Bigots_Suck (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bigots_suck) wrote,@ 2006-05-09 12:38:00 |
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Tasers and the Orlando Police Dept. (Part 2)
CopWatch
OPD's TOP TASER USERS
Cute, Jonathan 47 [incidents]
Daniel, Nahoum 35
Scott, Jason 30
Cimini, Travis 29
Jackson, Christopher 29
Parker, James 24
Costa, Wayne 21
Sikos, Frank 21
Miller, Anthony 20
Wongshue, Anthony 19
Gruler, Adam 19
From February 2003 through mid-March 2006
SOURCES: Sentinel research, Orlando Police Department
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-tase
TASERS & THE POLICE
Tough solutions for Parramore
OPD says keeping order requires Tasers. Critics say the neighborhood is singled out unfairly.
Anthony Colarossi and Jim Leusner
[Orlando] Sentinel Staff Writers
May 8, 2006
Adam Gruler is a hunter.
That's one of the nicknames given inside the Orlando Police Department to the young, aggressive cops sent to patrol in and around Parramore, one of Orlando's toughest and poorest neighborhoods. Their job: create a "no-tolerance zone" for crime of all kinds.
By police accounts, the 29-year-old Gruler is good at it. From 2003 to 2005, he averaged 156 arrests a year. He has won individual and unit citations. He has busted people for possession of everything from crack cocaine to an AK-47 assault rifle.
He also has become one of the department's top Taser users. In the past three years, he has used his stun gun 19 times, something he matter-of-factly blames on the place where he hunts.
"These are not College Park residents, who are professionals with careers and typical law-abiding citizens," said Gruler, a five-year veteran who thinks most people he encounters are involved in criminal activity, especially buying or selling drugs.
"I'm not saying Parramore is all bad. . . . I've talked to many people out here that are very nice. They wish it wasn't like this. . . . I can only deal with what I have out here."
Last year, the 1.4-square-mile area -- and adjoining communities of Callahan and Holden Heights that make up the Orlando department's "G" sector -- accounted for 39 percent of all drug-related charges. It also generated nearly 20 percent of the aggravated assaults and 18 percent of the robberies, often byproducts of the drug trade.
And, since 2003, it has been the scene of nearly 22 percent of all police tasings, 215 of them by Gruler and seven other high-Taser-use cops who work or have worked in Parramore and other low-income west-side neighborhoods.
The eight are among the 11 Orlando officers who account for 294, or 24 percent, of the 1,243 people tased by the department since the weapons were introduced in February 2003, according to a Sentinel analysis. Not surprisingly, most of them look a lot like Gruler.
They are younger officers -- with an average age of 32 and six years of OPD experience -- and patrol high-crime areas. All but two are white; one is black, and one Asian. Two are former bicycle cops downtown, where throngs of young people drinking and partying create a Taser hot zone. The out-of-area exception works the midnight shift along the State Road 436 corridor.
Deputy Chief Val Demings, who oversees OPD's patrol division, said the high-Taser-use patrolmen, especially those who work in and around Parramore, are doing what they're told to do: seek out crime.
"They're kicking butt," said Demings, who sees the Parramore area as "socioeconomically challenged" and fighting to shed its street-crime image. ". . . I call that good police work."
But talk to area residents eating at Johnson's Diner, playing checkers under the East-West Expressway or sitting outside their homes, and they complain that some police are belligerent and too quick on the draw with their Tasers.
The Rev. Randolph Bracy, pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church of Orlando in Holden Heights, said everyone in the Parramore area talks about OPD's forceful tactics.
"It's unfair when one community has a disproportionate number of tasings," Bracy said. "I just think it's punitive."
Added Tamecka Pierce, the state chairwoman for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, who lives in Pine Hills: "They [police] are not always serving and protecting; they're harassing and abusing."
'Shaking the trees'
It's a Saturday night in mid-February, and Adam Gruler is on the hunt. In his Ford Crown Victoria cruiser, with a 12-gauge shotgun and an AR-15 assault rifle mounted beside him, Gruler is driving the streets of Parramore looking for anything out of the ordinary. The radio crackles with 911 calls for robberies and domestic disturbances.
While driving, Gruler has an uncanny ability to spot unlocked doors, bicyclists riding at night without lights on and pedestrians who just don't look right. He'll stop them all.
Some might call him vigilant. Others might say he is harassing. Gruler calls it "shaking the trees to see what falls down."
On this night, he stopped to question a man who stared at his cruiser, got permission to search him -- and let him go when he found no drugs. He ran after a 20-year-old who matched the description of an armed suspect; though no weapon was found, the man was charged with resisting an officer without violence. The charge was subsequently dropped.
Later, while trying to trap suspects who had fled a fight, Gruler's cruiser was forced off the road to avoid a head-on collision with the couple's car. The suspects, suspected in a later carjacking, were arrested the next day in Indian River County.
All of that occurred during one shift -- which Gruler said was a typical busy night. Danger, he said, is always lurking.
Early April 1, Gruler spotted an open security gate at a Parramore business, suspected a burglary and confronted Frank Bryant, 29, who tried to slam the door on him. After wrestling him into handcuffs, Gruler saw an AK-47 assault rifle -- later found to be fully loaded -- three steps from where Bryant had been standing. He found a small amount of crack cocaine, a drug Bryant said he has used for five years, according to Gruler's report.
Gruler didn't use his Taser -- but he acknowledges it's always at the ready.
"It's something that is on my bat belt to help me do my job. And it helps me effectively do my job by preventing injury to myself, to the bad guy and to other citizens," Gruler said.
"Is it meant to feel good? No. It's meant to stop the resistance that is being given. And it effectively does that on I would say more than 95 percent of the people."
Acting 'with malice'
But sometimes, the hunters meet resistance from people who think they are being unfairly singled out. Just such a case landed OPD's top Taser user, Jonathan Cute, in federal court earlier this year.
The 34-year-old, five-year Orlando cop led the agency with 47 Taser shootings during the past three years -- 35 in 2003 alone, according to a Sentinel study. Most occurred on Mercy Drive, in Pine Hills, Parramore or on off-duty assignments outside downtown bars. Some involved stopping motorists for driving infractions who subsequently fled or resisted arrest.
Like Gruler, Cute is a decorated hunter.
"In my 18-plus years with this agency I have not seen one officer that has made more arrests, recovered more drugs . . . and doing this in a marked patrol car," a sergeant wrote in his June 2004 job evaluation.
In June 2003, Cute stopped a young motorist named Dontray Chaney for having an "obscured" license tag. Chaney argued, did not produce his drivers license and made what Cute said was a suspicious movement toward the passenger side. Cute wrestled Chaney out of the car, tased him and charged him with resisting without violence. Prosecutors later dropped the charge.
In March, a federal court jury found that Cute had used his Taser "with malice." Chaney was awarded $100,000 in punitive damages, though a federal judge subsequently overturned the verdict as legally unsupported by case law and by the jury's decision that Cute thought he had a good reason to pull Chaney over.
"He's trigger-happy," Chaney's attorney, Jack Nichols, said of Cute. "He uses a Taser a lot of times when he didn't have to use them."
Cute would not comment because Chaney has appealed.
The Chaney case has rekindled arguments by defense attorneys and some civil-rights groups who contend Tasers are being used too often, especially for relatively minor offenses.
Howard Marks, an attorney who has sued Orlando police and the Orange County Sheriff's Office over Taser incidents, said he is investigating several cases in which Parramore-area residents were confronted by police for simply standing or walking down the street.
"And quite often it leads to an arrest of these individuals for absolutely and completely no reason," Marks said. "And sometimes it ends up in physical injuries to these individuals."
'In the electric chair'
The case of Antonio Adams gives ammunition to both sides.
Adams, then 25, was tased three times in April 2004 by Gruler and two other officers after, they said, he resisted them following a Parramore traffic stop. But Adams and his lawyer said the real reason for the tasings was to recover an object Adams shoved into his mouth during the stop and later swallowed. Police suspected it was crack cocaine.
"It felt like being in the electric chair, being shocked with a plug," Adams said of the tasing.
OPD policy bans using the Taser solely to recover drugs from a person's mouth. On the other hand, Adams fully understood the consequences of spitting out the substance. He has two dozen arrests for drugs, battery and theft. And the OPD report says a swab of his mouth tested positive for cocaine.
A prosecutor dropped the criminal case against Adams, noting there was no evidence he was "chewing on contraband" when first stopped. Adams has sued for what his attorney, Thomas Luka, called "torture on the streets of Orlando."
Neither Gruler nor other police officials would comment because of the pending litigation. But in general, police officials call traffic stops like this "aggressive" policing.
Said Demings: "If that [vehicle or pedestrian] stop results in something greater and leads to drugs or drug paraphernalia, I call that good police work." Indeed, the Sentinel found that 41 percent of the G-sector tasings result in at least one felony conviction. Compared to other Taser hot spots, that's double the rate for downtown and about one-third higher than in the Universal or S.R. 436 areas.
High crime, high Taser use
Gruler knows he is not popular on some of Parramore's toughest corners. Many residents resent white officers, he said, calling them racist for doing their job. Meanwhile, black officers are called "Uncle Tom."
And then, he said, there are the criminals -- many who are repeat offenders and resist arrest. "Nobody is happy to go to jail," Gruler said. "A lot of people will fight you not to go to jail."
Given the crime rate in the area, no one in law enforcement expressed surprise that Tasers are used frequently there.
"Wherever you have a drug problem, you're going to have high Taser use," Chief Mike McCoy said. "If people are high on drugs or intoxicated, there will be a higher rate of resistance."
Lorie Fridell, a University of South Florida criminology professor, said high Taser counts in Orlando's highest-crime areas do not automatically show bias.
"You are going to expect more use of force where the police are more active, and they are more active in high-crime areas," Fridell said. "We cannot prove or disprove whether it's bias or perfectly legitimate police response."
In fact, the Police Department's top managers say they've had excellent relations with community and civic groups in the area and received little negative feedback. The department has investigated only two Taser complaints in the past two years involving G-sector police.
Still, Pierce, the ACORN state chair, contends blacks are unfairly harassed by certain Orlando police officers.
"A lot of those people behind those badges are racist . . .," she said. "If there were more black officers patrolling that area, I think there would be less tasing. I think there would be less resisting without violence."
Or possibly not. The department's No. 2-ranked Taser user, with 35 firings, is Nahoum Daniel, a black Haitian-American who also works the midnight shift in Parramore. Ten of his tasings were at Universal Studios, where he works off-duty; the other 25 were in Parramore.
Daniel said relations with Parramore and other west Orlando residents are good.
"I don't see tensions between any groups of citizens and officers of any particular race," he wrote in an e-mail to the Sentinel.
Parramore residents are clearly conflicted about cops and criminals. Some refuse to give their names because they fear both.
"If it weren't for the law, you couldn't walk down these streets," said a 62-year-old retired construction worker. "They [criminals] would take over the place."
On the other side is Antawain Green, a 25-year-old businessman from Pine Hills. Testifying in March in the suit against Cute -- Green is Chaney's cousin and owned the car Chaney was driving -- he said he recalled being stopped a few years ago in Parramore by officers who wanted to search his car.
"The message is: A young black person can't have a nice car and work for it. They must sell drugs or deal in stolen property or are doing something illegal," said Green, who said he thought his window tint, chrome wheels and dreadlocks attracted police attention. ". . . They don't stop you if you have tinted windows in MetroWest because it's a middle-class neighborhood."
But Darnell Hill, an 11-year-veteran who patrols Parramore at night, said he and other officers simply enforce the law.
"I work in a predominantly black area, so people I stop are black," said Hill, who is black. "If they're white, I'll stop them, too."
Katy Moore of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Anthony Colarossi can be reached at 407-420-6218 or acolarossi@orlandosentinel.com. Jim Leusner can be reached at 407-420-5411 or jleusner@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2006, Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/loc
Drunk and unruly? You risk a taser
Jim Leusner
[Orlando] Sentinel Staff Writer
May 8, 2006
Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights are one big party for up to 20,000 people in downtown Orlando.
With rap, techno or Latin music blaring from 40 bars and dance clubs such as Antigua, Icon and Cairo, the city is a magnet for 20- and 30-something tourists or locals from all over Central Florida.
Invariably, the mix of alcohol and testosterone triggers fights inside clubs or outside on sidewalks. Often, the combatants don't stop, won't leave the premises, refuse to be arrested or attack police -- triggering a Taser shot that lands them in jail.
Twenty-one percent of the Orlando Police Department's 1,243 Taser incidents from 2003 to 2005 occurred in a six-square-block area of downtown, according to a Sentinel analysis.
"The biggest problem down here is not complying, being stupid or not leaving when they had a chance," said OPD Lt. Jim Marchione, head of the agency's downtown bicycle cops who patrol at night. "Then they start crying when they get taken to jail."
"When you have crowds like this, you can't show weakness," added Sgt. Sue Brown, a veteran downtown bike cop. ". . . It sends the message to the rest of the crowd you'll get arrested."
That message is all too clear to young people who work or frequent downtown. Some complain that OPD officers -- especially younger cops -- are too quick to use their stun weapons compared with older officers who are more apt to physically subdue unruly patrons.
In May 2003, a Wisconsin man thrown out of a nightclub line for disruptive behavior was spotted by police urinating on a tree and told to stop and leave. When he didn't, he was placed under arrest but fled and was tased. Prosecutors later declined to file charges. "I was pretty upset on how quick they were to use the Taser," said Joseph Hafner, then 24, in a brief Sentinel interview.
"They [police] think they own the streets," said Mike Czemeryski, 31, a bicycle cabby, who has seen several tasing incidents he rated as "overreacting."
Todd Mondok, 36, a Home Depot manager who has been going downtown for 20 years, said he has witnessed one Taser incident and several disorderly conduct arrests. He has noticed a difference between older uniformed officers and younger bike cops.
"If I was drunk and going to mess with cops, it wouldn't be a bike cop," he said. "A regular patrol guy may be more understanding and see someone is obnoxious. The bike cops -- they don't put up with any B.S."
Though officers say tolerance varies by cop, Brown contends officers -- including the off-duty police who work in full uniform for nightclubs -- exercise great restraint.
"You've really got to want to be arrested down here," she said.
Last year, the downtown bike cops' midnight shift handled nearly 15,000 calls, including 2,900 assorted attacks, fights and disturbances; and made 927 arrests.
During the massive party on St. Patrick's Day night in March, two men were tased in separate incidents after they were ejected from bars. One pushed a bouncer, twice broke away from police escorting him from the bar, then resisted arrest and was charged with misdemeanors of disorderly conduct and battery.
The other, a 6-foot-5, 230-pound man, was thrown out of a bar and began arguing with a much smaller cop. Finally, the man shoved his bar-admission wrist band into the officer's shirt pocket and walked away. When he refused to stop for arrest, he was tased -- and charged with felony battery on a law-enforcement officer and of resisting an officer without violence. The battery charge was later reduced by prosecutors to a misdemeanor.
OPD Deputy Chief Val Demings said the law is clear, even when dealing with a drunken suspect: "If you touch a cop, you're subject to arrest," she said. ". . . And if you resist an officer, you will be met with force by that officer."
Randy Means, head of investigations for the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office, said OPD must perform a balancing act in places such as downtown between being protective and overaggressive.
"There's a fine line between oversaturation of enforcement and appropriate law enforcement," Means said.
Downtown business people, even club operators, say police are staying within those boundaries. They praise officers and their Tasers for keeping the peace.
"I have to have off-duty officers here because there are so many drunks," said Marko Saljanin, operator of Planet Pizza at 14 W. Washington St. "Without them, I could not be open."
Last year, downtown-Orlando bike cops' midnight shift dealt with thousands of calls and scores of attacks and fights. Often, combatants don't stop, won't leave the premises, resist arrest or attack police -- triggering a Taser shot that lands them in jail.
Jim Leusner can be reached at 407-420-5411 or jleusner@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2006, Orlando Sentinel
CopWatch
OPD's TOP TASER USERS
Cute, Jonathan 47 [incidents]
Daniel, Nahoum 35
Scott, Jason 30
Cimini, Travis 29
Jackson, Christopher 29
Parker, James 24
Costa, Wayne 21
Sikos, Frank 21
Miller, Anthony 20
Wongshue, Anthony 19
Gruler, Adam 19
From February 2003 through mid-March 2006
SOURCES: Sentinel research, Orlando Police Department
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-tase
TASERS & THE POLICE
Tough solutions for Parramore
OPD says keeping order requires Tasers. Critics say the neighborhood is singled out unfairly.
Anthony Colarossi and Jim Leusner
[Orlando] Sentinel Staff Writers
May 8, 2006
Adam Gruler is a hunter.
That's one of the nicknames given inside the Orlando Police Department to the young, aggressive cops sent to patrol in and around Parramore, one of Orlando's toughest and poorest neighborhoods. Their job: create a "no-tolerance zone" for crime of all kinds.
By police accounts, the 29-year-old Gruler is good at it. From 2003 to 2005, he averaged 156 arrests a year. He has won individual and unit citations. He has busted people for possession of everything from crack cocaine to an AK-47 assault rifle.
He also has become one of the department's top Taser users. In the past three years, he has used his stun gun 19 times, something he matter-of-factly blames on the place where he hunts.
"These are not College Park residents, who are professionals with careers and typical law-abiding citizens," said Gruler, a five-year veteran who thinks most people he encounters are involved in criminal activity, especially buying or selling drugs.
"I'm not saying Parramore is all bad. . . . I've talked to many people out here that are very nice. They wish it wasn't like this. . . . I can only deal with what I have out here."
Last year, the 1.4-square-mile area -- and adjoining communities of Callahan and Holden Heights that make up the Orlando department's "G" sector -- accounted for 39 percent of all drug-related charges. It also generated nearly 20 percent of the aggravated assaults and 18 percent of the robberies, often byproducts of the drug trade.
And, since 2003, it has been the scene of nearly 22 percent of all police tasings, 215 of them by Gruler and seven other high-Taser-use cops who work or have worked in Parramore and other low-income west-side neighborhoods.
The eight are among the 11 Orlando officers who account for 294, or 24 percent, of the 1,243 people tased by the department since the weapons were introduced in February 2003, according to a Sentinel analysis. Not surprisingly, most of them look a lot like Gruler.
They are younger officers -- with an average age of 32 and six years of OPD experience -- and patrol high-crime areas. All but two are white; one is black, and one Asian. Two are former bicycle cops downtown, where throngs of young people drinking and partying create a Taser hot zone. The out-of-area exception works the midnight shift along the State Road 436 corridor.
Deputy Chief Val Demings, who oversees OPD's patrol division, said the high-Taser-use patrolmen, especially those who work in and around Parramore, are doing what they're told to do: seek out crime.
"They're kicking butt," said Demings, who sees the Parramore area as "socioeconomically challenged" and fighting to shed its street-crime image. ". . . I call that good police work."
But talk to area residents eating at Johnson's Diner, playing checkers under the East-West Expressway or sitting outside their homes, and they complain that some police are belligerent and too quick on the draw with their Tasers.
The Rev. Randolph Bracy, pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church of Orlando in Holden Heights, said everyone in the Parramore area talks about OPD's forceful tactics.
"It's unfair when one community has a disproportionate number of tasings," Bracy said. "I just think it's punitive."
Added Tamecka Pierce, the state chairwoman for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, who lives in Pine Hills: "They [police] are not always serving and protecting; they're harassing and abusing."
'Shaking the trees'
It's a Saturday night in mid-February, and Adam Gruler is on the hunt. In his Ford Crown Victoria cruiser, with a 12-gauge shotgun and an AR-15 assault rifle mounted beside him, Gruler is driving the streets of Parramore looking for anything out of the ordinary. The radio crackles with 911 calls for robberies and domestic disturbances.
While driving, Gruler has an uncanny ability to spot unlocked doors, bicyclists riding at night without lights on and pedestrians who just don't look right. He'll stop them all.
Some might call him vigilant. Others might say he is harassing. Gruler calls it "shaking the trees to see what falls down."
On this night, he stopped to question a man who stared at his cruiser, got permission to search him -- and let him go when he found no drugs. He ran after a 20-year-old who matched the description of an armed suspect; though no weapon was found, the man was charged with resisting an officer without violence. The charge was subsequently dropped.
Later, while trying to trap suspects who had fled a fight, Gruler's cruiser was forced off the road to avoid a head-on collision with the couple's car. The suspects, suspected in a later carjacking, were arrested the next day in Indian River County.
All of that occurred during one shift -- which Gruler said was a typical busy night. Danger, he said, is always lurking.
Early April 1, Gruler spotted an open security gate at a Parramore business, suspected a burglary and confronted Frank Bryant, 29, who tried to slam the door on him. After wrestling him into handcuffs, Gruler saw an AK-47 assault rifle -- later found to be fully loaded -- three steps from where Bryant had been standing. He found a small amount of crack cocaine, a drug Bryant said he has used for five years, according to Gruler's report.
Gruler didn't use his Taser -- but he acknowledges it's always at the ready.
"It's something that is on my bat belt to help me do my job. And it helps me effectively do my job by preventing injury to myself, to the bad guy and to other citizens," Gruler said.
"Is it meant to feel good? No. It's meant to stop the resistance that is being given. And it effectively does that on I would say more than 95 percent of the people."
Acting 'with malice'
But sometimes, the hunters meet resistance from people who think they are being unfairly singled out. Just such a case landed OPD's top Taser user, Jonathan Cute, in federal court earlier this year.
The 34-year-old, five-year Orlando cop led the agency with 47 Taser shootings during the past three years -- 35 in 2003 alone, according to a Sentinel study. Most occurred on Mercy Drive, in Pine Hills, Parramore or on off-duty assignments outside downtown bars. Some involved stopping motorists for driving infractions who subsequently fled or resisted arrest.
Like Gruler, Cute is a decorated hunter.
"In my 18-plus years with this agency I have not seen one officer that has made more arrests, recovered more drugs . . . and doing this in a marked patrol car," a sergeant wrote in his June 2004 job evaluation.
In June 2003, Cute stopped a young motorist named Dontray Chaney for having an "obscured" license tag. Chaney argued, did not produce his drivers license and made what Cute said was a suspicious movement toward the passenger side. Cute wrestled Chaney out of the car, tased him and charged him with resisting without violence. Prosecutors later dropped the charge.
In March, a federal court jury found that Cute had used his Taser "with malice." Chaney was awarded $100,000 in punitive damages, though a federal judge subsequently overturned the verdict as legally unsupported by case law and by the jury's decision that Cute thought he had a good reason to pull Chaney over.
"He's trigger-happy," Chaney's attorney, Jack Nichols, said of Cute. "He uses a Taser a lot of times when he didn't have to use them."
Cute would not comment because Chaney has appealed.
The Chaney case has rekindled arguments by defense attorneys and some civil-rights groups who contend Tasers are being used too often, especially for relatively minor offenses.
Howard Marks, an attorney who has sued Orlando police and the Orange County Sheriff's Office over Taser incidents, said he is investigating several cases in which Parramore-area residents were confronted by police for simply standing or walking down the street.
"And quite often it leads to an arrest of these individuals for absolutely and completely no reason," Marks said. "And sometimes it ends up in physical injuries to these individuals."
'In the electric chair'
The case of Antonio Adams gives ammunition to both sides.
Adams, then 25, was tased three times in April 2004 by Gruler and two other officers after, they said, he resisted them following a Parramore traffic stop. But Adams and his lawyer said the real reason for the tasings was to recover an object Adams shoved into his mouth during the stop and later swallowed. Police suspected it was crack cocaine.
"It felt like being in the electric chair, being shocked with a plug," Adams said of the tasing.
OPD policy bans using the Taser solely to recover drugs from a person's mouth. On the other hand, Adams fully understood the consequences of spitting out the substance. He has two dozen arrests for drugs, battery and theft. And the OPD report says a swab of his mouth tested positive for cocaine.
A prosecutor dropped the criminal case against Adams, noting there was no evidence he was "chewing on contraband" when first stopped. Adams has sued for what his attorney, Thomas Luka, called "torture on the streets of Orlando."
Neither Gruler nor other police officials would comment because of the pending litigation. But in general, police officials call traffic stops like this "aggressive" policing.
Said Demings: "If that [vehicle or pedestrian] stop results in something greater and leads to drugs or drug paraphernalia, I call that good police work." Indeed, the Sentinel found that 41 percent of the G-sector tasings result in at least one felony conviction. Compared to other Taser hot spots, that's double the rate for downtown and about one-third higher than in the Universal or S.R. 436 areas.
High crime, high Taser use
Gruler knows he is not popular on some of Parramore's toughest corners. Many residents resent white officers, he said, calling them racist for doing their job. Meanwhile, black officers are called "Uncle Tom."
And then, he said, there are the criminals -- many who are repeat offenders and resist arrest. "Nobody is happy to go to jail," Gruler said. "A lot of people will fight you not to go to jail."
Given the crime rate in the area, no one in law enforcement expressed surprise that Tasers are used frequently there.
"Wherever you have a drug problem, you're going to have high Taser use," Chief Mike McCoy said. "If people are high on drugs or intoxicated, there will be a higher rate of resistance."
Lorie Fridell, a University of South Florida criminology professor, said high Taser counts in Orlando's highest-crime areas do not automatically show bias.
"You are going to expect more use of force where the police are more active, and they are more active in high-crime areas," Fridell said. "We cannot prove or disprove whether it's bias or perfectly legitimate police response."
In fact, the Police Department's top managers say they've had excellent relations with community and civic groups in the area and received little negative feedback. The department has investigated only two Taser complaints in the past two years involving G-sector police.
Still, Pierce, the ACORN state chair, contends blacks are unfairly harassed by certain Orlando police officers.
"A lot of those people behind those badges are racist . . .," she said. "If there were more black officers patrolling that area, I think there would be less tasing. I think there would be less resisting without violence."
Or possibly not. The department's No. 2-ranked Taser user, with 35 firings, is Nahoum Daniel, a black Haitian-American who also works the midnight shift in Parramore. Ten of his tasings were at Universal Studios, where he works off-duty; the other 25 were in Parramore.
Daniel said relations with Parramore and other west Orlando residents are good.
"I don't see tensions between any groups of citizens and officers of any particular race," he wrote in an e-mail to the Sentinel.
Parramore residents are clearly conflicted about cops and criminals. Some refuse to give their names because they fear both.
"If it weren't for the law, you couldn't walk down these streets," said a 62-year-old retired construction worker. "They [criminals] would take over the place."
On the other side is Antawain Green, a 25-year-old businessman from Pine Hills. Testifying in March in the suit against Cute -- Green is Chaney's cousin and owned the car Chaney was driving -- he said he recalled being stopped a few years ago in Parramore by officers who wanted to search his car.
"The message is: A young black person can't have a nice car and work for it. They must sell drugs or deal in stolen property or are doing something illegal," said Green, who said he thought his window tint, chrome wheels and dreadlocks attracted police attention. ". . . They don't stop you if you have tinted windows in MetroWest because it's a middle-class neighborhood."
But Darnell Hill, an 11-year-veteran who patrols Parramore at night, said he and other officers simply enforce the law.
"I work in a predominantly black area, so people I stop are black," said Hill, who is black. "If they're white, I'll stop them, too."
Katy Moore of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Anthony Colarossi can be reached at 407-420-6218 or acolarossi@orlandosentinel.com. Jim Leusner can be reached at 407-420-5411 or jleusner@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2006, Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/loc
Drunk and unruly? You risk a taser
Jim Leusner
[Orlando] Sentinel Staff Writer
May 8, 2006
Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights are one big party for up to 20,000 people in downtown Orlando.
With rap, techno or Latin music blaring from 40 bars and dance clubs such as Antigua, Icon and Cairo, the city is a magnet for 20- and 30-something tourists or locals from all over Central Florida.
Invariably, the mix of alcohol and testosterone triggers fights inside clubs or outside on sidewalks. Often, the combatants don't stop, won't leave the premises, refuse to be arrested or attack police -- triggering a Taser shot that lands them in jail.
Twenty-one percent of the Orlando Police Department's 1,243 Taser incidents from 2003 to 2005 occurred in a six-square-block area of downtown, according to a Sentinel analysis.
"The biggest problem down here is not complying, being stupid or not leaving when they had a chance," said OPD Lt. Jim Marchione, head of the agency's downtown bicycle cops who patrol at night. "Then they start crying when they get taken to jail."
"When you have crowds like this, you can't show weakness," added Sgt. Sue Brown, a veteran downtown bike cop. ". . . It sends the message to the rest of the crowd you'll get arrested."
That message is all too clear to young people who work or frequent downtown. Some complain that OPD officers -- especially younger cops -- are too quick to use their stun weapons compared with older officers who are more apt to physically subdue unruly patrons.
In May 2003, a Wisconsin man thrown out of a nightclub line for disruptive behavior was spotted by police urinating on a tree and told to stop and leave. When he didn't, he was placed under arrest but fled and was tased. Prosecutors later declined to file charges. "I was pretty upset on how quick they were to use the Taser," said Joseph Hafner, then 24, in a brief Sentinel interview.
"They [police] think they own the streets," said Mike Czemeryski, 31, a bicycle cabby, who has seen several tasing incidents he rated as "overreacting."
Todd Mondok, 36, a Home Depot manager who has been going downtown for 20 years, said he has witnessed one Taser incident and several disorderly conduct arrests. He has noticed a difference between older uniformed officers and younger bike cops.
"If I was drunk and going to mess with cops, it wouldn't be a bike cop," he said. "A regular patrol guy may be more understanding and see someone is obnoxious. The bike cops -- they don't put up with any B.S."
Though officers say tolerance varies by cop, Brown contends officers -- including the off-duty police who work in full uniform for nightclubs -- exercise great restraint.
"You've really got to want to be arrested down here," she said.
Last year, the downtown bike cops' midnight shift handled nearly 15,000 calls, including 2,900 assorted attacks, fights and disturbances; and made 927 arrests.
During the massive party on St. Patrick's Day night in March, two men were tased in separate incidents after they were ejected from bars. One pushed a bouncer, twice broke away from police escorting him from the bar, then resisted arrest and was charged with misdemeanors of disorderly conduct and battery.
The other, a 6-foot-5, 230-pound man, was thrown out of a bar and began arguing with a much smaller cop. Finally, the man shoved his bar-admission wrist band into the officer's shirt pocket and walked away. When he refused to stop for arrest, he was tased -- and charged with felony battery on a law-enforcement officer and of resisting an officer without violence. The battery charge was later reduced by prosecutors to a misdemeanor.
OPD Deputy Chief Val Demings said the law is clear, even when dealing with a drunken suspect: "If you touch a cop, you're subject to arrest," she said. ". . . And if you resist an officer, you will be met with force by that officer."
Randy Means, head of investigations for the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office, said OPD must perform a balancing act in places such as downtown between being protective and overaggressive.
"There's a fine line between oversaturation of enforcement and appropriate law enforcement," Means said.
Downtown business people, even club operators, say police are staying within those boundaries. They praise officers and their Tasers for keeping the peace.
"I have to have off-duty officers here because there are so many drunks," said Marko Saljanin, operator of Planet Pizza at 14 W. Washington St. "Without them, I could not be open."
Last year, downtown-Orlando bike cops' midnight shift dealt with thousands of calls and scores of attacks and fights. Often, combatants don't stop, won't leave the premises, resist arrest or attack police -- triggering a Taser shot that lands them in jail.
Jim Leusner can be reached at 407-420-5411 or jleusner@orlandosentinel.com.
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