A police investigation went awry after a Columbia man called officers saying he was being robbed at gunpoint by a black man. Ten police officers arrived on the scene at the College Avenue Car Wash, using a sub-machine gun to force the alleged suspect to get out of the car.
But surveillance cameras later proved that the robbery never actually occurred. The caller, Jevon Smith, made a false report, and the suspect, Demetrice Tatum, was innocent.
The January 2011 case is an example of the growing problems of race and excessive force in the Columbia Police Department, as discussed in Wednesday’s Citizens Police Review Board meeting.
Tatum’s attorney, Dan Viets, said the way officers reacted to the situation caused serious concern and is something to be looked at.
“Thirteen people’s lives were put in danger because of Jevon Smith’s false report,” Viets said, referring to the CPD officers and Tatum’s two cousins also in the vehicle. “If his report was false, which it was proven to be, then why wasn’t he prosecuted?”
Officer Brad Anderson, who was on the scene, said Smith told officers he was 100 percent sure Tatum was the same man who robbed him. Anderson reported to the dispatcher that the suspects were identified and supposedly armed with at least one gun.
But none of the three men arrested possessed a gun, and after reviewing footage of the event, all three were cleared of any charges.
The board voted unanimously to agree with Chief Ken Burton’s decision to not bring sanctions against Sgt. Roger Schlude, the officer who used the sub-machine gun at the time of the incident.
In Tatum’s appeal to the board, he said Schlude and the officers singled him and his cousins, Tyrell Roberson and Rashad Washington, as suspects “for no other reason than the fact that they were black,” according to the complaint.
The board decided to agree with Burton’s decision based on racial bias, but the actions taken by officers created some doubts about the way CPD approaches situations like this.
“The officers probably didn’t act on race,” board member Mitchell Richards said. “It is not race-based, but I think it would be beneficial for us, as a part of our community, to acknowledge that this was a horrible event.”
The board also questioned why 10 officers and the use of a sub-machine gun were warranted during the incident. That memo, requested from Officer Ben Wright, will be discussed during the board’s April meeting.
Also discussed at Wednesday’s meeting was an update on the entire General Orders Manual, which contains all CPD policies, available on the city’s website by April 15 in compliance with a city ordinance.
“The manual is reviewed and updated every April and November, so when it is updated, whoever in charge of the online manual can update it very easily,” CPD spokeswoman Jill Schlude said. “The whole process should be very clean going forward.”