THE CITY police officer, who has the build of a football #F lineman, tells a group of young people on McElderry Street to move because they are blocking the sidewalk.
At first, no one obeys. So the officer, 6-foot-7 and 300 pounds, gets out of his patrol car and repeats the order. His gun is holstered, and there is a blackjack in his right rear pocket.
The leader of the group says something. The officer cannot hear the words but assumes the worst, that the young man is defying him and wants trouble. Suddenly the confrontation escalates to violence.
The young man, who is 5-foot-7, is grabbed, thrown against a chain-link fence, hit repeatedly, arrested on charges of assaulting an officer, patched up in a hospital emergency room and then jailed, to be bailed out by his family on Mother's Day.
In a city besieged by crime and drugs, no competent police officer can shrink from tough confrontations. But where is the line between aggressive law-enforcement and excessive force, between commanding respect for the uniform and abusing the rights of citizens?
Baltimore Police Officer Nicholas J. Tomlin, 23, stands accused of stepping over the line during the incident on McElderry Street last May. The man he arrested, Robert L. Washington, 22, was later acquitted by a jury in Baltimore Circuit Court, even though Tomlin accused him of striking the first blow.
Recently the police Internal Investigation Division upheld an excessive-force complaint against Tomlin. And Washington, who suffered a bruised and bloodied eye, lacerated lip and bruised ribs, is suing Tomlin, the city and the police department for a total of $11.85 million in Baltimore Circuit Court.
STRESS PLAYS ROLE
Tomlin is white and Washington is black. Excessive-force complaints against the city police force often stem from high-stress confrontations between white officers and black citizens or suspects.
Washington's attorney, Edward Smith Jr., says Tomlin's actions last spring were those of a "big bully with a badge."
"He had to assert his authority in front of the children in that community," says Smith. "But when you're that big, why do you have to do it? It just didn't have to happen."
Representing Tomlin is Herb Weiner, counsel for Baltimore City Lodge No. 3 Fraternal Order of Police. Though not commenting on the incident directly, Weiner points out that street duty is a dangerous occupation, and officers are trained to take control of a situation when they see a threat developing.
In the last five years, nearly 1,500 officers have been injured, 24 have been shot, three killed and others blinded, paralyzed or maimed, Weiner says. He adds that complaints against officers for excessive force, discourtesy or neglect of duty occur at the rate of only one for every 2,600 calls for police service.
"I don't see any great pattern of abuse," Weiner says. "There have certainly been cases where an officer was guilty of excessive force, but it's very rare, and certainly not the way that many citizens would portray it."
In 1990, the Internal Investigation Division received 94 excessive-force cases against officers. Forty-four cases were dropped for lack of evidence, and 50 are still being reviewed.
Roughly two of every 100 complaints are upheld by the division. This usually leads to disciplinary action against the officer, but expulsion from the force is almost unheard of.
"A TERRIBLE JOB"
The findings of the Internal Investigation Division are reviewed by a largely civilian board, most of whose members are lawyers. "I think IID does a fairly good job," says one of the board members, who did not want to be identified. "I can't accuse them of cover-ups. But can the police police the police? I don't know.
"Why do street situations get out of hand? It's a terrible job being a police officer," the board member says. "We have a very violent city. In [some police districts], there's a war going on. Cops get more paranoid and citizens don't trust the police."
The Evening Sun has pieced together the incident on McElderry Street and its aftermath from court records, police reports, medical records and more than 25 interviews. Tomlin and his partner at the time, Officer Rudolph Grue, would not comment, but their version of what happened is recorded in a police report and the videotape of Washington's trial.
For all concerned, May 12 of last year is unforgettable.
The scene is a nondescript stretch of McElderry (pronounced Mc-EL-derry), a short one-way street that hugs the back of Oldtown Mall on one side, and several two-story apartment buildings on the other. The rear entrances of those shops in the mall bring most of the traffic to McElderry Street: delivery trucks by day, and prowling patrol cars at night.
SOFTBALL TEAM
It is dusk when Washington and a group of 9 teen-agers gather near the curb in the 500 block of McElderry, directly
across from the mall. The youths are members of the Hustlers, a softball team of 14- to 16-year-olds who have just finished practice at a nearby elementary school. One of them, the pitcher, is a girl, 15. Washington is their coach.
Now, at twilight on a Saturday night, the group huddles on the sidewalk outside Washington's apartment to talk about tomorrow's big game. Their bats and gloves lie in the grass nearby, behind a chain-link fence.
Some players are standing on the pavement; others are sitting on the curb. All are listening to their coach discuss strategy. Washington, a part-time house painter, has their attention.
He played baseball and football at Southern High School and left there in 1989 with two varsity letters, which hang on the wall of his bedroom, but no diploma. A below-average student, Washington impressed his high school counselors and coaches as "a polite and pleasant young man" who asserted himself on the athletic field, but not particularly in the classroom.
Inside the modest second-floor apartment are Washington's mother, Patricia Tolliver, 38, and his two sisters, ages 19 and 10.
Tolliver, a cashier at a downtown clothing store, is fixing a late supper. The front door is ajar. Tolliver knows most of her neighbors by name and feels safe in the complex where she and her family have lived for 13 years.
Outside, in the fading light, the Hustlers are still clustered about on the sidewalk, talking softball. As Washington explains how to hit the cutoff man, a police car turns slowly onto McElderry Street.
It is 8:25 p.m.
Officers Tomlin and Grue of the Southeastern District are on routine patrol when they spot what to them looks like a street gang of about 20 black males, 16 to 22 years old, gathered at the curb, less than 20 yards from the rear of Oldtown Mall.
To the officers, the young blacks do not appear rowdy, loud or violent. Nor do they seem to be menacing the stores across the street. But Tomlin wants a closer look. He has investigated several burglary attempts in this neighborhood in the past.
"My initial thoughts were to their reasons for being in that particular area, with its proximity to the vulnerable rear of the businesses," Tomlin will say later in court. He decides to cruise down McElderry Street. In his haste, Tomlin drives in the wrong direction on the one-way street.
The officers are midway through their eight-hour shift, their first day together as partners. Grue, a three-year veteran of the force, is unfamiliar with some streets in the neighborhood. But Tomlin knows exactly where he is: on his designated turf.
"That sector is my assignment," he will assert in court.
Though he has been a patrolman for less than three years, police work is a family tradition for Tomlin. His father, Leon, is a police colonel and chief of the department's property division. An older brother, Mark, is a city homicide detective.
As the police car approaches, the youths seem unconcerned. In the past, other officers have stopped to play games of street baseball with them, or to talk about sports or police work.
Tomlin pulls up beside the youths, who are 20 feet to his left. Seeing nothing suspicious, he nonetheless decides they are blocking the sidewalk. So Tomlin leans out his window and calls to them.
"C'mon folks, let's move along, no loitering," he says.
The request surprises Washington. He and his friends hang out here all the time. His apartment building is only 50 feet away. Washington looks around but sees no pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. Nor does he see any "No Loitering" signs.
At first, no one moves. So Tomlin gets out of the car and repeats the order.
The group begins to disperse just as Washington turns toward them. With his back to the officer, he says, "C'mon guys, let's move to the front of my building."
But Tomlin does not catch the words. All he hears are the 'D mutterings of a young man who seems to be the group's ringleader. Not knowing what was said, Tomlin assumes the worst. And because Tomlin patrols the neighborhood, he is determined not to lose control of the community.
What follows is a showdown between the 6-foot-7 Tomlin and the foot-7 Washington.
This is Tomlin's version:
"At this time I approached [Washington], repeated my request to move on, and asked him if there was a problem with this request. I confronted him on the sidewalk and said, 'If you're going to
stand here . . . to make a point, it's not going to do you any good. It's going to get you landed in jail for the evening.'
"He moved to within one inch of my body and stated, 'I'm not afraid of you and I'm not going anywhere. What do you think you're going to do to me?' "
So Tomlin prepared to make an arrest.
"It's a battle I can hardly afford to lose," Tomlin will explain in court. "[Washington's] mere defiance of what I had said had caused the group to turn and stop their procession out of the area.
"I have to patrol that area. If you allow somebody to say, 'No, I'm not going to do what you're telling me to do,' then I've lost the battle as far as being able to effectively control that neighborhood."
Washington has a different version:
"After I told the guys to move, [Tomlin] said, 'Boy, what did you say? You want to show off for the kids? You want to fight? You want to fight? I'd take my badge and my gun off for you, boy.'
"Every time I moved to step around [Tomlin], he would get in my way. He never gave me an order to stand or to stay."
Washington says he only wanted to rejoin his friends. But something was about to happen that would turn the next 12 hours into a nightmare.
TOMORROW: "The face was the target of opportunity."