Indiana

IMPD Releases Findings In Police Brutality Case

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Indianapolis  Metropolitan Police Officials are recommending one officer be fired and two be disciplined for use of excessive force against a local teen.

Sources say Public Safety Director Frank Straub will recommend this morning that Officer Jerry Piland be let go and officers Stacy Latinga and David Carney be reprimanded.  A fourth officer, Oliver Clouthier, was not disciplined and IMPD sources say he was crucial to resolving the matter.

The Officers had been on desk duty since the investigation began last month.  Officers were called to the scene after getting a call that 15-year old Brandon Johnson?s young brother was breaking into a home on Fisher Creek Drive on the east side.

When officers arrived and arrested the younger brother, Brandon reportedly approached police and an altercation ensued.  Police say Brandon did resist arrest and reasonable force was used to subdue him, however those same sources say Piland went beyond what was reasonable and that led to the recommendation that he be discharged.

The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office declined to charge Brandon Johnson with disorderly conduct.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).