This Cop Bravely Stopped Officer Misconduct

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers juvenile detention cruel and unusual punishment and departmental corruption and comes to us from the atlanta journal constitution's channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve in the early morning hours of january 2nd 2018 officer cheryl dickerson of the roswell police department in roswell georgia noticed a golf cart driving down highway 9 through the middle of town officer dickerson initiates a traffic stop on the golf cart and discovers a young man behind the wheel you driving around in your mom's vehicle yeah i asked her if i could borrow it she works at the uh roswell at the roswell what up there so yeah i asked her if i could borrow her for a few minutes and she said yeah just be safe and okay you understand that you cannot drive a golf cart down the road on the roadway i really didn't understand that so how old are you i'm 13. you're 13. is that wrong yeah it's pretty bad like a car could slam into the back of you not realizing you're you're trying to like well hold on what do you have id on you or anything like that what are you doing out here at 13 years old you're going to starbucks where does your mom work she works up there roswell at roswell what like down there roswell where does she work what's the name of the business apartments the roswell apartment she like is a manager over there okay officer dickerson orders the young man out of the golf cart and detains and searches him before placing him into the back of her patrol car suspects who have not reached the state mandated age of majority are subject to a different criminal justice system than adults the idea behind having a separate juvenile justice system for minors who commit crimes is that they're young and have a better chance of straightening out their lives than adults the procedures for detaining a minor vary from state to state but most police officers are well within their authority to handcuff a minor and place them into their patrol car in georgia a youth may be taken into custody if there are reasonable grounds to believe that he or she has committed a delinquent act or a status offense or if they have been abused or neglected neither of these events is considered an arrest so the youth can legally claim never to have been arrested this claim is true as long as the youth's only contact with the criminal justice system is through the juvenile court given that officer dickerson witnessed this young man driving a golf cart down a major highway she does retain the legal authority to stop and detain him until she can release him to a legal guardian officer dickerson spends several minutes questioning the young man about where he got the golf cart and attempting to locate his mother the teen changes his story several times throughout the questioning and officer dickerson is unable to get any legitimate information out of him eventually sergeant daniel elsie arrives on the scene and decides to employ some questionable tactics he's seatbelted [Applause] sorry [Applause] and i'll be back with you in a minute sergeant lz gets into officer dickerson's patrol car and turns the heater off and rolls down the windows while the teen is still handcuffed in the back seat it has been reported that the temperature in roswell was somewhere between 12 to 18 degrees on the night of this interaction officer dixon you come up in my uh okay [Applause] yeah he ain't gonna say anything if it's warm if what he said call an 85 for the golf cart yeah okay let him get a little chilly all right partner what's your name [Applause] i'm sorry getting cold yet you can take it cool so can i because i've got heat in this car so here's where we're at leave with the roswell police department look at me when i'm speaking to you my name is sergeant elsie with the roswell police department okay you can't be driving a golf cart in the streets you understand that right i'm pretty sure that's not your golf cart is that fair to assume where did you get the golf cart from what school yeah i can see your breath it's pretty cold back there keep telling me speaking of what's mom's name you don't know mom's phone number all right well i'll tell you what i'm gonna i'm gonna drive to this address you gave me you live now to this address you gotta hang tight right here since you can't remember mom's phone number and if i can make fun contact with mom then we'll get some heat going he's freezing him out he's about to drive to the address that he gave you know we'll turn the head on in the car it's chilly 18 for a wrong way driver oh man on the part of cincinnati is it cold in the car you're asking yeah it's freezing in there well he's got all the windows rolled down on the heat off the eighth amendment of the constitution bans the use of cruel and unusual punishment within the jurisdiction of the united states the phrase cruel and unusual punishment is derived from common law and describes punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering pain or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction the precise definition varies by jurisdiction but typically abides by the same general principles in the 1972 supreme court case of furman versus georgia justice william brennan outlined four principles by which the court may determine whether a particular punishment is cruel and unusual number one the punishment may not be degrading to human dignity number two the punishment must not be arbitrary in nature number three the punishment must be one that is accepted by society as a whole and number four the punishment may not be patently unnecessary justice brennan noted that quote the test will ordinarily be a cumulative one if a punishment is unusually severe if there is a strong probability that is inflicted arbitrarily if it is substantially rejected by contemporary society and if there is no reason to believe that it serves any penal purpose more effectively than some less severe punishment than the continued infliction of that punishment violates the command of the clause that the state may not inflict inhuman and uncivilized punishments upon those convicted of crimes after the young man had sat in the freezing patrol car for nearly 20 minutes sergeant greg fryson arrives on the scene pulls sergeant elsie aside and informs him that his conduct is not acceptable promptly after his discussion with sergeant-friesen sergeant elsie returns to officer dickerson's patrol car and rolls the windows back up and turns on the heater huh stay over here are they having some super secret [Applause] eventually the teen told the officers where he lived and the officers took him home and released him into his mother's custody the officers towed the golf cart but were never able to locate its owner several months after the incident a memo was leaked revealing that a fellow roswell officer raised questions about sergeant elsie's conduct in march of 2018 but internal documents acquired by the 11 alive news team revealed that sergeant elsie was never punished following the incident despite the fact that lieutenant bernie holland who was sergeant lz's supervisor reviewed the body camera footage shortly after the incident took place in fact sergeant elsie was awarded supervisor of the year in april of 2018 and although the award was for 2017 the internal awards committee made its decision in late january of 2018 just weeks after this encounter the documents obtained by the 11 alive news team also revealed that roswell pd supervisors scored sergeant elsie higher than sergeant fryson on their annual review while acknowledging that sergeant fryson correctly intervened in sergeant elsie's act of misconduct no official investigation was launched into sergeant elsie's conduct until the 11 alive team requested the body cam footage of the incident seven months after it occurred roswell police chief rusty grant initially requested the georgia bureau of investigations take over the investigation but the gbi refused to take the case and recommended that the fulton county district attorney carry out the investigation sergeant elsie has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of the ongoing investigation overall sergeant lz gets an f for his unethical and potentially illegal tactics and abusing his police authority and supervisory powers there is simply no excuse for sergeant elsie's conduct but what is even more disturbing is the fact that the roswell police department appeared to have no intentions of investigating or punishing the sergeant until the 11 alive team requested the footage of the encounter to add insult to injury the rpd's supervisory team decided that sergeant elsie was a better officer than sergeant fryson despite knowing about the incident and sergeant fryson's role in stopping the misconduct the lack of administrative action against sergeant elsie highlights the level of corruption plaguing the roswell pd and this is not the first time the department has been involved in similar scandals the department was also criticized for its role in the arrest of a driver on the flip of a coin the muting of police body cameras during a suspected dui stop of an off-duty officer and a police canine attack of a 17 year old suspect against the commands of the dog handler roswell city council recently approved spending 77 thousand dollars of taxpayer money for an outside review to find out what exactly is wrong with the department and have independent consultants recommend changes the complacency of the other officers on the scene of this encounter is a testament to the depth of the corruption allegations facing the department and it will be interesting to see what the independent consultants recommend until then i highly recommend checking out the description below and following up on the investigation through the 11 alive team's coverage sergeant fryson and the 11 alive news team both get an a plus because without their intervention it is very likely that sergeant elsie would still be patrolling the streets of roswell and abusing his authority with impunity corruption and misconduct rarely exposes itself from within departments and it is the duty of good officers and respectable journalists to expose that corruption and hold the appropriate officials accountable for their actions as this country slowly edges closer to sweeping police reform upstanding officers and journalists are becoming an extremely valuable asset within the national dialogue of police misconduct and it is more important now than ever that their voices be heard i commend sergeant fryson for his courage to step forward and put a stop to the misconduct playing out before him and i commend the 11 alive news team for their relentless demands for the truth and accountability let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe for more police interaction content [Music] you

Channel: Audit the Audit

Views: 2,832,461

Keywords: amagansett press, first amendment audit, 1st amendment audit, auditing america, news now california, sgv news first, high desert community watch, anselmo morales, photography is not a crime, san joaquin valley transparency, first amendment audit fail, walk of shame, news now houston, police fail, 1st amendment audit fail, public photography, auditor arrested, police brutality, highdesert community watch, pinac news, cops triggered, news now patrick, east hampton

Id: SEdhHilo4Fc

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 27 2022