Not Guilty Pleas In Videotape Case
A white Inglewood police officer who was videotaped punching a handcuffed black teenager pleaded innocent Thursday to assault under color of authority. A second officer pleaded innocent to filing a false report.
Officer Jeremy Morse, 24, the lawman seen roughing up the teen in the video, appeared briefly in court with Officer Bijan Darvish. The officers were indicted by the county grand jury on Wednesday.
The district attorney moved quickly following the public outcry, reports CBS News Correspondent Steve Futterman. These charges come less than two weeks after the incident took place.
Superior Court Judge Dan Oki set bail at $25,000 each and transferred the case to a court in Inglewood for trial. The first hearing was set for Aug. 13.
Morse's attorney, John Barnett, said the video and a surveillance tape from the gas station that was the site of the confrontation will help clear his client of wrongdoing. The surveillance tape has not been released by authorities.
"It was proper, reasonable use of force," said Barnett, who has alleged that the teenager grabbed Morse's testicles while handcuffed.
A bystander taped Morse on July 6 slamming 16-year-old Donovan Jackson onto the trunk of a squad car and then slugging him in the face.
The incident has sparked federal and local investigations, and demonstrations in the city of Inglewood, a southwestern suburb of Los Angeles.
The felony charge Morse faces applies under state law to any person in law enforcement accused of using his or her position to unlawfully assault or beat a person.
Morse was suspended with pay after the tape came to light and Inglewood's mayor quickly called for his firing and for criminal charges to be filed.
The videotape recorded by bystander Mitchell Crooks shows Morse lifting Jackson to his feet after being arrested and slamming him onto a squad car. Morse, who has a streak of blood next to his ear, then strikes Jackson on the face with his fist.
Crooks, 27, was at a motel across the street from a gas station where Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies had stopped Jackson and his father, Coby Chavis, because the car they were in had expired vehicle tags.
Inglewood officers arrived to aid the deputies as Chavis was being questioned.
Morse, a three-year police veteran, said in the police report that Jackson was arrested after he struggled with officers, scratched Morse above his ear and grabbed the officer's testicles after being handcuffed. Morse was in "extreme pain" and punched Jackson to make him let go, according to the report.
The boy's relatives have said he is developmentally disabled and does not quickly process commands.
"Jeremy is not the racist here," Morse's stepfather Roger Pettit told KCOP-TV on Wednesday. "The racism is coming from officials from the city of Inglewood."
Darvish, who wrote the police report, said he punched Jackson twice in the face before the teen was handcuffed because he believed the boy would hit him. He did not describe how Jackson was placed on the trunk of the car, saying only that officers "assisted Jackson to his feet and had him stand facing the police vehicle."
Crooks, an unemployed Northern California man, was arrested last week on an unrelated outstanding warrant after failing to appear before the grand jury investigating the arrest. He was returned to Placer County, north of Sacramento, where he had failed to serve a 1999 sentence for driving under the influence, hit and run, and petty theft.
Jackson has sued Inglewood, four of its officers, Los Angeles County and three sheriff's deputies. He has hired famed O.J. Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran to represent him. The federal lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and alleges misconduct and violations of his constitutional rights.