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Coroner in Cincinnati Rules Man's Struggle
Led to Death
By JAMES DAO, New York Times,
December 4, 2003
CINCINNATI, Dec. 3 - Nathaniel
Jones, a black man whose death in police custody has incited
new racial tensions here, died primarily because of his violent
struggle with the police, a coroner said on Wednesday. But he
cautioned that his ruling did not imply wrongdoing or excessive
use of force by the police.
Dr. Carl L. Parrott Jr., the
Hamilton County coroner, also said heart disease, illegal drugs
and obesity were major contributing factors. Dr. Parrott ruled
the death a homicide, meaning it was the direct consequence of
Mr. Jones's struggle with the police on Sunday. In the confrontation,
which was captured on a police videotape, Mr. Jones charged a
police officer outside a restaurant, then was tackled and beaten
by baton-wielding officers for several minutes.
"Absent the struggle,"
Dr. Parrott said at a news conference, "Mr. Jones would
not have died at that precise moment in time, and the struggle
therefore is the primary cause of his death."
But Dr. Parrott cautioned that
the word "homicide" did not imply wrongdoing or excessive
use of force by the police. It meant, he said, the death resulted
from "the purposeful act of another person," specifically
the efforts by officers to arrest Mr. Jones. The only other causes
of death defined under Ohio law are accidental, natural and suicidal.
"The word does not imply
hostile or malign intent," Dr. Parrott said.
Without other factors, Dr.
Parrott said, Mr. Jones, 41, would probably have survived the
beating. At 350 pounds, Mr. Jones was severely overweight and
had an enlarged heart from high blood pressure, Dr. Parrott said.
He had also ingested cocaine, phencyclidine, or PCP, and methanol
within three to five hours before the struggle. Cocaine is "a
cardiac irritant" that could have caused abnormal heart
rhythms, Dr. Parrott added.
The beating with aluminum night
sticks left bruises on Mr. Jones's lower body, but it did not
damage his internal organs, Dr. Parrott said.
"Absent any one of the
contributing problems, Mr. Jones's odds of surviving the struggle
would have been increased," Dr. Parrott said. "Absent
all of them, he would have been expected to survive."
Despite his caveats, the coroner's
conclusions were immediately seized on by critics of the police
department who have called for the resignation or firing of the
police chief, Thomas Streicher, and the prosecution of the six
officers involved in subduing Mr. Jones.
Those officers have been placed
on leave while the police department, the county prosecutor,
the city's Citizen Complaint Authority and the Justice Department
conduct preliminary investigations.
The coroner's report "shows
the police were responsible for his death," said Juleana
Frierson, chief of staff for the Black United Front, a civil
rights group. "We still have a problem in Cincinnati,"
Ms. Frierson said. "We need a cultural change in the police
department. These policemen are still allowed to kill."
Two years ago, the killing
of an unarmed black man by the police led to three days of street
clashes and vandalism that left scores injured. That killing
was the 15th in six years of a black man who was being arrested
or was in police custody. Afterward the city took several steps
to bring about changes in the department. But many blacks contend
that Mr. Jones's death proves those changes were superficial.
Forty-three percent of Cincinnati's
331,000 residents are black.
City officials contend that
the officers used appropriate force to subdue Mr. Jones. The
videotape, which was taken by a camera mounted on the dashboard
of a police cruiser, shows the officers only hit Mr. Jones after
he charged them and avoided striking him in the head, they say.
But Mr. Jones's family members
and their lawyer asserted that the video only raised questions
about the officers' conduct, pointing to a 97-second gap in the
tape. City officials said the camera shut down when the police
officer turned off his cruiser's lights. The officer reactivated
the camera moments later using a remote control device, they
said.
Kenneth Lawson, a lawyer for
Mr. Jones's family, said those 97 seconds might contain vital
information about why Mr. Jones turned violent. In the police
video, as well as a security camera tape from inside the restaurant,
Mr. Jones appeared to be frolicking in a silly, drunken manner
just before the police arrived.
The emergency medical service
was called to the restaurant because Mr. Jones had apparently
fallen asleep on the lawn. The police were later called because
he was creating a disturbance.
"What was done to provoke
him to become that angry in such a short period of time?"
Mr. Lawson asked at a news conference.
At the conference, Mr. Jones's
aunt described him as a "friendly, jolly, happy-go-lucky"
father of two who was never violent or mean. "He was a big
guy and I'm going to dearly, dearly miss those juicy hugs and
that fat fuzzy face," said the aunt, Diane Payton. "He
was the sweetest man you've ever seen."
Copyright 2003 The
New York Times Company
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- Stephen Williams:
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The
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