South Carolina’s poisonous police culture: The death of Lori Jean Ellis

[brer cat]

Lori Jean Ellis was a 52 year old black woman living in Kershaw County, SC. She was a nurse veteran of the 1st Gulf War, suffered from PTSD, and apparently self-medicated with alcohol. Her crimes were of poverty: bounced checks, failure to appear for traffic violations, conviction for possessing a car that was reported "stolen" when she failed to pay for it (a sentence that was suspended when she agreed to pay the balance owed of $400).

Three officers arrived at her house at 11:00 pm to serve a bench warrant for misdemeanor violations. Within moments she was dead from a gunshot wound to the back of her head after shots were fired by officers who it was later determined were in "reasonable fear for their lives."

An investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) cleared the officers of any wrong doing. However, an attorney representing her estate, Robert Phillips, found the circumstances seem to be a bit different than the officers' reports.

The biggest red flag of all was that high-powered rifle that all three officers claimed they saw, the one that allegedly produced a muzzle flash, smoke and a 140-decibel boom — the equivalent of standing about 10 feet behind a jet engine. But Ellis’s gun wasn’t an an SKS rifle, or an AK-47 or a firearm at all. It was a BB gun. Because a pellet gun uses air pressure instead of gunpowder to propel its projectile, it isn’t capable of producing a muzzle flash, a loud boom or a plume of smoke. The state crime lab also found no fingerprints on the weapon, according to the SLED report, despite the fact that the shellacked wood from which it was made should have been conducive to retaining prints. In fact, the lab couldn’t even get the gun to function.

The more Phillips dug, the more problems he found. There was plenty of evidence inconsistent with the officers’ narrative. The bullet trajectories (as calculated by SLED investigators, then confirmed by investigators for Phillips) rendered the officers’ version of events next to impossible. And then there were the tactics themselves: Why did the officers drive a black, mostly unmarked DNR truck at 11:00 p.m. at night through Ellis’s fence and into her backyard, mace her dog, and rip open her door with an animal control pole, all to serve misdemeanor warrants for nonviolent crimes?

The incompetence of the SLED investigators is discussed at length in this article, as is the failure to have an independent investigation that is fair, complete, and unbiased. Bottom line on SLED:

“There are two things you’re looking for by having an outside agency investigate these shootings,” says Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who now studies law enforcement and police law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. “You want the appearance of independence — you want the investigation to be legitimate in the eyes of the public. But you also want actual accuracy and objectivity. You need to have both.”

An outside agency that doesn’t have both may be worse than no outside agency at all. If the investigating agency has only the reputation of integrity and independence, but doesn’t demonstrate either in practice, misconduct doesn’t just go unpunished, it gets papered over. The public gets a false sense of security. Watchdog groups, journalists and social justice groups may be less likely to question shootings, or they’ll be taken less seriously when they do. That can create a culture in which abuse and corruption flourish."

This is a very lengthy article that is well worth the read if anyone would like to see the details of a totally inept and biased investigation of a crime by cop, and the tragic death of a woman whose crimes were being black and poor. It is the first of a four-part series to be published by WAPO.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/05/06/south-carolinas-poisonous-police-culture-the-death-of-lori-jean-ellis/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

1. This needs to end.

I do not know what kind of training these cops are getting.

I don't know what kind of supervision these cops are getting.

What I do know, is that they have turned against the public that they are sworn to 'serve.'

[brer cat]

2. You are absolutely right.

I think a critical element is the investigation of the officer shootings. As this article makes abundantly clear, the current process is fatally flawed with most investigators taking the word of the officers involved as the truth and the whole truth.

From the article in the OP:

“I like most cops,” says Brian Gambrel, an attorney in Columbia who has litigated police abuse cases. “We need cops. I think most cops are hard-working people who have tough jobs and try to do the right thing. But we let the bad cops get away with things here. The policies I’m talking about don’t protect the well-intentioned, hardworking cops, they protect the bad ones. Some of them start to think they’re bulletproof.” emphasis mine

Imo, proper oversight with conviction of bad cops would go a long way to changing the culture that produces police abuse and needless deaths.

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

3. From what I know...

...the Blue Wall protects the bad cops....

....better than it protects the good ones.

Believe it or not, good cops are often bullied by their more authoritarian colleagues.

[mercuryblues]

4. Wow

Phillips’s deposition of SLED chief case officer James Flowers produced the same sorts of answers. Flowers wouldn’t admit that a pellet gun is incapable of producing a flash. He conceded only that he personally has never seen it happen. Phillips continued:

James Flowers is now running for Richland County Sheriff. A man who can't be bothered to read an entire report wants to be in charge of the county that has the capitol city.