Grand jury probe ends volatile case

IT'S LIKE OUR own Rodney King case.

A swarm of Philadelphia police officers descend on suspects, pummeling them with fists and feet as the three men lie on the ground.

One officer puts his foot on a suspect's head after the man is handcuffed. It's all caught on tape, a grim echo of the videotaped beating of King by Los Angeles police in 1991.

As the Fox 29 news video circulated the globe, reaching as far as Mongolia, some of the officers were fired or disciplined and the District Attorney's Office launched a grand-jury investigation.

After 14 months of investigation, the grand jury found that the officers had done nothing wrong. Others aren't so sure.

"It's a small part of a bigger picture . . . ," said David Ruff, 47, a Southwest Philly mail clerk at a Center City law firm.

"You don't know who you can trust. All police aren't corrupt, or judges, but you don't know who's who."

Yesterday, the D.A.'s office released the long-awaited grand-jury report, in which jurors concluded that the officers who beat and kicked the three shooting suspects in North Philadelphia last year used the proper amount of force and should not be criminally charged.

After District Attorney Lynne Abraham's announcement yesterday, the three men who were beaten at 2nd and Pike streets the night of May 5, 2008 - Pete Hopkins, 21; Dwayne Dyches, 26, and Brian Hall, 24 - said they were disappointed by the grand jury. They felt justice was not served.

"What just happened today, like they got away with something that they did . . . ," Hopkins said. "Now, I think cops feel as though they can do what they want and get away with it . . . like they think they're above the law."

Two weeks after the beating, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey fired four officers and disciplined four others. Ramsey yesterday stood by his decision.

John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, however, said the FOP is trying to help the fired officers get their jobs back, and have all the officers' back pay reimbursed.

Hopkins, Dyches and Hall were accused of shooting and injuring three other men about 10 that night, at 4th and Annsbury streets in Feltonville. The trio contended they were wrongly accused, and a Common Pleas jury agreed. Last month, the jury acquitted the men of attempted murder, conspiracy and related offenses after a trial that prominently featured footage of their beating.

Police alleged that Hopkins had been the gunman, and that he, Hall and Dyches fled in a gold Grand Marquis after the shooting and led police on a 2 1/2-mile chase before Hall, the driver, stopped on 2nd Street after being boxed in by cop cars.

They said the three men disobeyed commands to get out of the car and show their hands.

The Fox 29 videotape, and in particular the 55 seconds during which officers were seen dragging the three men out of the car, then pummeling them on the ground, replayed across the country and world - even getting as far as Ulan Bator, Mongolia, where one prosecutor's family lives, Abraham said.

"The video . . . is an important and valuable piece of work as evidence . . . ," Abraham told reporters at a news conference in her Center City building. "But a picture is just a picture, a starting-off point, a beginning, not an end.

"These photographs did not provide context, sound, and it didn't provide explanations. Reasonable force and excessive force can sometimes look very similar on a video. It's the context that makes the difference," she said.

The D.A. said the grand jury viewed the unedited video frame by frame, heard more than 40 witnesses, including officers at the arrest scene and the three men, and went to the Police Academy to receive training on what type of force officers can use.

The jurors said in the report that "after a careful, thorough, and exhaustive yearlong investigation," they "independently concluded that criminal action is not warranted against any of the officers."

They said officers used "only the amount of force - and no more than that amount - that they reasonably believed was necessary to bring under control and into custody" the three suspects.

Families upset

Hopkins and Dyches expressed dismay at the report at a gathering yesterday with their families in the Center City office of Hopkins' attorney, Mary T. Maran.

"I want criminal charges filed against the police," Dyches said. "If we beat . . . a regular person like myself and you, . . . I'm going to have charges filed against me. . . . So why's they not being brought up on charges?"

Dyches' mother, Leomia Dyches, contended the D.A. should not have presided over this grand jury because the D.A.'s office and police typically work together to prosecute crimes.

"The D.A.'s office shouldn't have been over this grand jury because it is biased."

Hopkins' mother, Michelle Wood, said: "When you look at that video and see your child get beaten like that, don't nobody deserve to get beaten like that. He's not no animal; he's somebody's child . . . Justice will be served. It might not be served on this earth, but I got a heavenly judge that's going to see justice done."

Separately, Hall, with his attorney, Evan Hughes, said in an interview that he was "really disappointed" by the report. "What the D.A. and grand jury is really saying is that the cops can just beat up and harass people, and the city will protect them and have their back," Hall said.

On May 19, 2008, Ramsey fired four officers - Robert Donnelly, Vincent Strain, Patrick Gallagher and Patrick Whalen. He disciplined four others - Sgt. Joseph Schiavone and Officers Sean Bascom, Demetrios Pittaoulis and Jonathan Czapor. The sergeant was demoted to officer; the officers were suspended ranging from five to 15 days.

Ramsey yesterday said at a news conference that while he respected the grand jury's findings, he stood by his decision.

"There's a big difference between internal disciplinary action and the potential for criminal charges, which the grand jury was looking at," he said. "I looked at it in terms of violation of internal policy, procedures and so forth and made a determination based on that."

Ramsey rebuffed criticism from the grand jury and police officers that he had rushed to judgment. "I didn't rush to judgment. It was a very careful, deliberate process that I went through . . .," he said. "In my opinion, [this] simply could not sit around and wait for a year-and-a-half, two years for the department to take some kind of action."

Ramsey said he has no plans to change the status of the fired or disciplined officers, whose grievances will go before an arbitrator.

McNesby, of the FOP, said afterward that he talked yesterday with one of the disciplined officers, whom he would not name, and said that officer was "relieved" by the report. "He's happy. He's looking forward to further cleaning up his reputation."

Emotional issue

Abraham said the grand jury, which was not sequestered, knew of Ramsey's disciplinary actions; of Hopkins, Hall and Dyches' recent criminal trial; and of that jury's acquittals of the men in the shooting at 4th and Annsbury.

She said "to the untrained eye," their arrest "looked like a chaotic melee, with fists, and feet and baton strikes being directed at the men on the ground." But, the suspects, the grand jury found, "were resisting. They refused to open the car door, to come out or to show their hands."

She said the grand jury heard testimony from doctors who treated Hopkins, Hall and Dyches. The men suffered "no broken or torn skin, no stitches" and had "minor bumps, minor skin scrapes . . . minor black-and-blue marks and virtually nothing else," Abraham contended.

David Augenbraun, chief of the D.A.'s Special Investigations Unit, which supervised the grand-jury investigation, said as he stood next to Abraham with Assistant District Attorneys Janet Turnbull and Mariana Sorensen, that the jurors did not find Hopkins', Hall's and Dyches' testimonies credible. (Turnbull has family in Mongolia.)

For some people in the city who have seen footage of the beating, emotions still run raw. Center City workers and residents yesterday sounded off.

"No, it's not fair. You don't just jump on people like that," Sekou Jalloh, 26, a parking valet said. "They didn't have the right to do that."

One woman said the decision showed a double standard. Another said the men should sue. Attorneys for the three men have said they are pursuing civil suits.

Paul Messing, an attorney at the firm of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, which specializes in civil-rights litigation, including police-misconduct cases, said if one looked at the video, "it's clear that a number of officers used unnecessary and brutal force well beyond what was needed to make the arrests."

As part of its 97-page report, which is on the D.A.'s Web site, the panel recommended changes to the use-of-force policy, suggesting the department prohibit "the use of a foot to the head of a prone, handcuffed suspect as a means of restraint."

It said it found it "troubling" that Officer Donnelly "put his foot on Dyches's head as a means of holding him," even after Dyches was finally handcuffed.

It said it did not find that Donnelly had put weight on Dyches' head, but found the action "disrespectful."