Excessive Use of Force

by Loretta P. Prater

  During the meeting, Dwight accused Chief Dotson of being a liar. He confronted the chief with the fact that he had lied about Leslie’s weight and height. Dwight insisted on a retraction and asked the chief, “Where did you get that information?” Chief Dotson stated that police officials had given him that information. To our amazement, the chief had merely accepted their statements as factual, without confirming their reports. This was an unfortunate tendency we found to be very common between the chief and his officials. Dwight said to Dotson, “As the chief, it is your duty to know the facts before you disseminate information about individuals.” The chief said, “We will issue a public retraction to my statement about Leslie’s weight and height.” That may have happened, but we never saw it. It seems that retractions are often found in obscure places in newspapers, if at all. Fewer than 2 percent of factually flawed articles in daily newspapers are actually followed by a correction.11

  Detective Angel, a senior detective official, stated that he knew Leslie did not weigh more than three hundred pounds and was not more than six feet tall. In fact, Angel had been in the room when the autopsy was being completed. Dwight said to Angel, “It seems strange that you knew the facts, but the chief was not privy to the same information.” Angel had allowed the chief to report information that was known to be false. Maybe he and other police officials enjoyed making the chief appear foolish. If that was their objective, it was certainly accomplished. To this day, I don’t understand why the chief did not fire the people who deliberately lied to him and showed no respect for his authority.

  Why did they want to lie about Leslie’s weight and height? It appeared to us that they were trying to establish a picture in the public’s mind of this huge monster, who posed a threat to the safety of police and others, and it took four police officers to control him. I wish that at least one of the officers had possessed the critical thinking skills to determine that there were alternatives to resolving the situation. In lying about Leslie’s size, maybe they were trying to copycat an altercation between Nathaniel Jones and the police department in Cincinnati. Jones, who was reported to be more than three hundred pounds and more than six feet tall, died on November 30, 2003, from asphyxia during an altercation with several police officers. His case was nationally publicized and widely known.12 It seemed too much of a coincidence that the Chattanooga Police Department would use the weight and height identified with Jones to falsely describe Leslie. The coroner in Cincinnati reported Jones to be three hundred and fifty pounds. He also ruled the death a homicide.13

  I asked the chief for clarification regarding the use of mace. When Chief Dotson spoke to me on the Saturday before the meeting, he told me that no mace was used. However, in a journalist’s interview with Dotson and printed prior to our arrival in Chattanooga, he stated that pepper spray was used by two officers.14 Maybe Dotson was “splitting hairs” in terms of the use of mace versus pepper spray. After we arrived in Chattanooga, we were told that pepper spray was used. In fact, in the Monday meeting, we were told that two officers sprayed Leslie with no effect, so each sprayed Leslie again. We asked, “Could this take a person’s breath away?” Chief Dotson and others on the platform affirmed that it could. We understood that pepper spray was essentially the same as mace. The name “pepper spray” designates a substance that can cause death and be used as a torture device.15

  Family members continued to question the officials. We asked, “Why did they have him facedown after spraying him four times with pepper spray?” The response was that the officers were trying to restrain him and that one officer checked Leslie’s breathing and another officer came and turned his head to the side. When we later talked to an eyewitness, he stated, “Your son would be alive today if they had just turned his head to the side.” We had been told that officers had gotten a defibrillator out to use prior to the arrival of the emergency vehicle. Dwight asked, “Why were you going to use a defibrillator on our son if he was only unconscious? Wouldn’t it be dangerous to use a defibrillator on a person’s heart that is beating normally?” The response to that question was that the defibrillator was not used because of the timing of the arrival of the emergency vehicle.

  The department had issued a statement that there was no trauma to Leslie’s body. We asked for clarification, considering that we had been at the funeral home earlier that day and discovered that there was trauma to the body. Dwight asked them to explain their definition of trauma, since we had also been told that Leslie’s arm was broken. Actually, the word “arm” was used synonymous with shoulder here, based on the location of the injury described by the funeral home staff member. Angel quickly responded, “There was no broken arm bone; it was dislocated.” Dwight responded, “This is a conflict with what we were told, but even if his arm was dislocated instead of broken, that is still trauma.” The anger continued escalating in that room with every unsatisfactory answer. An official who had attended the autopsy mentioned that Leslie had an enlarged heart. Dwight’s brother Michael stated, “It seems strange to me that people are walking around with an enlarged heart, but they only die from the enlarged heart after physical contact with police officers.” Family members asked, “Who were the people present at the autopsy?” The names mentioned included pathologist Dr. Frank King, his assistant Allison Leach, and police officials Mike Tilley, Tim Carroll, Dave Emerson, and Steve Angel.

  Chief Dotson stated that he would take responsibility for making certain that a full investigation was completed regarding the circumstances of Leslie’s death. I confronted him with the question, “You have already announced your retirement, so how can you make this promise?” The chief appeared shocked that I was aware of his plans to soon retire. Although we no longer resided in Chattanooga, I still remained connected to a lot of people and also read Chattanoogan.com on a daily basis. Chief Dotson had announced his retirement plans weeks prior to Leslie’s death. It was public knowledge, even to someone living in Missouri.

  The chief responded, “Yes, I am getting ready to retire, but the department would be committed to this investigation, including the person replacing me.” Although he may have thought I was operating from a position of ignorance, I knew that the minute he was no longer the chief, he had no jurisdiction over the behavior of departmental personnel. The truth is that his staff had already demonstrated that they had no respect for him, based on their lack of remorse or accountability for lying to him. The chief was clearly a “lame duck” and was treated as such. After the plaques were presented, the photographs taken, and the cookies and punch consumed, that would be the end of his six-year reign. Also, I wasn’t convinced of his interest in doing the right thing in securing the truth and advocating for justice. He was already guilty of lying to the press and lying to me.

  As Chief Dotson and I engaged in continued dialogue, I was watching closely the body language, and especially the facial expressions, of other persons on the platform. I learned tips for evaluating body language when I was working on my master’s degree in counseling. One person in particular appeared to have a smirk and half-smile on his face. It was as though he was enjoying that Dotson was being interrogated by angry family members. That person was Steve Parks, who was an internal applicant to replace Dotson as chief. Possibly he felt that he was next in line to be named for the position.

  On January 14, 2004, just twelve days after Leslie was killed, Mayor Bob Corker announced his choice of Larry Wallace as the city’s next police chief. Wallace, who had not even applied for the position, was in fact the consultant paid $8,500 to assist the mayor to find a replacement for Dotson. As you might imagine, although he did return the consultant’s fee, the appointment did not pass the “smell test” for Chattanooga residents, the police union, or the city council. Possibly because of the uproar and lack of transparency surrounding the appointment, on January 21 Mayor Corker announced that Mr. Wallace had withdrawn his name from consideration.16

  Steve Parks got his wish. On Februa
ry 4, 2004, one month and two days after Leslie’s death, the city council confirmed him as Chattanooga’s next police chief. Maybe the smirk on his face was because he believed that he was going to be the new chief and that Dotson’s words would have no influence in his administration, or in his oversight of the investigation into Leslie’s death. Not everyone was convinced that Parks was the best person for the job. One mother spoke out against the council’s decision. Her son, Tory Hardy, was shot and killed in 2003. She expressed that Parks, as the deputy chief providing oversight of that investigation, had mishandled the case.17 I was also unhappy with Parks’s selection. Although I had not met him prior to Leslie’s killing, I had some knowledge of his background. When he was a rookie cop, he killed a person armed with a shotgun, a married white businessman and father of two daughters and a son.18 I had personal knowledge of that situation. When that incident occurred, one of the victim’s daughters was a student in my class, and I taught the other one a few years later. Based on the circumstances surrounding their father’s death, I believe Steve Parks was remorseful. In that tragic situation, it appeared that he had no choice, in order to preserve his life and the lives of others. Because of how he felt about his killing a citizen, my concern was that his empathy would be directed more toward police officers, not with us, and certainly not with Leslie.

  I cannot recall all of the questions family members asked that evening, especially those that were not captured in the written notes. What I do recall is that police departmental administrators were blasted with questions from family members. I also recall that the officials had few, if any, responses that were satisfactory to us. Near the end of the meeting, the chief asked, “Who would be the contact family member for us to report progress on the investigation?” Frankly, I was surprised by that question. Obviously, he made the inaccurate assumption that because Dwight and I lived out of town, the department would contact a Chattanooga relative to receive updates. I suppose they believed that we would just go away and passively await the police department to contact us at their convenience. Possibly that was their practice in the past with other families, other cases, other wrongful deaths.

  Dwight and I made it very clear that we, as Leslie’s parents, would be the contact source. At the conclusion of the meeting, I sensed that the chief and his staff got the message that their rehearsed and canned responses and process of handling similar situations in the past would probably not work with this family. Because of the history of in-custody deaths in Chattanooga, I imagined that they had a system for how to deal with families in these matters. However, we were not intimidated by them in any way, and we were determined to get to the truth of how Leslie died.

  At least two police officials should have had an idea that Leslie’s family was going to present a challenge. The day prior to Dwight and me arriving in Chattanooga, Detectives Angel and Tilley had already talked to Leslie’s cousins, Spen and Ronnie. The two detectives assigned to the case requested that the brothers meet with them. According to Ronnie, the conversation was mostly one-sided. Police officials did most of the talking, and Ronnie and Spen just listened. Leslie was like a little brother to them, so they were still in shock. Questions asked by officials focused on what they knew about Leslie’s life and his activities on January 2. During that meeting, police officials offered no explanations about how Leslie had died. Spen did tell them about seeing Leslie on the Friday afternoon of his death. He and Leslie talked briefly, mostly about Leslie’s excitement regarding his job interview at the Coca Cola office the following Monday. Spen told the detectives that Leslie was not intoxicated, nor was he running around downtown Chattanooga screaming all day, as reported in a prior fake news item.19 Spen drove a Coca Cola delivery truck and encountered Leslie on his route. According to Ronnie, at the conclusion of the meeting a detective asked if they had any questions. Ronnie responded, “No, but when Dr. Prater gets here, she will have plenty of questions.” He said that detective looked shocked and immediately asked, “Who is Dr. Prater?” Ronnie responded, “Dr. Prater is Leslie’s mother, and she will definitely have questions.”

  The insensitive actions and attitudes of police officials toward families serve as building blocks that erect a tower of anger. There were many other circumstances, from law enforcement officials as well as others, that added more blocks. Days before Leslie’s funeral, I was approached by a member of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on the parking lot of our church who said, “We get along well with the police. We have been conducting workshops focused on how people should respond when stopped by the police.” My anger was fueled, because I thought, “Here we go again, always blaming the victim.” I wondered who was teaching the police about how to behave when they stop citizens.

  The words from the NAACP member were not comforting to me. Often, especially if police use firearms, victims don’t have an opportunity to use any of the techniques suggested in a workshop. For example, if you are stopped by the police, you have the legal right not to speak and can say, “I would like to remain silent.”20 Sometimes police officers discharge their firearms first and ask questions later, as in the case of unarmed Jonathan Ferrell, mentioned previously. If you recall, Mr. Ferrell was immediately tased and fatally wounded from several gunshots. According to reports, there was no verbal exchange between Mr. Ferrell and the police officers.21 Maybe he had attended NAACP’s workshop, but didn’t get the chance to use any of those recommendations. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do. If you encounter a rogue, aggressive, or hateful police officer, your well-being is in danger. The majority of police officers most likely would have helped Mr. Ferrell or Leslie, but those were not the officers answering the call.

  Other than a responsible public servant employed in the role of a police officer, what could have saved the life of fifteen-year-old Jordan Edwards? On April 29, 2017, in Balch Springs, Texas, Jordan died after a police officer fired a rifle into a car, shooting Jordan in the back of the head. Jordan, a straight-A student, talented athlete, and African American, was riding in a car driven by his brother. The assailant white police officer was not threatened or in fear for his life, although he tried to cover up his actions with lies. There were no weapons or drugs in the car—just young African American males leaving a party. On May 2, 2017, the police officer was fired. Subsequently, he was arrested for murder.22 I am grateful there was a body cam recording to document that homicide. I cringe when thinking about how many wrongful deaths were not recorded and the words of the guilty were accepted as facts, their actions justified with the infamous phrase “I felt threatened.”

  In the absence of effective public relations guidance, and in the presence of insensitivity, Chief Dotson telephoned our pastor to offer assistance to the family. The pastor forwarded the message to me that the police department had offered to escort the funeral procession from the church to the cemetery. I was furious. My initial thought was “They kill Leslie and now they want to escort him to his grave.” If they wanted to help the family, they could have arrested those officers who killed him. Of course, the family refused the offer.

  During the week, after Leslie was killed, police department officials were consistent in demonstrating insensitivity to what we were experiencing. Nothing prepares you for planning a funeral and burial of your child, which is listed as the fifth life stressor on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale.23 Within a period of seven days, I had talked to Leslie, who was well and happy; was notified of his untimely and violent death; had traveled from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to Chattanooga; selected a funeral director and identified Leslie’s body; met with police departmental administrators; initiated the process of planning a funeral and completing all of the related activities; talked with an attorney; completed arrangements for a second autopsy; talked to numerous friends and relatives; conducted interviews with media representatives; and selected a burial site. It was exceptionally difficult to devote so much ene
rgy to all of these matters, especially since we were still in shock, eating very little, and hardly sleeping. Yet the police department continued to anger us by asking us to come out to the Police Services Center again to meet with detectives. They knew who killed Leslie. Why did they need more meetings with us? The four officers were preparing to go back to their original assignments, even before Leslie was buried.

  Anger even surfaced while the pastor was delivering Leslie’s eulogy. He talked about his fondness for Leslie and his infectious smile and winning personality. He shared his memory of the last time he saw Leslie. One could sense that he was sincerely distressed by Leslie’s death. He appeared more saddened when speaking about the many other young African American men whose lives were lost to violence. He said, “As a society, we are losing because of the untimely death of, yet another, young black male.” I could identify with the pastor’s words, while also selfishly thinking of how Leslie was blessed with artistic talent to create paintings and drawings, but there would be no more future works from him. Leslie’s future on Earth was gone forever. Our family would not have any more conversations with him. We wouldn’t receive any more greeting cards or embraces from him. Stefan no longer had a “big brother” with whom he could interact. I was especially heartbroken when Stefan viewed the body for the last time. He loved his brother so much. I felt so helpless, because I couldn’t shield him from the pain that he was obviously suffering.