On the night of March 14, 2008, Justin Smith and David Eagan
complained to another customer at the Windjammer Restaurant that his
car was parked too close to Smith’s vehicle. Little did they know, that
customer — off-duty Shelby County Sheriff’s deputy Chris Jones
— was packing a .45-caliber pistol. Witnesses at the scene say
Jones grabbed Eagan by the shirt and pointed that gun to his head.
“I’m going to kill you. I’ve got nothing to lose,” said Jones,
according to testimony from Eagan.
That’s when 45-year-old karaoke DJ Donald Munsey tackled Jones. In
the struggle that ensued, Jones shot and killed Munsey and fired at
Smith, wounding him as he ran out the door of the East Memphis karaoke
bar. Last Friday, the former sheriff’s deputy (also the son of former
city councilman E.C. Jones) was sentenced to 23 years for second-degree
murder.
Jones is one of at least 69 Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies and
Memphis Police officers who have been arrested, indicted, and/or found
guilty of crimes since 2003, according to a list obtained by the
Flyer.
Those officers have committed crimes ranging from driving while
intoxicated and tampering with traffic tickets to aggravated
kidnapping, rape, and, in Jones’ case, homicide. Some were nabbed by
the Tarnished Blue Task Force, an interagency unit involving the FBI’s
Memphis Division, the Memphis Police Department (MPD), and the Shelby
County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO). Others were busted by fellow officers,
and some were caught after citizens made complaints.
MPD director Larry Godwin and Sheriff Mark Luttrell say they attempt
to weed out the bad guys upon hiring, but inevitably some slip into the
ranks.
“I don’t think good cops go bad. I think bad people are hired as
cops,” Godwin says. “If you look at the number of officers we have,
those [bad cops] represent less than one-half percent. That’s a small
number, and I’ve made a pledge to rid this department of bad
officers.”
Yet local civil rights attorney Andy Clarke, who sits on the
advisory board of the National Police Accountability Project, says the
Memphis Police Department has gained a reputation as one of the
dirtiest police departments in the country.
“I’ve handled cases from Atlanta to Tulsa, and I’ve never seen this
many indictments,” Clarke says. “The only two departments that may have
had more are New Orleans, before the Department of Justice took over,
and Miami in the 1980s.”
When Memphis’ Finest Aren’t So Fine
Godwin certainly made good on his pledge to root out corruption with
the firing of Arthur Sease IV in 2005. In July of this year, the former
MPD officer was sentenced to life plus 255 years for his role in
orchestrating a conspiracy ring in which he and several other MPD
officers used their authority to rob drug dealers of cash, cocaine, and
marijuana.
Sease and the others — officers Andrew Hunt, Antoine Owens,
Alexander Johnson, and Harold McCall — were reselling the stolen
drugs for profit. Sease was involved in 15 such robberies.
In one robbery, outlined in the statement of charges from Sease’s
personnel file, two male victims said Sease stopped them on James Road
near Austin Peay. He searched the men and their 1999 Chevy Astro, and
both men allege that Sease took a box containing almost $32,000 from
their van.
The other officers involved in the crimes cooperated with
investigators and pleaded guilty. They received sentences ranging from
probation to 10 years in prison for federal civil rights violations.
But Sease demanded a trial, and he received one of the heftiest
sentences ever imposed for a civil rights violation that didn’t involve
a victim’s death.
“I look at [Sease] and what he did to these individuals, and it
makes me sick,” Godwin says. “You can say, well he just robbed drug
dealers. But you’re supposed to arrest drug dealers, not rob them.”
Sease’s personnel file didn’t indicate many disciplinary problems
before he became involved in robbing drug dealers. But the MPD could
have easily seen problems by looking at ex-officer Daniel Wallace’s
file.
In April, Wallace was one of four officers charged with aggravated
kidnapping, aggravated rape, official misconduct, official oppression,
and sexual battery by an authority figure.
Wallace, a Mt. Moriah precinct officer who’d been with the
department since 2003, was identified in a photo lineup by a
15-year-old girl as one of the officers who forcibly engaged in a sex
act with her in September of last year. Wallace later admitted to
having sex with her while on duty.
But it wasn’t the first time Wallace had been in trouble for sexual
misconduct. A disciplinary report in Wallace’s file shows that he was
reprimanded in 2004 for allegedly making sexual remarks to a female
inmate while he transported her to jail. That inmate also complained
that Wallace made several unsolicited phone calls to her home after her
release. Wallace later denied making the sexual remarks but admitted to
making the calls after obtaining her phone number from the arrest
ticket. He’s set to appear in criminal court in September.
From left: Arthur Sease IV, Adam Pretti, and Daniel Wallace
Clarke believes the MPD needs a better early-warning system to catch
such instances before the officer commits a more egregious crime.
“There’s got to be an effective and consistent early-warning system,
internal affairs procedure, and disciplinary system. Officers need to
know they’ll be held accountable,” Clarke says.
Godwin says the department has an early-intervention system in place
that identifies trends of officer behavior problems, but he says the
MPD’s legal department currently is working to revamp the system.
According to expert witness testimony from Bland vs. The City of
Memphis — one of Clarke’s cases involving use of excessive
force by several Memphis police officers against an 81-year-old blind
man — University of South Carolina criminology professor Geoffrey
P. Alpert found that the MPD’s early-warning system does not require
that an officer be notified when he or she has been flagged as a
potential problem.
“If you have an early-warning system and you don’t show that people
are flagged, what’s the benefit of it?” Clarke asks. “The deterrence
factor involved in early warning is talking to them and letting them
know they have a behavior problem. If you don’t, it becomes ingrained
in an officer’s psyche that certain behaviors are acceptable.”
The personnel files of some officers, however, contain commendatory
reports, or no evidence that could lead administrators to suspect
future malfeasance. Former MPD officer Thomas Woods was also nabbed in
the April round-up for aggravated kidnapping, rape, and official
misconduct. On several occasions in 2008 and 2009, Woods engaged in sex
with prostitutes in the Lamar and Winchester area while on duty and off
duty. One prostitute said Woods threatened her with arrest if she
didn’t comply with his demands. Woods is set to report to criminal
court in September.
Woods was commended in August of 2005 for increasing his patrol of
Lamar Avenue and working with area businesses to decrease prostitution.
In September of 2002, he was lauded for his work on a prostitution
decoy operation that netted numerous felony arrests.
“Sometimes the officers who are doing the wrong things will stand
out in the number of arrests they’ve made,” Godwin says. “They’re going
to shine in their supervisor’s eyes, because the supervisors wouldn’t
know if we were investigating an officer. Only a handful of us know
when we’re investigating.”
There was, perhaps, one small red flag in Woods’ history. When he
was commissioned as an MPD officer in 1998, Woods received a waiver for
driving without a license, a charge that was later dismissed. Such
waivers excusing past criminal activity are given by the Tennessee
Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) commission.
“The waivers are given on a case-by-case basis, and POST does not
grant waivers for felony convictions or guilty pleas,” says Brian
Grisham, executive secretary of the POST commission. “They do not give
waivers for domestic violence, and they tend not to give them for
crimes of dishonesty like theft, burglary, and fraud. They will waive
alcohol-related offenses, if it was from a youthful indiscretion a long
time ago.”
Since Godwin took over as director in 2004, he’s only allowed 11
waivers for offenses ranging from underage drinking to possession of a
controlled substance. But former directors Walter Crews and Walter
Winfrey were far more lax. Crews issued 33 waivers during his tenure
from 2000 to 2003. Winfrey issued 71 between 1996 and 1999, with a
whopping 28 waivers given in 1998 alone. Many of those officers are
still employed with the MPD.
“A lot of the officers we’ve seen doing bad things came out of the
’96, ’97, and ’98 classes,” Godwin says. “I don’t think there’s been
many arrests of individuals who have come on since 2004 when I became
director.
“I’m not saying everything’s been great since I’ve been director or
that I’ve never hired a bad officer. We’ve had incidents down at the
jail, like the [Bridges] McRae case,” Godwin continues, referring to
the 2008 jailhouse beating of transgender inmate Duanna Johnson. McRae
is set to appear in federal court later this month for civil rights
violations stemming from that incident.
Rural Rebels
From left: Alvin Dortch, Jeff McCall, and Thomas Woods
Of the nearly 70 officers charged with crimes since 2003, the
majority have been MPD officers. While that may be partly due to the
larger size of the city police department, former SCSO deputy Chris
Jones hasn’t been the sheriff’s only problem officer in recent years.
At least 12 SCSO officers have been busted since 2003 for crimes
ranging from DUI to homicide.
In May, a SCSO sting operation netted deputy Jeff McCall for
stealing money seized in a phony traffic stop. After receiving tips
that the narcotics unit officer may have been pocketing drug money, the
SCSO and the FBI worked together to set up a sting operation in which
an informant posed as a drug dealer.
McCall confiscated $4,200 in cash and some marijuana from the phony
dealer. He was supposed to inventory the money, but when investigators
counted the cash, $400 was missing. It was discovered that McCall took
the $400 to a Best Buy and purchased a PlayStation.
“The first indication we get that there may be a problem with an
officer usually comes from their colleagues,” Luttrell says. “Officers
will come forward and say, we’ve observed such-and-such and it’s just
not right. Once we have suspicion that some indiscretion is taking
place, we’ll move forward with a sting operation.”
In September of 2007, SCSO deputy Adam Pretti and another officer
(for whom charges were later dismissed) were indicted for civil rights
violations for their alleged role in the separate beatings of Clarence
Brown and Brian Pilcher. Both men allegedly were pulled out of houses
and beaten. Pretti pled guilty to one count of the seven-count
indictment, and he’s set to be sentenced next month.
But that wasn’t the first time Pretti had been in trouble for
violent behavior. In March of 2007, Pretti and his girlfriend were
arrested on assault charges after a domestic dispute escalated into a
physical altercation.
“When you’re looking for a law enforcement officer, you’re looking
for someone with self-confidence, a Type-A personality. They should be
aggressive in exerting themselves when they need to,” Luttrell says.
“Being aggressive is good when trying to control a situation, but it
can work against you if the person becomes involved in domestic
violence, assault, or taking advantage of someone.”
SCSO deputy Alvin Dortch is an example of an aggressive personality
gone bad. In June of last year, Dortch was terminated from the
department after the dashboard video camera in his squad car showed him
firing shots at a pickup truck driven by 23-year-old Ignacio Arcos.
Arcos was pulling away from the scene of a traffic stop on I-40 near
the Austin Peay exit when Dortch fired the shots, causing his truck to
crash and flip upside down less than a mile away. Arcos was killed.
Despite video evidence, Dortch denied discharging his weapon. He
claimed he witnessed Arcos’ truck weaving on the interstate while on
another traffic stop. He said he attempted to chase the truck down, but
didn’t see it until he noticed the crash.
Dortch is scheduled to appear in court in September on a reckless
homicide charge. A deputy since 1982, Dortch’s personnel file contains
numerous minor violations, including chasing a vehicle outside his
jurisdiction, reporting late for duty four times in a one-month period,
and not showing up for in-service firearms training after posting
failing scores two years in a row.
He also was investigated for administering a DUI urine test to a
female without a female officer present and writing an unauthorized
letter excusing a woman from work at Dillard’s so she could participate
in a DUI sting operation.
“I see too many disciplinary files where people have repeatedly
gotten in trouble or had problems over the years,” Luttrell says.
“They’ll get a three-day suspension here, five days there, 10 days
here. But I’ve emphasized that we need to start looking at progressive
discipline. When a person shows a trend over a period of time, we need
to take that as an indication that they’re in the wrong business.”
About three years ago, Luttrell implemented an “integrity interview”
process to ferret out bad officers upon hiring. During these
interviews, the interviewer analyzes potential deputies’ responses
about past behavior and decision-making. Luttrell says he’s cut back on
allowing criminal waivers, and he takes his time hiring deputies, even
when the office is experiencing a manpower shortage.
“Oftentimes in law enforcement, when you hit times of critical need
for staff, you go out and recruit people without really looking at the
people you’re recruiting,” Luttrell says. “When you rush to add bodies,
as opposed to looking at their quality and background, you run the risk
of bringing bad citizens in.”
It’s a problem the MPD has faced as well, though Godwin claims he’s
also hiring with more scrutiny than past directors. Earlier this month,
the MPD was awarded $6.3 million in stimulus funds to hire 37 more
officers.
Both Godwin and Luttrell think they’ve done a good job weeding out
the bad guys. But Clarke isn’t so sure, at least when it comes to the
MPD.
“I think we’ve had a long time of lax oversight of officers, and
that’s hard to get rid of,” Clarke says. “Once a negative culture gets
embedded in a department — maybe because the officers don’t trust
leadership — we always have the issue of the code of silence.
Corruption is a slippery slope.”
The code of silence is an unwritten rule in police culture that
prevents officers from ratting on their colleagues’ wrongdoings. Godwin
contends that such a culture doesn’t exist within the MPD and says
officers regularly report problems with their fellow officers.
Code or no code, Godwin and Luttrell both say they are aggressively
pushing to rid their departments of corruption.
“If you’re a bad police officer, we’re going to get you. It’s a
matter of time, but you will go down,” Godwin says. “It turns my
stomach to know a police officer would do the things that we’ve seen
some of these individuals do. I have no feelings for them. They’re just
another criminal, no different from the other individuals that we lock
up on the street.”
Busted
Since 2003, nearly 70 Memphis Police officers and Shelby County
Sheriff’s deputies have been arrested, indicted, and/or found guilty of
crimes. Here’s a sample from the past four years:
2009
Billy Smallwood (MPD officer assigned to auto theft) was
indicted by a federal grand jury for accessing law enforcement
databases and selling information to a third party.
Ronald Marshall (MPD DUI officer) was charged with DUI and
domestic violence in Tunica County.
Thomas Turner (MPD officer, also served as president of the
Memphis Police Association) was charged with stealing money from the
Memphis Police Association.
James George (MPD uniform patrol) was charged with aggravated
kidnapping, rape, and official misconduct.
Larry Orange (MPD uniform patrol/DUI unit) was charged with
sexual battery by an authority figure, aggravated statutory rape, and
official misconduct.
2008
Chancy K. Jones (MPD officer) was charged with second-degree
murder in the killing of his mistress Phyllis Malone.
Robert Burch (MPD officer) was charged with aggravated
assault against his wife.
Joshua Graham (MPD officer) was indicted in federal court for
making a false statement to the FBI regarding stolen property.
2007
Orlando Hebron (MPD officer) was indicted in federal court
for theft of government funds and lying to federal agents. He was
nabbed in a sting operation for conspiring to steal from drug dealers
and launder money.
Roy Shotwell (MPD officer) was charged with rape of a
15-year-old girl.
Trennis Swims (MPD officer) pled guilty to civil rights
charges after stealing from drivers during traffic stops.
Dennis Clark (SCSO deputy) was charged with DUI when he was
passed out in his vehicle at a stop light.
Thomas Braswell (SCSO deputy) pled guilty to bribery charges
and civil rights violations. Braswell received $500 from an undercover
informant posing as a drug dealer in exchange for the address, Social
Security number, and other information of another SCSO informant.
2006
Melvin Flemming (MPD officer) pled guilty to sexually
molesting two girls, one of whom was a 12-year-old runaway, while on
duty in 2004.
Miguel Aguila (MPD detective) was charged with DUI and
refusal to submit to a blood alcohol test in Tunica County. Aguila was
driving south in a northbound lane on US 61 when he struck two
vehicles.