DENVER, COLO- Well, you’ve almost missed the most compelling courtroom drama this side of television. Although even on TV you don’t see a judge having to repeatedly admonish the audience to refrain from reacting with audible incredulity at the clueless ambivalence, awkward dissembling, and brazen lies being told on the stand by sheriff deputies and their witnesses concerning the death of Marvin Booker, 56, in their custody on July 9, 2010. National law enforcement experts have been flown in to defend the Denver Sheriff’s Department policies. It’s been quite a laugh and the jury seems wise to the scheme. Closing arguments begin Friday. If you’ve followed the Denver Post coverage you can skip the next paragraph, but those who’ve been packing the federal courtroom these past three weeks can assure you, you haven’t been treated to the half of it.
Four years ago Marvin Booker, an itinerant African American street preacher who weighed 135 pounds, died under a pileup of Denver Sheriff deputies simultaneously restraining him, kneeling on his prone body, twisting his wrists, contorting his ankles with nunchucks, choking him by the neck, and Tasing him. All of these methods are permitted means of “pain compliance”. Denver County Jail deputies assert they were trying to stop Booker from struggling. Asked one juror: “Could you keep still if you thought you were being killed?”
They held Marvin Booker in a carotid choke hold for two and a half minutes, and tased him for up 27 seconds.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the anomalies. The deputies met afterward to get their stories straight. Surveillance footage is missing, video of inmate witness testimony is missing, the taser is missing! Now everyone’s memory has gone missing too, they even try the excuse in the present. “No I don’t recall seeing myself do that in the video just now.” But most of what may be damning video is gone. The deputies were said to be high-fiving themselves afterward in an area where the camera footage is missing.
The significance of the missing taser means follow-up investigations can conclude its use is unproved. Another taser with a timestamp indicating it was deployed at an event forty minutes later, was fired for eight seconds. The video and inmate witnesses suggest Booker was tased for 27 seconds, but because the first taser surrendered to investigators hadn’t been fired at all, authorities are allowing for the implausible: that Booker wasn’t tased at all.
[work in progress]
