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| NEWS > 01 December 2009 |
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Under the spotlight - police m
ALLEGATIONS of police brutality and misconduct are plaguing the Grassy Park Police Station, but the question remains: what is being done to prevent the problem?
Since the beginning of this year, a number of allegations have been reported. Dikeledi Phiri, spokesperson for the Independent Complaints Directorate, says that since January, "slightly above ten" class four cases have been opened against members of the Grassy Park Police Station.
She explains that class four cases relate to service delivery from the police, which includes how they deal with cases and manage the mem... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Boston Globe
01 December 2009
This article appeared in the above title/site.
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Ethics in Policing
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Witness suggests brutality by
A friend of Kenneth Howe, the Worcester man who died after an alleged confrontation with police last week, has described to investigators a series of events that differs dramatically from authorities’ official version - and suggests that police brutality may have played a role in the death.
The friend, who witnessed the confrontation from outside his truck after it was stopped at a pre-Thanksgiving sobriety checkpoint in North Andover, said as many as 20 police officers - their arms flailing - surrounded Howe, according to an account of the testimony provided to the Globe yesterday by Boston lawyer Frances A. King.
King, who is representing the Howe family, attended the session at which the friend spoke to investigators from the Essex district attorney’s office on Sunday at his Worcester-area home. The witness’s name has not been released, and King declined to make him available to the Globe.
“I think this is an outrageous situation; I think the police officers acted like savage beasts,’’ King said yesterday. The driver told authorities that he watched one police officer emerge from the crowd out of breath, saying “good thing we had flashlights,’’ according to King. The scene was, the witness said, chaotic.
Howe, who was a carpenter and co-owner of a barbershop, died at 12:45 a.m. Thursday in police custody, touching off an investigation by the Essex district attorney’s office.
Yesterday, police stood by their description of what happened after the truck in which Howe, 45, was riding was stopped just before midnight at a regularly scheduled holiday eve sobriety checkpoint that included State Police, North Andover police, and Essex sheriff’s department.
In a press release issued by the district attorney’s office, authorities said Howe was uncooperative when asked to step out of the truck and struck a state trooper as he jumped out the passenger side window.
Howe tried to flee, but was caught after a brief foot chase, authorities said. A brief struggle ensued, and Howe was handcuffed and arrested for assault and battery on a police officer. Troopers at the Andover barracks noticed that he was unresponsive during booking and took him to Lawrence General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.
According to King’s account of the driver’s statement, when the car’s occupants realized they were approaching a police checkpoint, Howe moved to put out a marijuana cigarette and latch his seat belt as two state troopers neared the truck. One was at the driver’s window and another at the passenger’s window. The officers instructed the men to lower their windows, King said.
“She then immediately insisted that they exit the truck, and tried to drag him [Howe] out of the truck, and that’s when she yelled that he assaulted her and the chaos broke out.’’
After officers subdued Howe, they dragged him toward a police cruiser, according to King’s account of the driver’s testimony. He said Howe collapsed to the ground, and was motionless.
“That’s the last he saw of him, because the trooper told him to leave immediately,’’ King said of the driver’s account.
The witness was outside the vehicle, facing Howe. He saw arm movement by the officers, but King could not say that he saw blows land on Howe’s body.
Authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of Howe’s death.
Michael Barbour of Worcester, the other occupant in the truck, was arrested for possession of a Class B substance. Barbour has not returned calls for comment.
King said police found OxyCodone on Howe, but she said his family indicated that he had a prescription for the medication.
Steve O’Connell, spokesman for Essex District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett, said the police report on the incident is not available because it had not been completed.
Investigators are awaiting toxicology results from the medical examiner’s office to help determine the cause of death. King said she and one of Howe’s relatives traveled to the medical examiner’s office yesterday to identify the body. King said a photograph of Howe showed that he had “fairly large bruises on the right part of his head, a bruise on the mouth area and over his left eye.’’
“We do have a dead body, so obviously something happened that night,’’ she said.
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