The video speaks for itself,” he added. He said King tried to comply “with something he shouldn’t have been accosted for in the first place.”
Top New Haven cops reviewed the body camera footage of the Dec. 3 incident after hearing complaints from the rank and file that the three officers involved were getting away with brutal misconduct. The brass concluded that the officers violated no department general orders but that the officers should have found ways to deescalate rather than escalate the tensions in the confrontation; the three officers were sent to the police academy for retraining.
Outside the courtroom Friday, King said he felt the judge had treated him unfairly. He said anyone who saw the tape of his arrest would also insist on dismissal of the charges.
King said the police made him fear for his life by pointing tasers at him. He also said the police ordered him to do things he could not reasonably comply with, including turning his back on them while they pointed tasers at him.
“I hope only good comes of this” King said, adding that he hoped this incident would lead to the police moderating their behavior. King said he was unsure whether he would pursue a suit against the city.
“Police should protect you, it’s not fair to the people,” King said. King said the public shouldn’t have to fear routine interactions with the police, but police conduct made that impossible.