How often does the suspect in a crime go free because the arresting officer ends up being charged with the crime instead? Not often, we'd wager. Yet that's what happened to a Baltimore man accused of assaulting a policeman and resisting arrest. The case against him collapsed when investigators reviewed a surveillance video of the incident that appeared to give the lie to the officer's account of what happened, and instead showed him punching and stomping an unresisting victim.
Officer Donyell Briggs claimed that the suspect, Ricky Thomas, had pushed past him and fled the scene after being pulled over for a routine traffic stop. By the time Officer Briggs caught up with him, Mr. Thomas had already given himself up to another officer on a nearby street. The tape, from a pole-mounted surveillance camera, shows Mr. Briggs then rushing over and punching Mr. Thomas in the face, knocking him to the ground.
But in the official police report Officer Briggs submitted, he wrote that Mr. Thomas had not surrendered at all and was still being uncooperative when he had to be subdued by force. It appears the officer didn't realize the whole incident was being recorded by the camera's operator and would be reviewed by members of the department's internal affairs unit.
Normally, Mr. Thomas wouldn't be considered a particularly sympathetic victim, much less an innocent. He was twice convicted and sentenced to prison for distributing drugs and resisting arrest, and he initially attracted Officer Briggs' attention for failing to stop at a stop sign.
But even if the officer thought he had probable cause to make an arrest, there is no evidence to suggest that the use of force was necessary or justified.
Unfortunately, there's no real way of knowing how often this kind of police misconduct occurs in Baltimore. The fact that this episode was documented by a surveillance camera seems to have been mostly a matter of luck. And the incident, which occurred in 2010, was only partially resolved last month, when Mr. Briggs was given probation before judgment on charges of second-degree assault and misconduct in office (he remains on the force pending the outcome of a disciplinary review).
But Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III is to be commended for his commitment to holding officers who abuse their authority to account. There's no way police can hope to win the trust of people in the communities they serve if they are seen to break the same laws they are sworn to uphold, and many crimes are impossible to solve without the help of witnesses who are willing to tell police what they know.
At a news conference last week, Commissioner Bealefeld went out of his way to emphasize the importance of maintaining the highest standards of integrity among his officers. His recent hire of an outsider to head the internal affairs unit that investigates police misconduct, as well as bringing on additional trainers to make sure officers know how they are expected to conduct themselves in the course of their official duties, should have sent a clear signal that he considers no one, including the police, to be above the law.
Reaffirming that principle may not have won the commissioner many friends on the force. But it will pay dividends if it begins to help mend the relationship between the department and city residents. People can't be expected to ever trust the police if they believe that officers can break the law with impunity.