Five years before Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, the Ferguson PD was involved in a horrific scandal that further shows how brutal and expansive their power has been.
The Daily Beast has published an account from Henry Davis, who was wrongly arrested in Ferguson in 2009, allegedly beaten severely by four officers, and then charged with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms.
Davis had gotten lost on his way to St. Charles, MO and pulled over in Ferguson because he couldn't see through heavy rain. A Ferguson police officer who had pulled up behind Davis reportedly mistook him to be another Henry Davis (with a different middle name and Social Security number), who had an outstanding warrant. The arresting police officer allegedly took Davis' cell phone out of his hand, cuffed him, and placed him in the back of a patrol car without explanation.
Once Davis was at the Ferguson jail, he was allegedly assaulted by four officers, who slammed him against a wall, hit him, and kicked him. Davis was taken to a nearby hospital, where he refused treatment. He spent several days in jail before posting a $1,500 bond on four counts of "property damage."
In a subsequent civil trial brought by Davis, the Ferguson police officers' complaints that Davis had transferred blood to their uniforms were revealed to not just be bizarre, but trumped up (and remember, the whole incident happened because Davis was wrongfully arrested in the first place). However, a federal magistrate ruled that the apparent perjury was too minor to constitute a violation of due process, and Davis' injuries were too minor to constitute excessive force.
The trial is currently in appeals, and Davis' lawyer James Schottel now believes that the previous minimal ruling might be seen differently in the context of Michael Brown's death.
Read Davis' stunning full account here, and go here to see everything we know about the Michael Brown case so far.
