They are incendiary accusations, and in one form or another they’ve appeared in a variety of news reports, not to mention multiple columns, editorials and on-air commentary. The five Denver deputies who subdued inmate Marvin Booker on July 9 “piled on top of him,” we have been told, and eventually “high-fived” one another in celebration after his body went limp.
At one point, before the alleged festivities but after Booker stopped struggling and had been moved to a holding cell, an officer supposedly knelt on his back for 90 seconds to two minutes.
However, there is a problem with these lurid accusations, so deeply embedded in the account of Booker’s death: They don’t seem to be true.
No officer could have kneeled on Booker’s back for so long because, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey tells me, the officers weren’t in the holding cell with him that long.
Nor did deputies high-five one another or engage in any visibly celebratory behavior, according to DA spokesperson Lynn Kimbrough — not unless they knew how to do it without a camera detecting it.
And, finally, they did not swarm onto Booker. At no time, Morrissey says, was the weight of multiple deputies on top of Booker in a “dog pile.” Even when one officer was draped across Booker, trying to put handcuffs on him, it does not appear his entire weight was upon the man.
Unfortunately, you will not find any of these revelations in the written statement Morrissey released this week in which he concluded that deputies’ use of force was justified and the DA’s office would not be filing charges in Booker’s death. I had to ask him.
Over the years, I’ve read many official statements regarding police use of force, several so carefully worded they seemed to be saying, “Well, I can’t possibly bring successful charges against these cowboys but I’m sure as heck not going to put my seal of approval on their behavior.”
Back when Bill Ritter was DA, he once wrote what amounted to a denunciation of an off-duty cop’s hot-dog conduct that led to the shooting of an unarmed suspect even though Ritter concluded he could not file charges against the officer.
Morrissey’s written statement had an entirely different tone — as if he’d been impressed that the deputies acted methodically and reasonably. Yes, he confirmed, that’s pretty much the case. The deputies escalated their use of force systematically, and resorted to a “carotid control hold” and finally a Taser, only as it became clear that Booker was successfully countering their attempts to subdue and handcuff him after he refused to obey a deputy’s commands.
Moreover, as the report explains, “Also notable by their absence are any injuries to Mr. Booker from blunt force trauma or from impact weapons. This is because, as the video shows, Mr. Booker was not struck, kicked or beaten in any way by the deputies. . . . This was a grappling by the deputies to gain control and attempt to handcuff Mr. Booker, where restraint was used — in both senses of the word.”
So how did those accusations mentioned above arise? The mythical high-fives were reported by a man in jail that morning for resisting arrest. As for officers crushing Booker and one kneeling for two minutes on his back, those claims had a more respectable source: the medical examiner’s report. For example, it refers to Booker being “face down on the floor with the weight of others on his chest and abdomen.”
As Morrissey explains, however, deciphering the events requires careful review of the videos in slow motion, which the medical examiner wasn’t able to do. And it’s simply a fact, he adds, that deputies were in the holding cell for 82 seconds, which means if one of them knelt on Booker while removing his cuffs, it must have taken less time than witnesses thought.
The 56-year-old Booker died as a result of “cardiorespiratory arrest during physical restraint.” He was on cocaine, suffered from emphysema and an enlarged heart, and was in no condition for the shock and exertion of a free-for-all.
Should deputies have treated him more gingerly? Should they have let him defy an officer’s orders in the expectation that he would retrieve his shoes, as he apparently intended, and then compliantly move into a holding cell on his own?
Maybe he would have, but how can you operate a jail that way? There were 46 other men and women loose in the booking area, waiting to be processed. Under such circumstances, Morrissey points out, “arrestee compliance is not optional.”
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
