A jury found a former St. Ann Police officer guilty of a civil right violation for his behavior during an arrest in 2019. Ellis Brown III a 32-year-old High Ridge, Missouri, man was found guilty of a civil rights violation Friday for using unreasonable force during a 2019 encounter with a man. The three-day trial ended Friday. In the April 2019 incident, which was captured on video, Brown repeatedly kicked the victim who was lying prone in.
Ten days after Michael Brown, it was 25-year-old Kajieme Powell. Two months later, it was 18-year-old VonDerrit Myers Jr. All in the St. Louis region. Had it not been for the Ferguson uprising, the deaths of these Black men would have likely gone unnoticed, except for a small, dedicated group of activists who have been tracking police shootings since the 1960s. They’d long been troubled by the local police’s treatment of Black residents and its culture of impunity, the opaque investigations and the often mind-boggling conclusions such as the finding that the killing of 25-year-old Cary Ball Jr., shot 25 times at close range in 2013, was justified.
WILLIAM H. FREIVOGEL and PAUL WAGMAN
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
ST. LOUIS Timothy Loehmann wanted to be a police officer like his father. He got a job in Independence, Ohio, but it didn t go well. His supervisors allowed him to quit after he suffered a dangerous lack of composure during firearms training. The department concluded he would not be able to cope or make good decisions under stress. The deputy chief wrote Loehmann could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.
Cleveland Police did not check on Loehmann s history in Independence before hiring him. Also, Ohio law required a felony before an officer would lose his badge. So it was Loehmann who responded in the fall of 2014 to the Cleveland park where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was playing with what turned out to be a toy gun. Loehmann shot him dead.