A police officer stands in front of protesters in Baltimore. (photo: Michigan Chronicle)
Attorney
Says Video Disputes Official Account of Baltimore Police Shooting
By Justin Fenton, Baltimore
Sun
16 January 16
The
lawyer for a man shot by Baltimore police three years ago is claiming a new
video shows that officers lied about the circumstances that led up to the
shooting.
When
police officers shot Shaun Mouzon in January 2013, an officer wrote in charging
documents that they did so because Mouzon had driven his car at them. But
attorney A. Dwight Pettit said surveillance camera video he obtained from the
city under a public records request tells a different story.
"The
car was stopped in traffic," Pettit said. "The allegation that their
lives were in danger by the movement of the car is absolutely ridiculous and is
an absolute misstatement of the facts."
The
video, also obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a records request, shows
Mouzon's vehicle pulling into traffic at a stoplight on Edmondson Avenue, with
several officers following in an unmarked patrol car, their lights activated.
Officers
run up to the driver's and passenger sides. It is unclear when the officers
begin firing, but none appear to be standing directly in front of the car as it
slowly pulls off and then flees the area.
Pettit
said he believes the video shows officers firing even before the vehicle starts
to move.
Mouzon
eventually crashed his vehicle several blocks away. Police found no weapon, but
nevertheless Mouzon was charged with two handgun-related counts. All charges
were eventually dropped.
The
three officers who opened fire on Mouzon's car — Chris Szakolczai, Charles
Mewshaw and Kevin Saliba — were cleared of wrongdoing by the Baltimore state's
attorney's office in July 2013. In a letter explaining the decision not to
charge, homicide chief Donald Giblin wrote that the officers were "acting
reasonably in self-defense when they fired upon Mr. Mouzon." The police
investigative report said Mouzon had pulled off "almost striking the officers."
Mouzon
filed a lawsuit in April 2014 against the Police Department and several
officers involved in the incident. He filed an amended suit this week in part
based on his attorneys' observations on the video. His attorneys broadened the
scope of the lawsuit to allege a "pattern and practice" of brutality
by the Police Department.
An
attorney for the officers, Chaz Ball, declined to discuss the allegations, but
said in a statement that "officers are tasked with balancing the duty to
the public to protect and serve with the duty to their families and loved ones
to go home safely at the end of the day."
"That
balancing act often involves deeply complex decisions that must be made in an
instant. This case is no different," he said.
The
officer who wrote the charging documents, who also spoke to detectives
investigating the shooting, is Fabian Laronde, a veteran who has been under
fire in recent months amid misconduct allegations.
Laronde
was suspended in October in relation to an off-duty incident. In November, he
was banned from the city courthouse after an incident in which he was accused
of filming a witness and a TV reporter in the hallway the day of a hearing
about his internal affairs file. Photography is prohibited inside the
courthouse.
This
month, in a rare move, more than 20 defense attorneys banded together seeking
Laronde's internal affairs files, citing "a multitude of incidents that
raise questions about his credibility," including allegations he omitted
key information under oath.
Laronde
has previously been accused of illegally strip-searching a man in a civil case
the city settled for $155,000. In another case, a jury awarded $40,000 in
damages to a court clerk who said Laronde and other officers accosted him
inside the city courthouse. In such agreements, neither the city nor the
officers admit wrongdoing.
Following
the defense attorneys' motion, city prosecutors said they are analyzing the
evidence in "each and every case" involving Laronde that's open and
pending "to determine the viability of those cases," said Rochelle
Ritchie, a spokeswoman for Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby.
Laronde
wrote in charging documents for Mouzon, filed two months after the shooting due
to Mouzon's hospitalization, that he and two other officers were watching
Mouzon standing outside of a vehicle about 6:20 p.m. and could see "what I
believed to be the handle of a handgun in the defendant's waistband."
He
wrote that Mouzon looked in the officers' direction, got into his vehicle and
took off. The officers activated their lights and sirens and tried to pull him
over, but said he continued to flee. "Mr. Mouzon proceeded to drive at
speeds greater than reasonable, committing a host of traffic violations,
endangering himself and others in an attempt to flee and elude our
vehicle," he wrote.
The
officers caught up to Mouzon at the stoplight on Edmondson Avenue at Hilton
Street, and Laronde said he told Mouzon to shut off the vehicle and keep his
hands visible. He said in the charging document that he saw Mouzon reach down
with his right hand between the seat and center console.
He
wrote that Mouzon "let off the brakes and began to accelerate toward the
officers in front of the vehicle. At this time, a police involved shooting
occurred."
The
video shows one officer who steps toward the vehicle, but steps out of the way
as the car inches forward.
Laronde's
account from the night of the shooting, summarized in the homicide unit's
investigative report, differs somewhat from the later charging document. There
is no specific mention of Laronde observing a handgun, but the report says he
believed Mouzon was "displaying characteristics of an armed person."
He
said Mouzon rolled up his window and locked his door as the officers ran up to
his car at the stoplight, and that he saw Mouzon "reach away from his
body," which he believed could have been Mouzon reaching for a handgun,
the report shows.
The
officers who fired the shots did not give statements to investigators
conducting the criminal review, which is their constitutional right.
Five
officers did give accounts. One of them, Officer Michael Johnson, said he
believed the shots were fired by officers standing in front of Mouzon's
vehicle. Lt. Torran Burrus, who was with Mewshaw and Laronde, did not describe
any officers standing in front of the vehicle when the officers opened fire.
Pettit
said his interpretation of the tape was that Mouzon's car did not even begin to
pull away until after the video shows muzzle flash from the officers' guns.
None of
the other officers who talked to detectives could corroborate Laronde's account
that Mouzon had reached for something. They said they heard officers telling
Mouzon to put the car in park and saw him rolling his window up, according to
the homicide unit's account of their statements.
Mouzon
was charged with one count of having a handgun in a vehicle, one count of
illegal possession of a handgun, a charge of failing to obey a lawful order,
and traffic violations. The first charge was dropped four months later; the
second gun charge was dropped about a month after that.
"No
gun was found," Pettit said. "To charge him with having a gun after
searching his car and his person is a bold, outrageous lie."
With
the gun charges dropped, Mouzon was indicted in July 2013 on the traffic
charges and failing to obey an officer, and those charges were dropped two
months later.
Mouzon
was hospitalized in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds, and his
medical bills totaled more than $500,000, the lawsuit says. The suit seeks more
than $1.2 million in damages.
In
March 2014, records show Mouzon was investigated as a suspect in a murder and
officers raided his girlfriend's apartment. Police found several guns, and he
was charged with multiple counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Those
charges were dropped in May 2015. Prosecutors declined to give a reason.
Mouzon
now has pending drug distribution charges in Baltimore County.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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