1 Cop Escalated; 1 Kept The Peace

(News analysis) The punches to the head came after an hour of argument. Before that, two cops handled a difficult situation in two different ways — reflecting two opposite approaches to policing.

One threatened arrest from the outset, had hostile conversations, then ended up in a melee. One sought to project calm, reassure a troubled person, and stop a colleague from seriously injuring him.

Those two approaches are on display in two body-camera videos released by the police.

The videos capture a confrontation that lasted more than an hour and a half this past Friday inside the Connecticut Financial Center on Church Street. It ended with officers wrestling with a disturbed man, Officer Justin Cole throwing punches, and an arrest.

Those punches provoked inquiries from the NAACP and Independent and social-media commenters about whether or not Officer Cole used an appropriate level of force. The police chief has launched an internal investigation. (Read a full account of all that here.)

What happened in the hour leading up to those blows is a separate and equally significant story. It reflects a decades-long debate within the police department about how to deal with people showing signs of mental illness, about use of force, about escalation versus deescalation, about ​“warrior” versus ​“guardian” policing. That debate has special resonance as New Haven undergoes a transition in police leadership and community discussion over the department’s direction.

The police department late Tuesday night released over three hours of body camera footage documenting the entirety of the encounter inside the downtown office tower.

The footage came from the cameras of two officers: Ashley McKernan and Justin Cole. Footage shows Cole punching Marshall three times in the head and using pepper spray after Marshall kicked him. It also shows McKernan responding instantly to insert herself between Cole and Marshall and stopping the assault. (The officers were accompanied on the call by an officer in training, David DeRubeis.)

The two full-length body-cam videos released by the police department also show so much more than just that tackle-kick-punch-arrest.

What’s clear after watching the videos is that McKernan repeatedly tried to deescalate the situation by listening to and helping a man getting evicted from an office space he formerly leased at the Church Street tower.

They also show that, from the very start, Marshall feels disrespected and antagonized by Cole, who threatens to arrest Marshall — the man who appears to have called the police in the first place — within minutes of arriving.

Cole: ​“Do You Want To Get Arrested?”

Officer Cole’s body cam video starts with the officer and DeRubeis walking into the Church Street office tower and talking with a security guard about how Marshall is a former commercial tenant who has refused to leave the building.

On the 19th floor, they find Marshall, standing in a corner of the floor’s elevator lobby, dressed in a suit and hat and face mask, and on his phone.

The conversation starts off cordially enough.

“How are you?” Cole asks.

“Officer, how are you?” Marshall responds. ​“How’s it going?”

Marshall asks if Cole is a police officer, and then asks for his name.

“Give me one second,” Cole replies.

The officer walks over to a woman who appears to be one of the office’s managers.

Marshall can be heard saying, ​“I called the police, sir,” as Cole walks away. ​“I called the police.”

After a briefing from the manager about how Marshall is a tenant ​“in breach of his contract” who has to pack up his things and leave the office building immediately, Cole promises to take care of the situation. He heads back over to Marshall.

“What’s your first name, man?” Cole says to Marshall.

“I’m not your man,” Marshall replies.

“Ok, what’s your first name?”

“What is your first name?” Marshall repeats. He lifts his phone and appears to start recording the officer.

“We’re not going to play this game,” Cole says. ​“I’ve been told that you’ve been served an eviction letter. It’s time to go.”

“I have not been served,” Marshall says.

“You’re trespassing.”

Marshall insists that he isn’t. He gestures at the security guard, tries to explain his side of what’s happening.

“Do you want to get arrested?” Cole asks.

“I would love for you to arrest me, sir.”

“Because you understand that’s what could happen here,” Cole says

Marshall says that ​“he knows the law” better than Cole. He says that, if there are two sides to a story, the police should be separating the parties and taking down both sides.

“So why don’t you ask me what’s going on?” Marshall asks. ​“Because I called the police. I called the police.”

“Quickly,” Cole says, ​“tell me your side.”

Marshall embarks on a story he’ll repeat several times over the course of the encounter: That he doesn’t think he’s been properly, legally served a notice to quit the office tower. That he feels like he’s been harassed by management as they’ve tried to get him to leave. That he thinks he’s been illegally locked out of his formerly rented office, and that he might lose thousands of dollars associated with a photo shoot he’s organized for a client if he’s not able to get all of his belongings.

The two don’t get far in Marshall’s first take at arguing his case. Cole goes back to the management representatives to get a copy of the letter asking Marshall to leave.

“I just need you to calm down,” the officer says to Marshall. ​“You’re rambling. Relax.”

In the corner of the lobby, Marshall puts his hand out and says to Cole, ​“Please do not approach me, sir. I do not feel comfortable with you.” He glances at the officer’s nametag. ​“Could you step back, Mr. Cole? I’m asking you to step back.”

Cole steps back. The tense standoff among police, management, and Marshall continues.

McKernan: ​“I Understand You’re Having Problems”

Officer McKernan arrives at the office tower roughly 10 minutes after Cole and DeRubeis.

In the 19th-floor elevator lobby, Cole and Marshall are still struggling to communicate. Cole walks away to get a printed copy of the eviction letter, as Marshall becomes more and more agitated.

“I understand you’re having problems with him, with the officer,” McKernan says to Marshall. ​“I understand you’re very frustrated with the entire situation. I would be as well. So I understand.”

“So let’s take our time then,” Marshall says. He lowers his hands from his face down to his chest.

Marshall asks if everyone in the lobby could take 10 seconds to ​“take a deep breath.”

McKernan stops talking. They all pause.

“We get calls like this all the time,” McKernan continues: Civil matters and contract disputes where one or both parties end up calling the police.

“We don’t just show up and say it’s a civil matter and wash our hands of it and let you duke it out,” she explains to Marshall. ​“That would not be proper police work. Even if it is a civil matter, we’re going to do our absolute best to try to make sure that all of the parties are as satisfied as they could be, and just let everybody follow through the proper way.”

In order to do that police work, she says, the officers have to follow an ​“investigative process:” They examine documentation, speak to all parties, seek the root of the problem.

Marshall pauses, then repeats his side about how he feels like he’s been harassed by management. How he wants to get his computer from his office before leaving.

Cole returns with management’s eviction letter. He says Marshall received it two days ago. He insists that Marshall has to leave.

“Mr. Marshall appears to be absolutely correct in that this is a civil matter,” McKernan interjects. ​“And so if he needs to get into the office, he’s going to need to contact his lawyer and sue civilly in order to get into the office. This is not a police matter. We cannot breach the office for you.”

But this could become a criminal matter, she continues, if Marshall refuses to leave.

“If you show up to any business,” including the coffee shop you may visit every day of the week, McKernan says, and if that business tells you you’re not allowed to be there anymore and you nevertheless continue to stay … ​“that’s a criminal offense.”

That’s why Marshall needs to heed management’s call, gather what things he can, and start to leave the building before he can file a formal complaint.

“That is exactly what I was going to say,” Cole says.

In The Lobby, Before The Punches

Over the next hour, Marshall leads McKernan and the other officers to his office, which is crowded with clothing.

He talks and talks about everything from his mayoral ambitions to business deals to purported connections to New Haveners in high places to his sympathy for how difficult it is to be a police officer.

McKernan listens and occasionally chimes in, all while guiding him to pack up his belongings as quickly as possible and start heading towards the exit.

Cole promises to take down whatever criminal complaint Marshall may want to lodge against his former office managers once they all get down to the lobby.

McKernan pushes a large pile of clothing and other office supplies that Marshall has packed up and put into a rolling container.

Down in the lobby, Marshall calls a pastor friend of his to offer a prayer for everyone, himself and the police included.

Cole asks Marshall to detail his criminal complaint of alleged harassment.

Marshall repeatedly asks all three officers to sit down with him while they hear his complaint in the lobby. He references an encounter with the police that occurred just the day before in that very building.

“Do you know how embarrassing it is, as an African American man, two days in a row in this building to have cops surrounding him?” Marshall asks. ​“So I’m just asking you, everybody, sit down.”

Cole says they can’t, because they’ve already gotten other calls for service that require them to head elsewhere in the city. They don’t have too much time. They want Marshall to get to the point of his criminal complaint.

McKernan tells Marshall she’d rather stand, because she spends too much time sitting and would simply prefer to stand.

Marshall then stands. He speaks to officers for about 10 minutes about a convoluted set of business circumstances that this reporter couldn’t make heads or tails of.

The officers ask him again and again to get to the pertinent part of the story, related to any alleged criminal behavior.

Marshall ultimately says that a fellow office tenant or manager allegedly yelled at him and ​“chased” him down the hall as he tried to get Marshall to leave the building.

“One of you will get that man’s license,” Marshall shouts, getting more and more agitated. ​“I will not be embarrassed by the police again. He will be embarrassed.”

“Mr. Marshall, you need to relax,” McKernan says.

Cole says that, if Marshall doesn’t calm down, he’ll be arrested.

“Arrest me!” Marshall shouts. ​“If you want to arrest me, arrest me!”

McKernan jumps in again. ​“You know what, I think we’re good to go,” she says. ​“You have all of your things. We’re not going to get screamed at.”

Marshall accuses the cops of screaming at him.

“I’m speaking to you in a normal tone,” McKernan replies. ​“You are screaming, and I am speaking to you in a normal tone. We just got all of your belongings.”

“Grab your stuff and go,” Cole demands, ​“or you’re getting arrested. You’re out of this building.”

“If we get called because you are not leaving,” McKernan continues, ​“then we will be forced to take criminal action on you. We don’t want to do that. So let’s finish this tonight. This gentleman’s going to write a report…”

Marshall demands that the police get the license of the office manager or tenant who allegedly harassed him. Cole says he will, but Marshall needs to go now.

“Am I going to have to count to three like you’re a kid?” Cole asks. ​“Let’s go.”

“Sir, count to your kid,” Marshall replies. ​“I’m not your kid. I could be your father.”

“We don’t want to treat you like a child, sir,” says McKernan. ​“We just want to get you out of a building that you’re not allowed to be in.”

Marshall demands that the police get the other man’s license.

Cole says that, if he continues to raise his voice, he’ll be arrested.

After a few moments more, as Marshall keeps his hands behind his back and calls on the police to arrest him, Cole moves in to handcuff Marshall. Marshall jumps back, startled, and Cole and DeRubeis wrestle him to the ground.

Marshall kicks and flails at the officers. He appears to make contact with Cole. (Cole wrote as such in an incident report he later filed with the department. ​“As I attempted to try and control Marshall, he violently kicked me in the area of my thighs,” Cole wrote. ​“This action caused me to fall several feet backwards and also caused my department-issued camera to fall off of my jacket.”)

“Get him on his back,” Cole instructs DeRubeis during the tussle. McKernan is a few steps away.

Cole joins DeRubeis on top of Marshall, trying to keep him still.

Cole then wraps his hands around Marshall’s neck, trying to keep him in place. ​“Stop,” Marshall cries. ​“Stop!”

Cole then punches Marshall three times in the head.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” McKernan cries out. She rushes over. She puts her hands out in the direction of Cole’s punching arm.

“Stop, stop,” she says.

Jolisha Troutman (pictured), a security guard at the office complex and the woman who recorded the video that was ultimately shared on Facebook, can be heard shouting, ​“That’s not fair! That’s not fair!” after Cole has punched Marshall.

Cole looks up and points at Troutman. ​“Mind your own business,” he says.

Marshall, meanwhile, cried out that his eyes burned. He asked for water. McKernan found a bottle, poured some water over his face.

“It hurts, but you’re OK,” McKernan reassured him. ​“When AMR comes, they’ll have a saline wash.”