PROVIDENCE –– A Providence police officer is suspended with
pay after he struck and kicked a handcuffed man who was taunting him and
spitting at him.
Officer Richard Ramirez, an eight-year veteran, has been
under investigation since the incident on July 14, which began when he and
other officers tried to stop a man on an off-road motorcycle allegedly speeding
through the city’s South Side.
In a five-page police report, Ramirez documented the
incident and his own actions that night. He wasn’t the officer who arrested the
biker, but he was involved from the beginning.
Ramirez first saw the biker speed down the center lane of
Broad Street and pass cars around 8 p.m., but he was unable to stop him. The
next several hours were a cat-and-mouse game between police officers and the
biker, who buzzed through the streets and onto a sidewalk, passing cars and
zipping by pedestrians.
A few times through the night, Ramirez wrote in his report,
the biker waved at the police, revved his engine and made an obscene gesture ––
as if “signaling [to] police that he was untouchable.”
Ramirez wrote that as he responded to other calls, people
complained about the biker. One man told him that the biker nearly hit him and
his 6-year-old son. A business owner outside 1106 Broad St. was complaining
when they both saw the biker zip by.
Another officer saw the biker speeding on Broad Street,
veering sharply onto Prairie Avenue and into oncoming traffic, forcing drivers
to move out of its way.
Finally, after speeding through a stop sign, the biker
stopped at Oxford and Searle streets. The police were waiting for him. Two
officers arrested the biker, 22-year-old Jose Moreno, who was compliant as they
handcuffed him, although he told the police that he only stopped because his
bike chain broke.
Then Ramirez arrived. He wrote that he “expressed concern
for Moreno’s taunting attitude towards the police and his total disregard for
the safety of the public in general.”
Ramirez wrote that Moreno responded: “I don’t give a
[expletive], officer. I am a good driver. I could have gotten away from you,
you could never catch me and when I do get out of jail, I will be doing this
again.”
The officer wrote that Moreno threatened him when he got
close, and then spat at him. Ramirez said he hit Moreno “with open palms” in
the back of the head.
Moreno spat again and laughed. Ramirez said he kicked
Moreno.
Moreno stopped spitting, Ramirez wrote, but told the officer
that “he was going to repeat his driving actions again and that he did not care
if someone died or not.”
Moreno didn’t have a license to drive, and he was wanted on
a bench warrant for driving without a license. The police charged him with
reckless driving, driving without a license, resisting arrest, plus several
traffic summonses.
A lieutenant and two sergeants were notified, one of whom
documented Ramirez’s use of force. There was no sign that Moreno needed medical
attention.
Police Chief Hugh Clements Jr. declined comment last week.
Under the state Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, which governs how
police officers are disciplined, the administration is not permitted to discuss
internal investigations.
Union vice president Clarence Gough said the union had no
comment. Ramirez didn’t respond to a request for comment left with Gough.
A District Court judge issued a bench warrant for Moreno on
Aug. 13 after he didn’t return to court because the wait for a meeting with his
public defender took “too long.”
Fairfax
County cops execute another unarmed man
The Fairfax County Police shot an killed an unarmed man who
was alone in his home. The police caused the situation, they escalated the
situation and they handled it poorly and are expected to take several weeks to
develop their justification story.
Police
said they were responding….in force with a tank, a helecopter, a SWAT team, K-p
units, and no less than 23 cops to a “Domestic dispute” but
Geer was alone in the house. The victim of this police shooting this time was John
Geer, age 46, a kitchen installer with no history of violence had to end in
death. He left behind two teenage
daughters.
According to Geer’s father, Geer had been throwing his estranged wife’s
belongings, she is 24 years old, into the front yard because she was leaving
him, so she called the cops who marked the call as a domestic dispute. She was
asked if there were guns in the house and she said there was. The weapons were
under lock and key
There's a Maura Harrington listed at the same address where the
killing took place.
Neighbors recalled him as even-keeled, outgoing and helpful.
A search of police records in Fairfax County showed that Geer was found guilty
of drunken driving in 2010 but no convictions for violent crimes or more
serious offenses. A neighbor said he talked to Geer in the minutes before the
police encounter. He said that Geer didn’t say anything suicidal but he was
deeply shaken about the impending breakup.
For forty minutes the cops demanded that Geer, who stood at
his front door, for forty minutes "They just continued to tell him: come
out, come out, come out," said one witness.
Geer had not showed the cops any sort of weapon nor had he advanced
toward them. He made no mention of harming himself or others. Geer’s hands were
up in the air, seconds before he was gunned down because they were on top of
the storm door. He as shot in the chest while slowly lowering his hands. He had
no weapon in his possession and there was no weapon within his reach.
Shot in the chest, Greer pushed his way back into the house
and bled to death. The heros from the SWAT team entered the house by way of
tank one hour later and found Geer dead.