The Colorado Springs Independent reports that in 2013 when Officer Tyler Walker reacted to 18-year-old Alexis Acker weakly kicking at his leg while she was handcuffed he picked her up into the air and slammed her face first to the ground...
She was later awarded $500,000 due to the significant injuries she suffered...
...including trauma to the face, head, teeth and jaw; migraine headaches, concussion, closed head injuries, memory and cognitive function problems, as well as post traumatic stress disorder.
Let's be clear, I think it's fair to say based on her reported behavior that Acker "
Was No Angeltm" in this case, but IMO
she didn't deserve this because when you're talking head trauma she's lucky to have not suffered fatal complications or permanent impairment. Medical bills over the remainder of he life could easily exceed $500,000 since she was only 18-year-old when this occurred, particularly the concussion which can have
after-effects for decades.
There are times when Officers have to take physical action to protect themselves or the public from harm due to dangerous or deadly suspects. These are called incidents involving "Officer Safety".
This IMO is not one of those times. Continued over the flip...
I learned the term "Officer Safety", which for some police is a essentially an ironic euphemism for "kicking someone's ass who's asking for it", from my old room mate then Officer Joseph Tocco while he was attending the academy to join the Fullerton Police Dept. He would describe how training Officers would verbally abuse the cadets to ensure that they had the mental fortitude to not take any of it personally and to not retaliate in anger when all their buttons are being pushed because someone is doing the Riverdance on their very last nerve.
They were trained, in short, to be able to take all the verbal abuse someone could dish out without flinching, without letting it affect their professionalism. True "Officer Safety" is doing the very bare minimum required to safely handle a combative suspect. You might have to get physical, but don't get personal.
Of course there are those who disagree and argue basically that a Cop has the right pretty much to Kick Your Ass just about any time and for basically any reason.
I would tend to think they should use the minimum force required at all times in order not just to protect their own lives of those who've only been accused and not yet convicted of anything, but that is not how things went down in this case, not after Ms. Alexis was arrested following a disturbance call.
Walker and Acker crossed paths when officers were dispatched to a disturbance involving a gun at Acker's apartment on 4173 Charleston Drive the night of Nov. 21, 2013. They found no probable cause, but they encountered an inebriated Acker and her boyfriend, 19-year-old Tyrin Tanks. Tanks was wanted on an outstanding warrant, according to Walker's report. Acker was "intoxicated and verbally uncooperative with police," and became "physically combative" when officers arrested Tanks. Acker kicked at officers, who pinned her down on a sofa and then arrested her on multiple charges, including resisting arrest and assault on a police officer. And she continued to resist while being walked to a police cruiser.
Since they had "no probable cause" it seems to me that in most states they would have
no business hanging around, but since Colorado does have a "
Papers Please" law they could ask for Tanks ID and discover his outstanding warrant. So Tanks was arrested and then so was Acker ala
Reese Witherspoon.
Because of her level of intoxication, Officer Walker brought her - now in handcuffs - to a local hospital for a "medical clearance", which is where the physical incident occurred and was captured by Hospital surveillance.
Video - https://www.youtube.com/... [Caution: Violence Trigger Warning]
In the video, which has no audio, Walker takes Acker to a chair and apparently requests her to sit.
She can be seen verbally responding, seconds later Walker viciously shoves her down into the chair.
She reacts to this with a kick at his leg (Walker's report says she hit his groin but that seems somewhat belayed by what happens next).
Instead of doubling over in pain from the Kick, Walker lifts her out of the chair and does a
Flying WWE Body Slam of her onto the Hospital floor.
Hospital Security appears most likely to aid Walker.
But soon depart as he clearly needs little help as he places his knee and full body weight on Acker's back...
In the exact same pose we've recently seen used in
McKinney Texas against 15-year-old Dejaria Becton by former Cpl. Eric Casebolt. Fortunately for Becton she didn't land face first, and she landed on grass, not linoleum, or concrete.
One interesting thing is the amount of candor to be found in Walker's report of the incident. It's also interesting that he immediately begins to complain his own own injuries, which were self-inflicted.
Walker, 29 at that time, says in his report he "easily" got physical control of Acker, noting her 5-foot-4 height and weight of about 110 pounds. (He was 6-foot-3 and about 210 pounds.)
...
[Walker stated] "It was then evident that I had caused her injury and knocked out her front tooth while throwing her on to the hard linoleum hospital floor, while her hands [were] still handcuffed behind her back," Walker writes. "After my adrenalin wore off," he began to feel pain in his left knee, an injury he suffered by throwing Acker down, so he filed a Preliminary Accident Form and a Response to Aggression Form.
So now apparently and amazingly, Walker became the "victim".
Four days later, Detective Christine Somersalmi contacted Walker "to notify him of his victim's rights."
Yeah, ain't that something?
It's even more interesting to note how vaguely and generally other Officers reported the incident.
Walker's supervisor, Sgt. Mary Walsh, who also was kicked by Acker at the apartment but didn't witness the hospital take-down, says in her report that Walker "rolled her out of the chair to the floor" — his "only means to control her." She also says a hospital employee and security guard who witnessed the incident said that "the force was necessary and justified to control Alexis."
Officer Anthony Carey, called to the hospital later, wrote in his report that Walker "escorted Ms. Acker to the floor."
"Rolled"? "Escorted"? How exactly do you "escort" someone to the floor? Do they get a
corsage to go with the broken teeth?
Speaking with reporter Pam Zubeck who filed this story, which covers several various Colorado Springs abuse incidents besides this one, she stated that Officers have a "duty to report" incidents of this type. Yet even with the video and after the city's settlement of a half $million, Officer Walker apparently remains on duty without having been disciplined over this incident. She also stated that whether other Officers whose reports downplayed the level of force, or rationalized the justification of a grown man slamming a woman half his body weight face first to the floor, will ever face any type of review for their failure to report accurately in this case is "anyone's guess".
We've seen this so many times before such as the case in Florida where in retaliation for being kicked in the shins by an intoxicated, handcuffed girl, Florida plainclothes Office Phillippe Archer hit her with a haymaker right cross to the eye and a round-house kick at her head.
Some would say this girl "asked for it" too with the kick and alledgely using a "Racial Slur" against the Office who was black. But the fact is she wasn't his only abuse victim,
that night.
Frankly once is too much, because when Officers are able to get away with this without consequence, they do it again. And other Officers who see them get away it, or refuse to step-in and stop it, shown by example that it's "fine" and others start to do it too.
Whether it is one lone Officer such as in these cases, or when surveillance cameras captured two LAPD Officers body slam a handcuffed nurse to the pavement - then high-five each other - or a swarm of 26 Officers at least a half-dozen of which punched, kicked and repeatedly tased Tyree Caroll until he was limp and semi-conscious. Or the appox 20 San Bernadino County Sheriffs deputies who tased, kicked and punches Francis Pusok even after he had surrendered, throwing himself to the ground with his hands behind his back, what we don't see very often is Officers who are willing to document and accurately report these types of incidents so they go from being the exception to becoming as habit as the DOJ has documented with Police Forces in Cleveland and elsewhere.
Our investigation concluded that there is reasonable cause to believe that CDP engages in a pattern or practice of using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. That pattern manifested in a range of ways, including:
- The unnecessary and excessive use of deadly force, including shootings and head strikes with impact weapons;
- The unnecessary, excessive or retaliatory use of less lethal force including tasers, chemical spray and fists;
- Excessive force against persons who are mentally ill or in crisis, including in cases where the officers were called exclusively for a welfare check; and
- The employment of poor and dangerous tactics that place officers in situations where avoidable force becomes inevitable and places officers and civilians at unnecessary risk.
When this occurs few Officers are willing to come forward as risk being disciplined or fired as was former LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner, even though the victims of abuse he claimed had occurred
corroborated his story completely, it sadly all led to a deadly and tragic end.
Few are willing to show the courage of Officers such as former Baltimore Officer Michael Wood...
Wood has spoken out frequently on the issue of systemic police violence as he has on Twitter and did in this WaPo Interview.
And when you work in policing, you’re inundated early on with the “us vs. them” mentality. It’s ingrained in you that this is a war, and if someone isn’t wearing a uniform, they’re the enemy. It just becomes part of who you are, of how you do your job. And when all you’re doing is responding to calls, you’re only seeing the people in these neighborhoods when there’s conflict. So you start to assume that conflict is all there is. Just bad people doing bad things.
It's only through the courage of those Officers like Wood that those who are
not caught in the act on camera will ultimately be stopped, and the system improved to not just protect "Officer Safety" but the
Public Safety as well.
H/T to Shockwave for giving me the heads up on this.
Vyan
Fri Jul 17, 2015 at 8:12 AM PT: And now we have this, h/t comments.
11 News also confirmed that Officer Tyler Walker is the son of the former Deputy Chief of Police, Rod Walker.
Rod Walker had retired in March 2012, about a year and a half before the recorded incident at Memorial Hospital.
