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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / This is a Lynching

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40Comments

  1. 1.

    Humdog

    And they have an ex cop, now a professor of criminal justice, who says the cops were right to do this.

  3. 3.

    hueyplong

    The most depressing part isn’t that this happened.

    It is that we’re not surprised at all.

    And this is the worst administration/president ever because Trump doesn’t just turn a blind eye, he actively encourages it in public utterances we get to see and hear.

    To top it all off, if we enter a time in which this kind of thing is frowned upon, there will be a “backlash” over it.

  7. 7.

    germy

    I notice broadcast TV nightly news ( like CBS ), whenever they run a story like this, they immediately follow it up with either

    1) a heartwarming story about a policeman who helped a homeless guy get a job or helped an inner city child get a new bicycle to replace a stolen one

    or

    2) a story about a Chicago gang shooting

    It’s obvious the producers sit there and arrange their news segments like this deliberately. For “balance”

  10. 10.

    cmorenc

    Why didn’t the cops simply passively detain Mr. Frank in-place up on the tractor while they radioed another deputy to bring a copy of the arrest warrant? Had they done that, I would have cut the deputies lots more slack had Mr. Frank still resisted being taken down off the tractor at that point. With all the additional police personnel who were on-site well within the 10 minutes of this film, it isn’t like they were in a remote spot where that would have been infeasible.

    These cops were intolerant of their word-of-mouth authority being challenged by a black man demanding due process (a warrant). And what exactly what crime/cause was this arrest warrant for? Attempted murder vs failure to pay a court fine on time?

  11. 11.

    Aimai

    I have bookmarked TheRoot . It is impossible to keep up with the atrocities with regular news.

  12. 12.

    gene108

    The cop with body cam, towards the end explains to someone else he’s the son of a guy, whose gate we ran down. I am not sure what that means or why it is relevant, but I get the feeling they had it out for this guy due to some past incident that made them look bad.

  13. 13.

    Gravenstone

    @cmorenc:

    These cops were intolerant of their word-of-mouth authority being challenged…

    That’s it in a nutshell. The fact that the victim was African American was just icing on the cake as far as these little tin gods are concerned.

  14. 14.

    scav

    @gene108: Charming. They now feel (apparently with cause) that even documented evidence of their lethal application of personally defined and executed lawnorder is without consequence. What’s next? Discovering a secret youtube channel of cops competing with their personal bodycam videos of most XTREEM takedowns?

  16. 16.

    Skippy-san

    I’m not surprised by this at all. A lot of people from my college have gone into law enforcement, and they defend this type of behavior on the college’s Facebook politics page. If it were not a closed group you would see some really shitty people posting defenses of the indefensible. Law Enforcement attracts bullies the way pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood.

    I can’t believe I went to the same college as they did. Life has really fucked up their values.

  17. 17.

    gene108

    @scav:

    The YouTube channel probably exists. There are plenty of message boards on the internet, where cops let their inner asshole loose with other cops.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    Not watching the video either, but here are excerpts from the long article excerpted in The Root. Reporter is Ben Myers; excellent work.
    from the Advocate: Pathologist: Marksville man killed by strangulation during arrest last year; cites neck holds, struggle and gasping for air

    The report by Youngsville pathologist Christopher Tape labels the death a homicide for “medicolegal purposes,” noting that officers compromised [Armando] Frank’s breathing for more than six minutes by placing him in neck holds and pressing him from behind. The report, which relies on an autopsy and body camera video, also notes that officers did not attempt any resuscitative measures.

    While cardiovascular disease and obesity contributed to Frank’s death, they “should not be thought of as the primary cause of death as the decedent was alive (and well) prior to the police intervention and dead following, making the police intervention the likely intervening factor that led to his death,” Tape states in his report.

    An Avoyelles Parish grand jury weighed negligent homicide charges against the law enforcement personnel, and in March declined to return any indictments.

    …. Chief Deputy Steve Martel replied that “all facts of the case are considered.”

    Martel said he did not know if Tape’s report was presented to the grand jury, or if Tape testified in person. Tape and Riddle did not respond to messages Monday.

    “Every action of every individual involved that day was well documented,” Martel said. “All that information was provided to the district attorney in a case file for grand jury review.” [That kind of sounds like a no on the pathologist’s report, doesn’t it?]

    …. The attorney who filed the civil rights lawsuit in federal district court in Alexandria on behalf of Frank’s family, Joseph Long, said Frank, who suffered from a psychiatric condition, had not previously been informed of the warrant.
    “(Frank) didn’t know anything about it. He had never been served with an arrest warrant or summons,” Long said.

    … The outstanding warrant for simple criminal trespassing and attempted unauthorized entry into a dwelling stemmed from Frank’s dispute with his neighbors, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Disputes with other neighbors resulted in similar charges in 2016, but the District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute and Frank received court-ordered treatment at VA hospital in Pineville.

    [Pathologist] Tape’s review of body camera footage highlights several points at which Frank struggled to breathe — points that Spillman’s narrative and the Sheriff’s Office’s reports do not include. Louisiana State Police also investigated the incident, but State Police spokesman Scott Moreau referred all questions to the Sheriff’s Office, which he said is the lead agency in the investigation.

    Spillman’s neck hold on Frank was temporarily interrupted by the errant stun gun strike, Tape notes, at which point Frank could be heard breathing heavily.

    The cops’ accounts (and those of other police, backing the arresting officers up) and the pathologist’s findings on watching the tapes do not add up.

    Frank was speaking, but the captain “was unable to determine what was said,” the investigative report states. Another Sheriff’s Office employee, a detective, stated he didn’t observe “any kind of force used by anyone that should have caused death or was excessive.” Frank’s shallow breathing was first noticed after he was placed in the patrol vehicle, and paramedics were called, according to the report.

    Tape’s report, meanwhile, says Frank was “unresponsive with no movements” after being handcuffed, and someone is heard saying Frank was “dead weighting.” The video ends more than three minutes later with no EMS on scene, and “no apparent attempt to secure the airway or apply rescue breathing or other resuscitative measures,” according to Tape’s report.

    The cops murdered this man in the process of arrest. They did not even attempt CPR. Had Mr. Frank survived, the parish and police force might be on the hook for a multi-million dollar settlement. Mr. Frank would have suffered terrible brain damage from the lack of oxygen. These men should not be cops, and the police should be seriously retrained on use of force.

    Can the parish bring charges after all? Maybe they need another grand jury. This could have happened to anybody, but especially to black residents. I am curious if there were any witnesses to the arrest and death. Wal-Mart parking lots usually have lots of people roaming around.

    Will follow The Advocate on this. I hope this tragedy goes viral.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    More from The Advocate. Reporter Jim Mustian, yesterday: Records: Man fatally choked by Avoyelles deputies had long history of mental illness

    You could guess this, from the reporting on previous court-ordered treatment at the VA Hospital in Pinesville, from the Ben Myers article.

    The man choked to death by deputies last year after he refused to dismount a tractor in Marksville had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia nearly five years before his death and had a history of run-ins with the authorities in Avoyelles Parish, raising questions about the approach officers took in arresting the mentally ill man on a felony warrant.

    The Avoyelles Parish Sheriff’s Office referred Armando Frank to the local coroner in 2013 for psychiatric treatment, according to hundreds of medical and law enforcement records obtained by The Advocate. In Louisiana, coroners are responsible for mental health commitments.

    Records from the federal Department of Veterans Affairs show Frank suffered from chronic anxiety, “difficulty coping” and hallucinations, among other complications. In 2016, following a dispute with neighbors, Frank received court-ordered treatment at a VA hospital in Pineville.

    “He has a long history of being non-compliant, even during most of his recent incarceration,” officials noted in an August 2017 discharge note. Other records quote a family member saying that Frank “is always thinking someone is out to get him, and he walks a lot at night due to fear.”

    Despite this history, authorities did not deploy a crisis intervention team when they arrested Frank on Oct. 20 in a Marksville parking lot. Frank, 44, died following a violent encounter with two Avoyelles deputies, Brandon Spillman and Alexander Daniel, and Marksville police officer Kenneth Parnell.

    …. Joe Long, a Baton Rouge attorney who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Frank’s family, said Friday that it is “obvious that law enforcement in Avoyelles Parish is not properly trained on how to handle these kinds of cases.”

    “The Sheriff’s Office had institutional knowledge of this situation,” Long said of Frank’s mental illness. “They were aware he was a veteran. They were aware he had mental health issues and that he might become kind of paranoid like this.”

    Indeed, the video shows that when the officers first approached him, they asked him if he was a veteran, and noted their own service in the military.

    …. District Attorney Charles Riddle said the responding officers had no specific knowledge of Frank’s schizophrenia. He added that he believed it would be a potential privacy violation for police officers to be aware of a suspect’s mental health issues. [Holy shit. Is the District Attorney gaslighting us there? It would seem to be crucial.]

    “He was known to drive his tractor around a lot, so that was part of the investigation. He had some other crimes before that we tried to work out before and tried to get him some at help at the VA,” Riddle said in an interview Friday. “It’s very difficult when somebody’s resisting arrest for a police officer not to get rough, but rough doesn’t necessarily mean negligent homicide (in this case).”

    …. “I do not believe that the police used any improper technique or force,” the district attorney added. “The only way to avoid what ended up happening was to not arrest him on a felony warrant, and that would have been very poor judgment.” [Not hardly. This is a ridiculous statement.]

    Avoyelles Parish Sheriff Doug Anderson and Marksville Police Chief Elster Smith Jr. did not respond to requests for comment on their department’s use-of-force policies.

    Experts on use of force interviewed by The Advocate have disagreed on whether police used excessive force in arresting Frank.

    While he was unarmed, Frank was “actively resisting” and could have endangered many lives had he decided to flee on his tractor, said Joseph L. Giacalone, a former New York City police detective and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

    “The police don’t get paid to argue with people, and you don’t fight your case when you’re out in the street,” Giacalone said. “I don’t see any wrongdoing here on the part of the police.”

    Had the officers been aware of Frank’s mental health issues, Giacalone said it would have been appropriate for them use de-escalation techniques designed for dealing with so-called “emotionally distributed persons,” a designation that law enforcement use to describe people suffering from mental health or other problems that cause erratic behavior.

    “In that case, you call in a supervisor and wait for emergency services or a SWAT team,” Giacalone said. “Mr. Frank has to understand that he’s going to the hospital or to prison.”

    W. Loyd Grafton, a former federal agent and use of force expert, said that Frank’s arrest — and subsequent death — was “just poor policing, anyway you look at it.” He said it was foolish of law enforcement to attempt to arrest Frank while he was sitting on his tractor

    “They weren’t reasonable in the way they tried to take him into custody, and they set themselves up to have a problem,” Grafton said.

    Grafton also took issue with the choke hold used by Spillman, saying that technique should be banned by the Sheriff’s Office and every other law enforcement agency.

    Frank’s death is in some ways reminiscent of the case of Eric Garner ….

    …. It’s not clear whether the U.S. Justice Department has opened a similar inquiry into Frank’s death. David Joseph, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, said through a spokesman that “our office is aware of this case, but does not generally comment on the existence or status of pending matters.”

    Craig Betbeze, a spokesman for the FBI’s New Orleans Field Division said he could “neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”

    Louisiana State Police assisted in the investigation of Frank’s death. [District Attorney] Riddle said the agency agreed with the findings of the Avoyelles Parish Sheriff’s Office that the officers had not used excessive force. [That’s what Riddle says, We don’t know what LSP actually thinks.]

    …. Riddle said he had no concerns about the case before he received Tape’s report. “That’s why I brought it to the grand jury,” the district attorney said. “I had thought everything was OK.”

    That DA is a real problem. And this case is not just race. It’s mental illness, too. Did the officers know about the mental illness? It sounds like maybe at least one of them was familiar with Mr. Frank and previous run-ins.

    I hope this thing blows up bad on Ayolles Parish. They need to change their training and procedures, yesterday.

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl: Yes they do. Perhaps Mr. Frank’s death at their hands will change that.

    Michael Harriot of The Root is a wonderful writer. The image of the hawk, swooping down on the unsuspecting innocent and consuming it alive.

    We will have to follow this case. This stuff has to change. It’s like Eric Garner, but also like motorist Walter Scott of North Charleston, SC, who was shot on camera.

    The police officer, Michael Slager, got a 20-year sentence from federal charges. He will serve about 18 — no parole. Walter Scott’s family eventually got $6.5 million from the city. Also, the state jury trial deadlocked. So it got kicked upstairs to federal.

    I think Mr. Frank’s case will go federal, too. We have to see that that happens. Yes, it is the Trump administration’s Justice Department. For now. But there are professionals within who must be deeply troubled by this stuff. There was a history here. It was known Mr. Frank suffered from mental illness. How can the cops even be saying they did not know that? And if they did not, there’s another huge problem within the department.

  24. 24.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl: We have to get this changed.

    The arc of justice … will arrive way too late for Mr. Armando Frank. As for Trayvon Martin. But the good guys win some, too.

  25. 25.

    Highway Rob

    I’ve got white privilege and male privilege and a law degree, and yet I’m either too jaded or too unimaginative to think of any way to leverage these things to prevent this shit from happening. Signing on with the ACLU feels like a recipe for getting even more jaded. All I can come up with is starting plaintiffs’ practice with a business model of suing local governments and PDs after police misconduct — slogan, “Blue Crimes Matter” — but then I think “dude, you have a family, are you nuts?” and I get jaded again.

    Anybody got any ideas? Seriously.

  26. 26.

    scav

    @gene108: It did rather sem the obvious next step — beyond the badge-wearers obvious pride in their efforts and practice, there certainly are enough blue line supporters to make the snuff films click-profitable.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    just poor policing, anyway you look at it

    Not really. You could also look at it as premeditated murder.

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    @burnspbesq: Yes you could. Negligent might be more chargeable, but not having a plan to deal with these situations is dealing out premeditated murder.

    I think national scrutiny is on Avoyelles Parish and its Sheriff’s Office and its police-protecting district attorney. Good for The Advocate and The Root and JCole and everyone else who made this tragedy — a preventable tragedy, mind you — go viral.

  29. 29.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Highway Rob: The problem isn’t police in the US, the problem is inconsistent standards of policing. Some cities the cops are good, others’ they are just thugs with badges. It’s one of those things that needs a national or at lest state wide effort and it won’t happen until the Republicans are in a minority status in government because the only thing Republicans do these days is obstruct reform.

  30. 30.

    Ol'Froth

    While I do not condone choking someone to death, police don’t drive around with copies of arrest warrants. The car would be filled with filing cabinets if they did.

  31. 31.

    ? Martin

    If they had a warrant, send someone over with it. The guy wasn’t going anywhere – he was sitting out in the open in a fucking tractor. Nobody was at risk of harm until the police became the risk. And that’s the standard that police review boards should take. The guy was perfectly content to sit there, feet on steering wheel, until a warrant arrived.

  32. 32.

    BruceFromOhio

    All these checks and controls (a constitution, due process, a warrant, body cams), and it comes down to a jury giving two murdering fucks with badges a pass. Over a warrant for fucking criminal trespass. Oooh, crime of the fucking century! Good job, Deputy Dawgs!
    What the living fuck is wrong with people. I hope the civil suit awards the family twenty eight jillion dollars. Not that that will ever amend for a man’s life, but that it bankrupts the fucking shithole parish, the worthless district attorney and the stupid murderers along with it.

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: It was the death of Trayvon Martin that truly opened my eyes. Hard to believe that was over 5 years ago, yet this is where we still are. I say that as if cops murdering young black men – not to mention mouthy black women who get pulled over – just started 5 b years ago, and it most definitely did not.

    But with video, there is no excuse for giving the cop the benefit of the doubt when the murder is caught on camera. The mind boggles.

  34. 34.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Elizabelle: In the Dotard’s reign there will be justice? Ha ha ha haa Bwahhaaahaaa! AG Klan Keebler is going to do something about it? Bahahaahhahhha! It will happen when and if when we will have a Democratic administration, plus one not afraid to do it.

  35. 35.

    Ksmiami

    @Highway Rob: well since the right has gone all in on being anti-union, then all law enforcement unions should be broken up and busted as they are not about serving the public, but defending their own. And before you say I’m anti- law enforcement, I’m just Anti-thug dressed up as law enforcement

  36. 36.

    Evil Paul

    [Long time lurker commenting for the first time]

    I’m not a lawyer, and I’m living in Canada so I’m not 100% up to speed on the law in the States, but I was under the impression that cops had to actually have a crime to arrest you for something? They never specified what crime Mr. Frank had committed. They just said “There’s a warrant for your arrest.” He asked them what it was for, and they said they didn’t know, but that there was a warrant back at the station. He calls bullshit (which it was), so they kill him.
    Don’t they have to specify what he’s being arrested for? Even if they didn’t have the physical warrant with them, shouldn’t they have known what he was being arrested for? He called bullshit on them and refused to move until he had some kind of just cause presented to him, and so they treated it like he was resisting arrest and killed him.
    Even if they could somehow justify the level of force they used on him (which they can’t, from what I’ve seen in the video) shouldn’t they be fired for simple incompetence? I mean, pretty much the first question any suspect’s going to ask when he’s arrested is “What did I do?” If you’re only answer is “We’ll tell you later,” it seems to me that you’ve failed at policing.

  37. 37.

    sukabi

    @Elizabelle:

    Had the officers been aware of Frank’s mental health issues, Giacalone said it would have been appropriate for them use de-escalation techniques designed for dealing with so-called “emotionally distributed persons,” a designation that law enforcement use to describe people suffering from mental health or other problems that cause erratic behavior.

    “In that case, you call in a supervisor and wait for emergency services or a SWAT team,” Giacalone said

    Good policing should REQUIRE de-escalation first and foremost regardless of the mental health condition of the person involved.

    Law enforcement, not judge, jury and executioner.

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