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The 25-year-old man who accused two veteran Minneapolis police officers of sexual assault took his case to the public Wednesday, saying he feared for his life.
Stephen Porter told his story hours after he was released without charges from jail, where he was being held after his arrest during a drug raid on Monday. Shortly after speaking to the media, Porter collapsed in the arms of supporters who had rallied around him and was taken away by ambulance.
Attorneys for the officers denied wrongdoing and some city and community leaders cautioned against a rush to judgment.
Police Chief Robert Olson has suspended officers Todd Babekuhl, 41, and Jeffrey Jindra, 43, and turned the case over to the FBI. Police records show no disciplinary actions against either officer in the last seven years. Porter, who has a history of drug convictions, has alleged they were involved in assaulting him with a toilet plunger.
Stephen Porter collapsesRichard Tsong - TaatariiStar TribuneDozens of community leaders and representatives met with Olson Wednesday morning at the Minneapolis Urban League to talk about the allegations, the investigation and the broader issue of police-minority relations.
During a news conference after the three-hour meeting, members of the African American Leadership Summit, the Coalition of Black Churches, the American Indian Movement, the Somali Justice Center and others decried what they said was another example of police brutality. In separate interviews, however, they said they were appalled by the heinous nature of the allegation but were pleased that Olson took swift action in engaging the community in dialogue about the broader issues the case raises.
"The word I will be giving my people is, you make no move until you hear from me; let's not jump to any conclusions and let us gather all our information; chill for right now," said the Rev. Jerry McAfee of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in north Minneapolis.
Yet there also was concern expressed that not enough has been done over time to address issues of police brutality and many said they wondered if this case would be the catalyst for systemic change within the department.
After he was released from custody Wednesday, Porter walked at a normal pace from the jail to a parking ramp a block away with his attorney and a flock of reporters and photographers. He said he would cooperate with the FBI investigation.
"I'm hurting. Real bad," he said. Later in the day, he appeared hunched and moved more slowly as he prepared to address reporters.
Sources familiar with the medical report filed by a doctor who examined Porter at Hennepin County Medical Center on Monday night said that his injuries were consistent with his report of soreness and tenderness of the rectum. After Porter was treated at the hospital he was returned to the Hennepin County jail.
The allegations surfaced after Fourth Precinct officers served a high-risk search warrant for drugs at an apartment in the 2500 block of N. 3rd St. in the Hawthorne neighborhood late Monday afternoon.
The officers found some marijuana and suspected cocaine, cited some people at the apartment and decided to take two men to the Hennepin County jail. At the jail, one man was cited, then released; Porter was booked. Attorney John Nelson, representing Porter, said that drugs were not found on Porter.
After the officers left the jail, Porter told a jail supervisor that he had been "criminally assaulted" by Minneapolis officers.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Porter said Jindra told another officer to get something from the bathroom before that officer returned with a plunger.
"So he had a plunger," an emotional Porter told WCCO-TV. "He handed it to officer Jindra."
He then gave explicit details, saying the officers used the handle to penetrate him twice.
About a half-hour after he spoke to reporters at The City Inc., a community center on the North Side, he collapsed in a hallway, surrounded by activists and family members.
As Porter fell, Spike Moss, vice president of The City Inc., caught him before he hit the floor. Porter lay writhing in the hallway for several minutes. Michelle Gross, a nurse who is active in the local movement against police brutality, tended to him and an ambulance was called. Reporters and photographers were herded down the hallway away from Porter.
State Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minneapolis, who was in the hallway, said later that Porter briefly lost consciousness. Paramedics arrived and Porter was rolled out on a gurney, an oxygen mask on his face.
The Rev. Randolph Staten said late Wednesday that Porter was taken to an area hospital, though he declined to identify which one.
Moss said Porter had given him a detailed account of the allegations, but Moss declined to give specifics about their conversation.
"I was as brokenhearted as he was when he told me," Moss said. "I felt his pain. He said, 'They did me like an animal, Spike. Like I wasn't human.' "
Porter's girlfriend, Evette Lewis, 25, talked to him sometime after 8 p.m. Monday when he called from jail.
"He told me [the police] sexually assaulted him with a plunger," she said.
"He said he was in a lot of pain," Lewis recalled Wednesday. "He said he was bleeding. I asked if he'd been taken to the hospital and he said, 'No, not yet.' "
Lewis said the conversation lasted about 15 minutes because at the end of it, he said that deputies were coming to take him to the hospital. Porter called Lewis again Tuesday and told her about the examination.
"It was hard for him to talk about," she said.
Wrongdoing denied
Babekuhl has worked for the Police Department since 1989 and Jindra since 1996. Each officer has several letters of appreciation and awards.
Before leaving town Tuesday afternoon, Jindra's attorney, Frank Bruno, called the accusation "totally false." It all sounds like a case of someone making copy-cat allegations, Bruno said, referring to a sexual assault accusation made recently by a Hennepin County jail inmate against three Hennepin County sheriff's deputies.
Jim Michels, one of the attorneys for Babekuhl, said his client denies assaulting anyone.
"At this point, I'm still trying to ferret out why he is even involved in some sort of investigation," he said, adding that his client did nothing improper.
He said his client "was sharing the same bewilderment about 'What's going on, why am I involved in this?' "
Michels said he didn't know if any officers were with Porter alone in a room at the apartment, but said it's generally common for officers to separate multiple suspects and that officers conducting strip searches, for instance, may take people into closed rooms "just for personal dignity and privacy reasons."
A drug record
Porter has an extensive record of drug arrests and convictions.
According to Hennepin County court records, he is awaiting sentencing to 2 1/2 years in prison in connection with a cocaine possession arrest in January in Minneapolis. A police report said that he admitted to officers that he had crack cocaine hidden between his butt cheeks in that incident.
That arrest occurred while he was on work release from prison, where he was serving four years on a 1999 felony cocaine conviction following an arrest in Brooklyn Center. In 1997, he twice pleaded guilty to drug possession crimes and spent a year in the Hennepin County workhouse.
No charges were filed against Porter in Monday's raid.
"By the time the police were able to gain entry into the dwelling, the only drugs that were not destroyed were some that they found in the toilet," said Chief Deputy County Attorney Pete Cahill. "They could not link them to any specific person for a possession charge."
Chief Olson said the allegation is tough for a department to cope with, but the officers will be able to deal with it. He knows it's the nature of the business, but said he was a little frustrated because when something like this happens it sets community relations back a step or two.
"I think the community is coming together a little bit over this," he said.
While the FBI is investigating, the department's internal affairs unit is also reviewing the facts, which is standard.
"I don't care if we dig stuff up that makes us look worse," he said. "I want swift, fair investigations. It benefited us in the long run."
He wouldn't discuss specifics of the case Wednesday, but said he made his decision to send it to the FBI after reviewing preliminary information he received from an experienced investigator. He said he believed the allegation was serious enough that it needed to be looked at by an outside law enforcement agency.
FBI Special Agent Paul McCabe said the agency will have no further comment on the investigation. After the FBI finishes, the report will be sent to the Department of Justice's civil rights division, which has the final prosecuting authority, he said.
It is the second time this year that Jindra has been investigated by the FBI. He was accused in May of choking a 14-year-old boy, punching him and slamming him to the ground. The FBI found that the "evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes," Fourth Precinct Inspector Tim Dolan wrote in a note last week. The Justice Department has also declined to prosecute, Dolan said.
In another high-profile allegation, test results from the clothing of an American Indian man showed only his DNA, nothing from the two Minneapolis police officers who were alleged to have mistreated him in January at the Little Earth housing complex.
Two residents of the complex in south Minneapolis said they saw officers from a marked squad car assault the man, whom his lawyer Larry Leventhal identified as Ron Johnson. It also was alleged that someone urinated on his upper torso and head.
The investigation into the officers remains open because one is on active military duty in Iraq and the case can't be concluded until he returns, city spokeswoman Gail Plewacki said.
She said the DNA results had been available for a couple of months; she released it Wednesday after a request.
The catch is that the absence of DNA evidence in the urine doesn't exonerate the officers because urine is not a good source of genetic material, Plewacki said.
In the wake of this week's allegations, Mayor R.T. Rybak has set up a community meeting for 7 p.m. Friday at Farview Park, 609 29th Av. N.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4157025.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BS or not, you be the judge.
Stephen Porter told his story hours after he was released without charges from jail, where he was being held after his arrest during a drug raid on Monday. Shortly after speaking to the media, Porter collapsed in the arms of supporters who had rallied around him and was taken away by ambulance.
Attorneys for the officers denied wrongdoing and some city and community leaders cautioned against a rush to judgment.
Police Chief Robert Olson has suspended officers Todd Babekuhl, 41, and Jeffrey Jindra, 43, and turned the case over to the FBI. Police records show no disciplinary actions against either officer in the last seven years. Porter, who has a history of drug convictions, has alleged they were involved in assaulting him with a toilet plunger.
Stephen Porter collapsesRichard Tsong - TaatariiStar TribuneDozens of community leaders and representatives met with Olson Wednesday morning at the Minneapolis Urban League to talk about the allegations, the investigation and the broader issue of police-minority relations.
During a news conference after the three-hour meeting, members of the African American Leadership Summit, the Coalition of Black Churches, the American Indian Movement, the Somali Justice Center and others decried what they said was another example of police brutality. In separate interviews, however, they said they were appalled by the heinous nature of the allegation but were pleased that Olson took swift action in engaging the community in dialogue about the broader issues the case raises.
"The word I will be giving my people is, you make no move until you hear from me; let's not jump to any conclusions and let us gather all our information; chill for right now," said the Rev. Jerry McAfee of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in north Minneapolis.
Yet there also was concern expressed that not enough has been done over time to address issues of police brutality and many said they wondered if this case would be the catalyst for systemic change within the department.
After he was released from custody Wednesday, Porter walked at a normal pace from the jail to a parking ramp a block away with his attorney and a flock of reporters and photographers. He said he would cooperate with the FBI investigation.
"I'm hurting. Real bad," he said. Later in the day, he appeared hunched and moved more slowly as he prepared to address reporters.
Sources familiar with the medical report filed by a doctor who examined Porter at Hennepin County Medical Center on Monday night said that his injuries were consistent with his report of soreness and tenderness of the rectum. After Porter was treated at the hospital he was returned to the Hennepin County jail.
The allegations surfaced after Fourth Precinct officers served a high-risk search warrant for drugs at an apartment in the 2500 block of N. 3rd St. in the Hawthorne neighborhood late Monday afternoon.
The officers found some marijuana and suspected cocaine, cited some people at the apartment and decided to take two men to the Hennepin County jail. At the jail, one man was cited, then released; Porter was booked. Attorney John Nelson, representing Porter, said that drugs were not found on Porter.
After the officers left the jail, Porter told a jail supervisor that he had been "criminally assaulted" by Minneapolis officers.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Porter said Jindra told another officer to get something from the bathroom before that officer returned with a plunger.
"So he had a plunger," an emotional Porter told WCCO-TV. "He handed it to officer Jindra."
He then gave explicit details, saying the officers used the handle to penetrate him twice.
About a half-hour after he spoke to reporters at The City Inc., a community center on the North Side, he collapsed in a hallway, surrounded by activists and family members.
As Porter fell, Spike Moss, vice president of The City Inc., caught him before he hit the floor. Porter lay writhing in the hallway for several minutes. Michelle Gross, a nurse who is active in the local movement against police brutality, tended to him and an ambulance was called. Reporters and photographers were herded down the hallway away from Porter.
State Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minneapolis, who was in the hallway, said later that Porter briefly lost consciousness. Paramedics arrived and Porter was rolled out on a gurney, an oxygen mask on his face.
The Rev. Randolph Staten said late Wednesday that Porter was taken to an area hospital, though he declined to identify which one.
Moss said Porter had given him a detailed account of the allegations, but Moss declined to give specifics about their conversation.
"I was as brokenhearted as he was when he told me," Moss said. "I felt his pain. He said, 'They did me like an animal, Spike. Like I wasn't human.' "
Porter's girlfriend, Evette Lewis, 25, talked to him sometime after 8 p.m. Monday when he called from jail.
"He told me [the police] sexually assaulted him with a plunger," she said.
"He said he was in a lot of pain," Lewis recalled Wednesday. "He said he was bleeding. I asked if he'd been taken to the hospital and he said, 'No, not yet.' "
Lewis said the conversation lasted about 15 minutes because at the end of it, he said that deputies were coming to take him to the hospital. Porter called Lewis again Tuesday and told her about the examination.
"It was hard for him to talk about," she said.
Wrongdoing denied
Babekuhl has worked for the Police Department since 1989 and Jindra since 1996. Each officer has several letters of appreciation and awards.
Before leaving town Tuesday afternoon, Jindra's attorney, Frank Bruno, called the accusation "totally false." It all sounds like a case of someone making copy-cat allegations, Bruno said, referring to a sexual assault accusation made recently by a Hennepin County jail inmate against three Hennepin County sheriff's deputies.
Jim Michels, one of the attorneys for Babekuhl, said his client denies assaulting anyone.
"At this point, I'm still trying to ferret out why he is even involved in some sort of investigation," he said, adding that his client did nothing improper.
He said his client "was sharing the same bewilderment about 'What's going on, why am I involved in this?' "
Michels said he didn't know if any officers were with Porter alone in a room at the apartment, but said it's generally common for officers to separate multiple suspects and that officers conducting strip searches, for instance, may take people into closed rooms "just for personal dignity and privacy reasons."
A drug record
Porter has an extensive record of drug arrests and convictions.
According to Hennepin County court records, he is awaiting sentencing to 2 1/2 years in prison in connection with a cocaine possession arrest in January in Minneapolis. A police report said that he admitted to officers that he had crack cocaine hidden between his butt cheeks in that incident.
That arrest occurred while he was on work release from prison, where he was serving four years on a 1999 felony cocaine conviction following an arrest in Brooklyn Center. In 1997, he twice pleaded guilty to drug possession crimes and spent a year in the Hennepin County workhouse.
No charges were filed against Porter in Monday's raid.
"By the time the police were able to gain entry into the dwelling, the only drugs that were not destroyed were some that they found in the toilet," said Chief Deputy County Attorney Pete Cahill. "They could not link them to any specific person for a possession charge."
Chief Olson said the allegation is tough for a department to cope with, but the officers will be able to deal with it. He knows it's the nature of the business, but said he was a little frustrated because when something like this happens it sets community relations back a step or two.
"I think the community is coming together a little bit over this," he said.
While the FBI is investigating, the department's internal affairs unit is also reviewing the facts, which is standard.
"I don't care if we dig stuff up that makes us look worse," he said. "I want swift, fair investigations. It benefited us in the long run."
He wouldn't discuss specifics of the case Wednesday, but said he made his decision to send it to the FBI after reviewing preliminary information he received from an experienced investigator. He said he believed the allegation was serious enough that it needed to be looked at by an outside law enforcement agency.
FBI Special Agent Paul McCabe said the agency will have no further comment on the investigation. After the FBI finishes, the report will be sent to the Department of Justice's civil rights division, which has the final prosecuting authority, he said.
It is the second time this year that Jindra has been investigated by the FBI. He was accused in May of choking a 14-year-old boy, punching him and slamming him to the ground. The FBI found that the "evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes," Fourth Precinct Inspector Tim Dolan wrote in a note last week. The Justice Department has also declined to prosecute, Dolan said.
In another high-profile allegation, test results from the clothing of an American Indian man showed only his DNA, nothing from the two Minneapolis police officers who were alleged to have mistreated him in January at the Little Earth housing complex.
Two residents of the complex in south Minneapolis said they saw officers from a marked squad car assault the man, whom his lawyer Larry Leventhal identified as Ron Johnson. It also was alleged that someone urinated on his upper torso and head.
The investigation into the officers remains open because one is on active military duty in Iraq and the case can't be concluded until he returns, city spokeswoman Gail Plewacki said.
She said the DNA results had been available for a couple of months; she released it Wednesday after a request.
The catch is that the absence of DNA evidence in the urine doesn't exonerate the officers because urine is not a good source of genetic material, Plewacki said.
In the wake of this week's allegations, Mayor R.T. Rybak has set up a community meeting for 7 p.m. Friday at Farview Park, 609 29th Av. N.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4157025.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BS or not, you be the judge.
