[Peace-discuss] Myers update

[Brian Dolinar]

No Great Bodily Harm: Another Continuance For Sgt. Myers

No major developments occurred on January 3, 2007 in the prosecution
of Sgt. William Alan Myers, 14 year veteran of the Sheriff's office,
currently charged with using a Taser on an inmate who was fully
restrained and hooded.  Sgt. Myers' attorney Tony Novak was granted a
continuance until February 2, 2007.

By the time Court Watchers arrived at 11 a.m. the continuance had
already been granted, but we went down to the State's Attorney's
office to get some of our questions answered.  Julia Rietz refused to
speak with me personally, but granted a conversation with C-U Citizens
for Peace and Justice founder Aaron Ammons.  The following material
comes second-hand and any factual errors are the unfortunate result of
my being shut out of the conversation.  We invite Julia Rietz to
attend a CUCPJ meeting that takes place every Saturday, 4 p.m. at the
IMC to answer all of our questions.

On November 20, Sgt. Myers was offered a plea bargain by State's
Attorney Julia Rietz that would involve dismissing the charges of
illegally using a Taser and pleading guilty to falsifying a police
report.  Rietz informed us for the first time that the plea bargain
had been modified to include charge of misdemeanor aggravated battery,
in addition to disorderly conduct.  Her argument was that the initial
charge of a felony misdemeanor could not be pursued because there was
"no great bodily harm," as was required by law.  The suggestion is
that when Ray Hsieh was restrained, hooded, and Tased four times that
"no great bodily harm" was done.

Of course, the Taser is a perfect weapon because it is a supposed
"non-lethal weapon."  It is a torture tool which leaves no marks
except two punctures where the hooks dig into the skin and deliver
50,000 volts.

One witness claimed that Myers' victim Ray Hsieh, after being tased
four times and let out of his restraint chair, was "balled up."  Other
officers claimed that Hsieh had urinated on himself (another one of
Myers' victims, Trina Fairley, also says she peed on herself when she
was Tased in an empty cell).  According to Amnesty International, over
150 people have died from Tasers and medical experts have found that
Tasers can cause miscarriages among pregnant women (Trina Fairley, in
fact, was pregnant when she was Tased).  The long-term impacts of
Tasers have not been clearly determined by doctors.

Yet the pain inflicted on Hsieh was, according to Rietz, not enough to
constitute "great bodily harm."

Rietz claimed that she did not have the proper legislation to charge
Myers.  This was Rietz' same defense when she said she could not
prosecute Jennifer Stark, who killed bicyclist Matt Willhelm while
fiddling with her cell phone, for anything more than improper lane
usage.

The case where Myers probably did cause "great bodily harm" was when
he brutalized Michael Rich in November 2004, a year before he was
turned in for using a Taser on Hsieh.  According to a complaint filed
by Rich, Myers smashed his head against a wall.  Myers then put him in
a restraint chair and put a hood over him while Myers and another
officer beat him in the back of the head.  He then used a Taser on
Rich.  While "great bodily harm" is not clear in the Hsieh case, the
evidence is strong in the Rich incident.

Yet Rietz said that filing charges for Rich's case would be difficult.
 Ironically, the same officer that turned in Myers had participated in
Rich's beating.  This is evident from the police reports.  In the
police report by Urbana police officer Daniel Bailey it states that
when Rich was picked up at the Canopy Club, "Rich was just verbally
abusive and not physically" (Case no. UU0407560).  In the report later
authored by Sgt. Myers it states, "Mr. Rich was bleeding from his
mouth area from the altercation he had prior to coming to the jail"
(Case no. S-2004-5123).  This time, Jeremy Heath (the very officer who
turned in Myers) went along with Myers and falsified his police
report.  Heath wrote in his report on Rich, "his lip was bleeding a
little when UPD brought him in."

The obvious conclusion would be to also fire Jeremy Heath from the
Sheriff's Department and prosecute him for disorderly conduct, if not
also felony aggravated battery.  But Sgt. Myers has been chosen as the
sacrificial lamb and the goal for the Sheriff and the State's Attorney
is damage control.  Justice, for them, is little more than a game.
Truth is the last thing they are concerned with.

Of course, what they are trying to cover up is the pattern of police
brutality that the Myers case lays bare.

Rietz says that Myers was a first-time offender.  But, on the
contrary, Myers committed a total of four abuses where he broke police
protocol for using a Taser.  Michael Rich, Trina Fairley, and Michael
Alexander all filed complaints against Myers in the year before he was
fired.  Myers was protected each time by the Sheriff's office who
found all the incidents were justified.  Myers was not treated then
like an ordinary citizen, and he should be made an example of for his
significant erosion of the public trust.

Clearly, the State's Attorney's office is not looking to investigate
Myers for his repeated instances of police brutality.  I spoke with
Trina Fairly two weeks ago and she had still not been contacted by the
State's Attorney.  I personally gave State's Attorney Assistant Steve
Ziegler the phone number for Michael Rich, who he contacted but says
he did not find credible.  Despite the tough talk by Rietz that the
inappropriate use of Tasers "will not be tolerated," the opposite
appears to be true.
-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com