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Police Tase,Beat And Stomp On Suspect
APD Video: ‘Oh, You Surrender, Huh?’
By Jeff Proctor / Journal Staff Writeron Fri, Aug 17, 2012
Watch video of the incident and news conference below.
This still from a lapel camera video shows APD Officer Ronald Surran standing on a suspect’s head while his hands were behind his back. (Courtesy of APD)
Albuquerque police released videos Thursday that show officers Tasering one man and punching and jumping on the back of another who is screaming “I surrender.”
The second man was being held at gunpoint by another officer, who had a boot on the man’s head.
In the wake of the May 31 incident, officer Connor Rice was charged Thursday with misdemeanor counts of battery and aggravated battery and two other officers remain under investigation.
A criminal summons will be issued to Rice for the charges, which could land him in prison for up to 18 months, Police Chief Ray Schultz said at a news conference Thursday, where he released the videos after public records requests from reporters and a lawsuit from a local television station.
Rice was not arrested, Schultz said, because APD investigators determined a summons was “the best course of action” considering the incident took place more than two months ago.
Rice also still has his job – for now. Schultz said he was moved from desk duty to leave without pay after he was charged criminally on Thursday.
Two other officers involved in the May incident, Shad Solis and Ronald Surran, have not been charged, although Schultz said they both remain on desk duty. Criminal and Internal Affairs investigations continue into the incident, and he did not rule out additional criminal charges.
Rice has been with APD six years, Surran is a 16-year veteran and Solis has been with APD 14 years. None of the three could be reached for comment Thursday.
Tasered 3 times
Under pressure from the news media, Schultz on Thursday released video recordings of the incident taken from the officers’ lapel-mounted cameras.
Police Chief Ray Schultz releases video recordings that had been sought by reporters at a news conference on Thursday. Pictured here, the chief watches officer Shad Solis Taser a suspect. (Jim Thompson/Journal)
The videos show Rice and Solis telling a man outside a Northeast Heights apartment building that they want to search his apartment for a man who had fled on foot from an earlier narcotics investigation.
The man asks the officers if they need a warrant to do so, and Rice replies: “No … It’s called a hot pursuit.”
The initial investigation of the suspected narcotics activity at a park in the 7900 block of Marquette NE had ended nearly 20 minutes prior.
Meanwhile, another man walks into the apartment with his dog, closing a metal security door and a wooden door behind him. Rice yells at the man, opens the metal door into the apartment, and Solis, with his gun drawn, kicks open the wooden door.
“Obviously, that’s a violation,” Schultz said of the officers’ entry into the apartment. “You do have to have a warrant to enter.”
As soon as the wooden door flies open, Rice shoots the man inside with his Taser. While the man screams in pain and begs the officer to let him get his dog, which is barking in the background, Rice sends another five-second “cycle” of electronic current into his body.
Meanwhile, Solis leaves the room and discovers that the suspect the two officers had been looking for had fled the apartment on foot. As Solis walks back into the room, he shoots the man Rice had just Tasered with his own stun gun.
Video from about an hour later shows the man who had fled the apartment lying on the ground, his hands behind his back, with APD officer Ronald Surran’s boot pressing his face into the ground. Surran has his gun pointed at the suspect.
Rice enters the picture and jumps onto the suspect, who is screaming: “I surrender.”
“Oh, you surrender, huh?” Rice says, then strikes the suspect three times in the upper torso with either his hand or his fist.
After officers handcuff the man, two officers exchange a high-five, although it is unclear from the video which ones.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! WHERE IS THAT COP?! I WILL STOMP ON HIS HEAD!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!