A new report calls into question the use of a carotid neck hold on a man who died not long after its application during an arrest last week. David Glen Ward stopped breathing moments after Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputy Charles Blount reportedly reached into Ward’s vehicle to apply the carotid hold, as Blount and three other police officers arrested the 52-year-old Petaluma man.
Ward had reported his vehicle stolen in a carjacking three days before, but had retrieved his car and was driving it on the morning of Nov. 27, when Sonoma County deputies pulled him over. According to the police, Ward initially stopped and then took off, leading the police on a seven-minute chase that ended with Ward’s car being boxed in on a dead end street. Officers say Ward would not open the door to his car but rolled down the window, where police attempted to pull him out and a struggle ensued that included police trying to taser Ward. The short-lived struggle ended after Deputy Blount reached in and applied the carotid hold. Ward was extracted from the car after officers broke the passenger-side window and handcuffed him.
KQED reports that veteran officer Blount has a very troubling history of excessive force charges, and one instance of lying in court about applying the very same carotid hold on a woman Blount arrested for jaywalking. Sonoma County-based defense and civil attorney Izaak Schwaiger told KQED that “Deputy Blount is as dishonest a cop as he is a violent one.” One example Schwaiger provided was a case in January 2015, when Officer Blount arrested Celeste Moon for jaywalking. During her hearing, Blount testified that not only had he not used a carotid hold on Moon, he had never put his hands or arms around her neck. Schwaiger played video, which you can see down below, shot by a bystander that showed Officer Blount grabbing Moon in a chokehold and slamming her to the ground.
“That matter was dismissed,” Schwaiger told KQED.
Judge Jamie Thistlethwaite directed prosecutor Scott Uemura to place Blount’s testimony in the DA’s files documenting officers with credibility issues. Prosecutors have a duty to disclose past dishonesty by law enforcement witnesses to defendants under a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Staebell tells KQED he did follow up on this, writing to the Sonoma Sheriff’s office for any more information on Blount in regards to misconduct. This was in order to review whether or not Blount should be put on the DA’s “Brady list,” a list of law enforcement officers deemed problematic and potentially dishonest, making them poor witnesses in prosecutions. Staebell says he was told there was nothing else to be added.
KQED, in less than a week’s time, has been able to uncover a set of instances of excessive force and dubious behavior on the part of Deputy Blount. A man named Marlon Whitmore received a $350,000 settlement in 2015 from Sonoma County after charging that he was brutalized by a group of police officers that included Blount. A man named Lloyd Beardsley claimed “he was complying with the officer’s commands when Blount tackled him, punched him in the face and arrested him for public intoxication, fighting and resisting arrest.” Beardsley’s fighting charge was dismissed and a jury found him innocent of the other two charges. KQED says that Blount’s record shows that he used a carotid hold on an allegedly intoxicated man who, after being unconscious became “uncooperative.”
Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Staebell told KQED that he could not “disclose” whether or not Blount was ultimately put on the “Brady list.”
Blount was definitely working on Nov. 27, when, according to police, they stopped Ward’s car at 6:02 AM and called dispatch to ask for emergency support at 6:10 AM because Ward had stopped breathing. Emergency support came and Ward was pronounced dead at a local hospital just after 7 AM.
As Deputy Sheriff at Sonoma County Blount made “$167,450 in total compensation,” in 2018, according to county records. That’s a good salary being paid for by residents such as David Glen Ward.
Ward’s family spoke to the Press Democrat at the time saying that they found it hard to swallow the Sonoma County Sheriff Office’s accounting of events as Ward was not a healthy man, frequently keeping an oxygen tank on hand for trouble breathing as well as longstanding issues with walking.
An internal investigation is still ongoing, according to Santa Rosa Lt. Dan Marincik.