Chokehold by Inglewood Officer Hospitalized Earlier Suspect

Two weeks before slamming a handcuffed teen onto the hood of a police cruiser, Inglewood Police Officer Jeremy J. Morse was directly involved in a violent, near-deadly altercation--hitting a 32-year-old man with a baton and then helping apply a chokehold that knocked him out.

Morse’s participation in the beating of Neilson Williams, which has received far less notice than the minutely scrutinized Donovan Jackson arrest of July 6, is detailed in a police report obtained by The Times and in interviews with Williams and a witness who claims to have seen much of what happened.

Medical records show that Williams spent three days in intensive care after the June 23 encounter. He suffered severe respiratory injuries, apparently caused by the chokehold.

In the police report, Morse says the use of force was justified because Williams was drunk and resisted handcuffing. “We felt in fear for our safety and believed he was preparing himself to physically attack us,� he wrote.

Williams, whose family filed a complaint with the Police Department as he lay in the hospital, denies the accusations. He was not arrested, although police now say they have issued a warrant on charges of resisting officers and battery.

Last week, Williams filed a $75-million claim against the city of Inglewood, accusing Morse of abuse. Inglewood officials have refused to comment and have officially sealed the incident report, citing ongoing investigations by their internal affairs wing and the district attorney.

Morse’s lawyer characterizes Williams’ legal claim as a “nothing case� spurred by opportunism. The officer himself has been advised not to talk. Williams, who initially spoke freely to a reporter for this story, has also stopped talking on the advice of his legal team.

Unlike the Jackson case, in which a video recording led prosecutors to charge Morse with assault and another officer with fabricating his incident report, all that exists in the Williams beating are disparate narratives: one told in Morse’s report, another by Williams, still another by what may be the only witness not involved in the altercation, a teenager who corroborates parts of Williams’ story.

What is known for certain is that Williams, who had been drinking, encountered Morse and another police officer after he left a barbecue at Inglewood’s Ashwood Park late in the evening on June 23. A short time later, he was in the hospital, legally intoxicated, bruised, bloody and fighting to live. “I thought he was going to die,� said a medical worker at the hospital.

Since spending three days in intensive care at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, Williams, who stands near 6 feet 4 and weights about 250 pounds, has spent most of his days shuttling between his mother’s Inglewood home and doctors’ and psychologists’ offices.

*

As Williams recalled that day, he spoke of a bright, lazy Sunday afternoon. He and a group of about 20 spent most of the day at Ashwood Park, a small pie-slice stretch of grass and pavement that bumps up against the San Diego Freeway.

Ashwood is usually filled with a mix of Latino and black families and kids. Gang members, Bloods mostly, go there on occasion--drinking, talking big, shooting hoops and sometimes smoking marijuana. In this tough, working-class neighborhood they are merely part of the fabric, not necessarily welcomed, not particularly shunned.

Williams and his group, a mix of teens and adults, spent most of the day grilling chicken, ribs and steaks, he said. Hip-hop blared from boomboxes, some people played dominoes, some dashed up and down the basketball court.

Williams, who grew up in the neighborhood, was dressed in black khakis and a white shirt, and though he disputed the notion that he was drunk, he admitted that he nursed a few beers through the afternoon.

By around 10:30 p.m. the party was over. Williams said he and another man whose name he does not know began cleaning up trash, then left the park shortly thereafter. They walked through a small entry to the park, near two tennis courts.

Williams was pleased with how the day had gone. He’d had a chance to impart some of his hard-earned street knowledge to a crew of young kids.

Known in Inglewood by his street name “Be Upon,� Williams is a onetime street tough who says he turned his life around as a teenager in the late 1980s after a series of run-ins with police that included a drug-possession conviction.

Morse said in the report that he recognized Williams as a gang member. There are no indications in court records that Williams has had any legal trouble in the last 12 years.

Those who know him say that over the last decade, Williams has become a much-respected force in the neighborhood by working to stop gang violence, organizing turkey giveaways for Thanksgiving, fighting to keep kids in school and helping produce the music of home-grown rap artists.

Williams is known as a “peacemaker,� a man who can ease tension between Crips and Bloods and Latinos and blacks, said Bo Taylor, one of the authors of the landmark gang truces that sprang up in Los Angeles after the 1992 riots.

Civil rights attorney Constance Rice said she has been in meetings with Williams and gang members who were trying to sort out differences and live peacefully.

“His thing is, he’s trying to turn around young minds,� Rice said. She said Williams is known to be part of a small, eclectic group of people working to reduce urban violence--a mixture of Bloods, Crips and other gang members assisted by the likes of football great Jim Brown, actor Harry Belafonte and others.

Rice and Taylor each speculated that police that night mistook Williams for an active gang member, since he hangs out among gangs for his work.

*

Morse, in his police report, indicated there was no mistake. Police were clear about what they came upon as they arrived at Ashwood Park that evening responding to a call for backup. A suspect, “a known Queen Street Blood,� had run away from two other officers at the park. Morse said that people were seen running, and that he and his partner, Michael Concha, tried to block one of the park’s entrances.

At that point, Morse wrote, Williams approached the officers, belligerent and smelling of alcohol. When officers told him to turn around and put his hands behind his back, Morse wrote, Williams refused and cursed.

Williams was sweating and had a blank stare and clenched fists, Morse wrote. The officers now had backup, since a sergeant had arrived, and they moved to subdue Williams.

“Due to Williams’ massive size, noncompliant behavior, his unknown level of intoxication and the fact that he was becoming more aggressive as time went by,� Morse reported, “we felt in fear for our safety and believed he was preparing himself to physically attack us.�

*

Williams described the start of the confrontation quite differently. As he and the other man made their way onto the sidewalk after cleaning the park, Williams said, a squad car approached, two officers inside.

The officers were calm, asked for identification, frisked the two men, then let them go, Williams said. The man Williams was with walked away and did not return. Williams said there was nobody else on the street, just him and the two officers.

But as he got into his car, parked nearby, and tried to drive away, at least two more patrol cars sped down Ash Avenue and screeched to a halt in front of him, Williams said. These officers had a much different attitude. “Right off the top, they were angry,� he said. “It was like they were dealing with someone who had just robbed a bank or something.�

*

Morse wrote that he and his partner tried to handcuff Williams, but that Williams resisted, elbowed Concha, then turned toward Morse.

“Officer Concha immediately attempted to place a carotid restraint on Williams to overcome his resistance,� Morse reported.

What ensued, Morse said, was a scramble: Williams fighting, Concha’s arms wrapped around his neck, Concha, a small man compared with Williams, dangling in the air.

Morse joined the fray. “I felt in fear for Officer Concha’s safety,� he wrote, “and I used my duty PR-24 aluminum baton to strike Williams two times on the backside of his left leg in an attempt to discontinue Williams’ resistance.�

In Morse’s retelling, all three men were soon on the ground. Concha and Morse worked together to apply pressure to Williams’ neck. Morse wrote: “I placed pressure on officer Concha’s right forearm to, in turn, place pressure on Williams’ left carotid artery. After about 10 seconds of pressure from my assistance, Williams appeared to be unconscious.�

The fighting didn’t end there. With the officers trying to handcuff him, Williams stirred once more, resisting and pulling his arm away from the sergeant who now assisted the two officers, Morse wrote. Concha wrapped an arm around Williams’ neck once again and Williams passed out a second time.

“We were able to place handcuffs on Williams without further incident,� Morse wrote.

*

Other than the fact that he lost consciousness, Williams’ account continues to differ markedly from Morse’s.

According to Williams, he found himself surrounded by squad cars and officers were shouting, telling him to get out of his car with his hands up. He said he did not recall what became of the two officers with whom he originally talked.

Williams said he complied, slowly raising his arms as he stepped out of his car. As he stood, Williams said, one officer pushed him in the back, causing him to fall hard onto the hood of the police car. Williams straightened up and began pleading for calm, he said.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Williams said, an officer smacked him in the upper left arm. Williams said he asked, “What the hell did you do that for?�

The officers weren’t happy with his response, Williams said. They countered by telling him to get his hands up. Then one officer pulled out a gun, stood about five feet away, and leveled the barrel at Williams’ face.

“I said to myself, ‘Look, I’m not about to go through no “Mississippi Burning� thing,’ � Williams recalled. “So I asked them to put me in the car. So they don’t have to hit me no more.�

Williams said he was handcuffed by two officers, which he claims calmed him. The officers would feel more in control. I’m gonna be fine, Williams told himself; the officers will soon figure out I’m no threat. But “suddenly,� he said, “somebody jumps on my back. There’s a guy on my back and I start getting beat.�

What Williams said he remembered after that were sparse details: losing awareness, falling to the concrete, panic, a fight for air. Then his memories begin fading.

*

It would have been just before Williams remembers falling to the ground that Guillermo Beltran, an 18-year-old who lives in a house just next to where the altercation happened, walked out his front door, alerted by screeching police cars.

Beltran said he was about 15 feet away from Williams and the police, peeking from behind a red cinderblock wall. Beltran said he first saw Williams with his hands up, with officers milling around. Then, after Beltran went into his house for a moment to tell his sister what was going on, he returned to find Williams’ hands down at his sides. He said he could not tell if Williams was in handcuffs.

Beltran and Williams’ stories differ in some ways. For instance, Beltran said Williams was turned toward the park as officers approached. Williams said he was facing away from the park. Beltran said Williams drove his beat-up burgundy Chrysler Fifth Avenue about 20 feet before police stopped him. Williams said he could not get his car started.

On the matter of police treatment, though, their stories are similar.

“The big guy was just standing there, he seemed to be doing what they said,� said Beltran, who said he knows Williams only by reputation. “Out of nowhere, the officers started swinging.�

Beltran said that as one officer held Williams from behind in a chokehold, others began striking him, using their batons to hit him in the upper body and legs. Beltran made a motion like a man chopping a tree as he attempted to describe what happened.

Williams, Beltran said, was pleading for them to stop, yelling: “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.�

Beltran said that as Williams was being choked he appeared to go limp, then toppled in a clump. Beltran said officers continued to hit and kick Williams when he was on the ground. “I was seeing fists just flying,� he said. “It was about 30 seconds, all of that hitting.�

With Williams lying unconscious, officers stood about his body in a relaxed mood, as if they were socializing, said Beltran and his 17-year-old sister, Cintia, who by that time also was watching. From the kitchen doorway, Cintia said, she saw an officer kick at Williams’ legs.

At about 11:27 p.m., Los Angeles County paramedics were called to the scene by police, according to Fire Department records. They arrived at 11:32 p.m. Racing Williams to the hospital, the medics helped keep their patient breathing by placing an oxygen tube down his throat, Williams said.

Medical records show that Williams arrived at the hospital suffering from “severe respiratory distress,� unable to breathe properly because his airways were swollen. His brain had been starved of oxygen, he was bruised and puffy and his forehead bore a thick, wide cut.

When asked to compare Williams’ condition with other patients hospitalized after altercations with police, Dr. William Hong, one of the physicians who treated him, said, “probably the worst I’ve seen.�

A medical worker who saw Williams carted into the hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Williams was in terrible shape. “I thought he was going to die,� said the medic. “It wasn’t a pretty sight. They told us he had been fighting with police.�

Hospital reports reviewed by The Times back up Morse’s contention that Williams had been drinking heavily. A medical report showed Williams’ blood alcohol was about 0.19%, more than twice the legal limit.

It would take three days for Williams to get out of the hospital, a period in which his family filed a complaint against police, organized a protest and began to pray that someone beyond their small circle would care.

The case was hardly noticed in Inglewood. It got no play in the media. Then came July 6, and a video showing officer Morse’s treatment of a handcuffed teen.