Henry Davis' booking photo after police arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in 2009. He ran in the cell and kicked me like he was kicking a football." "And that's when ran in the cell and kicked me in the head. In Davis' telling, the officer who was bleeding left and - while other officers restrained and handcuffed Davis - came running back into the cell. Police say there was a violent struggle as officers handcuffed him. Davis recoils and strikes that officer in the face, breaking his nose."ĭavis says he didn't punch the officer but only put his arms over his head to protect himself. "And after his persistent refusal to do that, one of the officers puts his hands on his chest and pushes him backward into the cell. Peter Dunne, the attorney for the city of Ferguson and three police officers named in a lawsuit brought by Davis, says Davis was defiant and refused to enter the cell. Instead, four police officers led him to a jail cell. Because, I didn't put up no struggle or nothing for them to come here and do that to me. I didn't know what they was trying to do. "What happened to innocent until proven guilty? It's the other way around." "Because they got a badge, and it's their word against mine," says Davis, who at the time worked as a welder at a military base and who has since moved to Mississippi. But one thing isn't disputed: By the time Davis got out of jail, he'd been charged, four times, with destroying property, because his blood got on the uniforms of four police officers. "They're corrupt."ĭavis' version of events - and the police department's - are almost completely different. "That tells me they're crooked," he says. He thought it was "crazy" when police told him they were charging him with property damage. Officials say they will look at the Davis case, too.Īnd Davis says that's appropriate. The Department of Justice last week announced that it has opened an investigation of Ferguson police and the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. There's another symbol of why black residents of Ferguson, Mo., distrust the majority-white police department: the 2009 case of Henry Davis, who was charged with destruction of property for bleeding on the uniforms of police officers. Police officers equipped in riot gear line up during a protest of the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown outside Ferguson Police Department Headquarters on Aug.
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