Sunday, March 14, 2004

Force under fire

By EILEEN ZAFFIRO
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

DAYTONA BEACH — Late on a stifling night in August, Adrian Maddox nursed a throbbing headache and tried to stay cool in front of a single fan whirring in his small living room.

His pint-sized nephew pushed open the front door to announce several police officers were outside. It was nothing out of the ordinary for the Maddox family or police, who say they watch the Maddox´s Glenwood Street home regularly because they´ve made several drug arrests there and nearby.

But Maddox´s last drug conviction was eight years ago, and he and his relatives say the police went too far that night. A citizen´s complaint filed by Maddox´s sister and cousin the next day gives their account of the run-in with police.

Before Maddox knew what was happening, police had kicked down his front door and were grinding his face into the worn carpet as officers shocked him with Taser guns, again and again.

Chaos broke out. Four children got tangled in the melee. Maddox´s 5-year-old nephew and another little boy were accidentally Tasered, his sister claimed in her citizen complaint.

The 28-year-old Maddox was hit in the leg with a nightstick and then Tasered repeatedly until he stopped resisting, police said in their report.

Maddox´s sister, 27-year-old Vaneshia Maddox, told police that an officer with whom her brother has a hostile relationship, Sgt. Mark Eisner, shouted, "I´ll kill you if it´s the last thing I do!"

Eisner denies saying anything like that.

He and other officers at the scene paint a different picture than the one drawn by relatives of Maddox, whose record stretches back to his teens and includes two dozen charges ranging from aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer to cocaine trafficking to homicide.

They said no children were harmed. The officers were responding to a call on an adjacent property when Maddox started cursing and threatening them, prompting the police to pursue. They said Maddox tried to barricade himself in the house and tipped an entertainment center onto them. He was taken to jail that night on charges of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and escape. His trial is set for Monday.

The conflicting stories illustrate the difficulties investigators face when examining citizen complaints of excessive force by officers. Some Daytona Beach officers who spoke to The Daytona Beach News-Journal as part of a nine-month investigation claim internal probes are also hampered because officers who come forward with accusations are sometimes threatened and harassed.

The newspaper´s investigation unearthed repeated allegations of citizens being subjected to harassment and unwarranted force. Most of the accusations were directed at specific officers, and did not indicate there is a universal problem with use of force at the Daytona Beach Police Department.

Police Chief Dennis Jones is confident his officers are treating citizens properly. The unbridled use of force is a thing of the past, Jones said.

"We used to carry nightsticks, and we weren´t afraid to use them," he said, noting those days are long gone. "Now officers are trained differently."

Jones said citizens also should remember that sometimes officers have to use some force if they´re smaller than an uncooperative suspect, or "if they´re in a fight for their life."

"You have to get in the officer´s head," he said.

In 2003, Daytona Beach officers made 9,123 arrests. Of that total, 404 were for resisting arrest, said Sgt. Al Tolley, spokesman for the department.

Tolley noted that the department has about 245 officers, and 13 excessive use of force complaints were leveled last year.

"Excessive force complaints are closely scrutinized in order to identify potential problem employees, situations, trends and methods," Tolley said.

Sgt. Eisner and three other officers involved in the Aug. 6 ruckus with Maddox were the subject of an internal investigation that began Aug. 15. The internal probe ended in October with no finding because three key witnesses never made themselves available for interviews with police, according to department records.

When the Florida Department of Law Enforcement opened an investigation into Daytona Beach police in August, the Maddox incident and the issue of excessive force did not become part of the probe.

"Excessive use of force was not brought to our attention," said Dave Donaway, chief of investigations for the Orlando region of the FDLE. "It was not part of the original allegations. We were working on specific allegations. We were not going on a fishing expedition at the Daytona Beach Police Department."The FDLE investigation, prompted by accusations made by a few police officers and citizens through a defense attorney, focused mainly on allegations involving drugs, money and stolen property. The six-month investigation wrapped up Feb. 2 and exonerated the accused officers.

The accusations

Citizens, police officers and attorneys -- some of whom provided information in the FDLE investigation -- stand by their allegations of excessive force, which they shared in interviews with The News-Journal.

The newspaper´s investigation included examination of thousands of pages of law enforcement documents. Those records included the 240-page FDLE report, arrest reports, personnel files, e-mails, citizen complaints, internal affairs reports, printouts from a restricted police Internet chat room and copies of an officer´s letters to the FDLE and governor´s office.

Those interviewed by The News-Journal accuse officers of assaulting suspects who weren´t resisting arrest, handcuffing people without telling them why, threatening fellow officers who complained about police wrongdoing and harassing people in crime-infested neighborhoods.

Daytona Beach defense attorney Mike Lambert wrote to authorities last year after hearing repeated stories of corruption and excessive force from clients and police officers.

In an August letter to State Attorney John Tanner that eventually led to the FDLE probe, Lambert wrote: "I give credence to most of these allegations because they cross color barriers and are made by people who admit their wrong, and are willing to accept their punishment, but still disclose allegations of wrong perpetrated upon them by police.

"The allegations I am receiving now," Lambert continued, "are beyond tolerance, and someone else is going to get hurt or killed if this is allowed to go on uninvestigated."

Afraid to report force

"If you don´t join in on excessive force in some groups, the cops who do it will lie to the supervisor and you´ll be written up for cowardice," a veteran officer told The News-Journal.

The officer claims he watched a man get attacked by a pack of fellow officers more than 10 years ago, but never told a superior.

"There is still no outlet in this agency to report something like that," the officer charged recently. "They´d find a way to unfound it."

Chief Jones said he feels any officer who witnesses blatantly abusive actions of co-workers and doesn´t report them "is just as guilty, if not more so. It troubles me to know I have an employee who doesn´t trust the administration."

All of the officers willing to talk to the newspaper didn´t want to be identified because they fear for their jobs and safety. But several nervously shared their stories because they say the department needs an ethical overhaul.

"I am growing weary of playing this deadly game," one officer said in a letter to the FDLE. "We all know how it works in this city. To tell the truth is a death sentence without vital, strong assurance we will be protected. We will not talk to those we do not trust implicitly."

Three who have spoken up to superiors say they´ve paid. They said fellow officers retaliated by not backing them up on the streets. One officer told of finding a 110-gram brick of marijuana stuffed under the back seat of a patrol car the officer had used.

"Suspects don´t have the time or opportunity to plant drugs in a car," another officer said, noting the police car keys issued to officers open most patrol vehicles.

One officer said a newly purchased personal vehicle was vandalized. Four officers claim to have received violent threats, some of which named their children.

Some say sadistic taunts have been delivered in notes brazenly left in department mailboxes. One officer said an entry on the Daytona Beach Police Association Web site, in an area that is only accessible to police officers, read, "I heard (the officer´s name) stands for deer meat anyway. If (the officer) doesn´t like the department, (the officer) can be chopped up like deer meat."

Jones confirmed the Web site message, but said he doubts any officer had serious thoughts or plans to hurt a co-worker.

"I´ve never felt that culture here that cops would hurt fellow cops, unless I´m blind," said Jones, who has been with the department since 1978 and chief since 2002.

´Thump a Thug day´

Some officers vent their feelings on the restricted police association Web site on a chat forum called Cop Talk. Chief Jones said he angrily read some of the excerpts at police briefings last year. An officer provided The News-Journal with printouts of forum comments.

"I think on every first Thursday of the month we should call it International Thump a Thug Day," one officer who identified himself with a code name wrote in September. "We should drive around and kick the (expletive) out of every thug we see. Don´t take them to jail. Just kick the (expletive) out of them!!!"

Another officer wrote, "I´ll tell you how to get the truth. My truth serum is my nightstick."

A third excerpt provided a detailed guide to illegal chases. Tips included lying to superiors about the amount of traffic, and fleeing in the opposite direction when the person being chased crashes.

"Do I condone it? No," Jones said, noting he can´t do much to control the police association Web site. Current officers claim that since the 1990s there has been a small gang of cops, complete with gang signs, who make up their own rules when no one´s looking. Jones said some officers did create their own outlaw posse, known as The Creed or The Dark Side, several years ago. But the officers are gone now, and their legend grew "after a lot of imaginations ran wild," Jones said.

Other side of the story

The officer who claimed to watch a citizen get jumped by a group of officers in the early 1990s said most co-workers try to do the right thing in violent situations. But, the officer added, "A few get into that rush of the chase and don´t know when to turn it off."

Chief Jones agreed. "We do have officers who in the heat of the moment get a little excessive," he said.

But that doesn´t mean officers disregard citizens´ rights, he said.

Sgt. Eisner, who has been with the department for 10 years, said seasoned criminals know filing an internal affairs complaint can sometimes "get police off their backs."

"If the police are seizing your money and product (drugs), what´s the easiest way to slow police down?" Eisner said. "That´s their livelihood. They fight back. Defense attorneys tell them to do that. It clogs up the system. If an officer gets enough complaints he can be moved to another unit."

Eisner has 24 complaints in his disciplinary file, 12 of which have been sustained. The sustained complaints include failure to properly guard a prisoner, improper arrest procedures, improper search, illegal search and seizure and improper treatment of a prisoner.

His most severe punishments included a two-day suspension and reprimand from the chief. Eisner said he doesn´t feel too badly about 12 sustained complaints considering he´s had direct contact with thousands of criminal suspects in his career.

Most officers wind up getting at least a few complaints, especially those in narcotics, Jones said. Although some complaints turn out to be fabrications, the department still has to investigate them and even the unfounded complaints are added to officers´ disciplinary files.

"We´re obligated by law to investigate," Jones said. "There can be a federal investigation of us if we don´t have a fair complaint process ... . There´s not a department in the United States that does not have citizen complaints."

That August night

Sgt. Eisner said Maddox´s account of the night he was repeatedly Tasered seriously strayed from the truth. Eisner, Sgt. John Tarr and officers Christopher Reeder and Jennifer Krosschell were checking out a stolen vehicle in a lot beside Maddox´s home when Maddox came outside and started screaming at one officer, Eisner said.

"He was warned to stop," Eisner said.

Maddox admits he spewed a stream of profanities at police.

"I said, ´If you come onto my property, I´m going to kick your (expletive),´" Maddox said. "If you come at me wrong, I´m going to defend myself. I don´t see anywhere in the Bible when the prophets didn´t stand up for themselves."

Maddox wouldn´t let officers arrest him, so they tried to Taser him to get him in handcuffs, Eisner said. Maddox slipped into the house, pulled the entertainment center onto officers, ran for a bedroom and locked the door, Eisner said.

Even a baton strike to Maddox´s leg didn´t slow him down, Eisner said. Maddox didn´t surrender until all the officers had their pistols drawn and he was Tasered one last time, according to police records.

"It was wild," the sergeant said. "We had to kick down the front door and the bedroom door. He swung at us and he tried to jump out of the window. We finally got a solid contact with the Taser in the bedroom."

Eisner said during an internal affairs interview that it was like "a street fight inside the living room," according to police records.

A Taser shock only lasts a few seconds, and Maddox was Tasered repeatedly because he wiggled away every time an officer tried to shock and cuff him, Eisner said. Officers took the children outside during the ruckus, and none of the youngsters was hurt, the sergeant said.

Two other officers at the scene backed up Eisner´s account in their interviews with internal affairs officers. Maddox, whom friends call Mickey, is sticking to his story.

"I´m tired of ... the bull," said Maddox, who says he has scars and nerve damage from the Taser wires that pierced his legs, arm, chest and hip. "I don´t think just because you have a badge you can disrespect me."

Police say they keep a close eye on the small white home Maddox shares with several relatives -- where his deceased grandparents´ Jesus and Last Supper pictures still hang on the living room walls -- because of the many drug arrests they´ve made there over the years and also because nearby residents regularly ask them to help.

Adrian and Vaneshia Maddox both have drug charge arrests on their records. Adrian Maddox´s last drug conviction was in 1996, according to court records. Vaneshia Maddox, whom friends call Missy, had her last drug conviction in June 2001, records indicate.

Adrian Maddox was last arrested in November on a felony charge of habitually driving with a suspended or revoked license. Vaneshia Maddox was last arrested in January for driving with a suspended license.

Maddox and his sister say they´re no longer involved with drugs, and the police are wasting their time.

"I don´t deal drugs," said Maddox, who maintains he now washes dishes at a local restaurant. "I want to. I hate busting my (expletive) for $7.50. But I got a 12-year-old and 6-month-old now. I refuse to take them through that again."

Mistrust on both sides

A few months ago, one longtime Daytona Beach officer made an entry on the police association Web site about the difficulties officers face.

"Mace the clown, fight with him or Tase him and there will be a full scale investigation," he wrote. "Your folder gets thicker ... and if your luck is bad you may even get sued. Break a leg or get injured and the city will fight you tooth and nail if you apply for a service-related pension. It is a noble thing to want to arrest the dopers and to get them off the streets. But often the only person that is eventually removed from the streets is YOU!"

Longtime friends of the Maddoxes have already made up their minds about local police. Willetta Harris, a 65-year-old retiree who´s lived on Glenwood Street a few houses down from the Maddoxes for 40 years, said her usual spot on the couch looking out her front window has been a front row seat for police activity at and near the Maddox home.

"I don´t trust them to protect me," Harris said.

"It´s a brotherhood with cops," said her husband, 65-year-old John Harris. "It´s your word against theirs."

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