Federal Jury Acquits Former Birmingham Officers on Charge of Civil Rights Violation
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 18, 2011 |
A federal jury today acquitted two former Birmingham Police officers on a charge that they used unreasonable force in the Jan. 23, 2008, arrest of a suspect following a high-speed chase from Birmingham to Hoover, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance.
The jury in Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn’s courtroom found BARRETT DEWITT, 40, and DAVID DORAN, 37, not guilty of violating the civil rights of the man they arrested by depriving him of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by someone acting in an official capacity as a police officer.
“We felt the videotape evidence of this beating made a compelling case for conviction,” Vance said. “Our job is to present the evidence to the jury, but it is the jury’s role to determine whether the evidence proves a crime. We are satisfied that the jury took this matter seriously and genuinely weighed the evidence,” she said.
“We are fortunate that law enforcement in this district, overwhelmingly, is filled with well-trained, professional police officers. That is why the images on the videotapes in this case are disturbing,” she said.
“Police officers are entrusted with power and authority so they can do their job and carry out their critical responsibility to protect the public,” Vance said. “The vast majority of law enforcement officers respect that power and the laws they are sworn to uphold, performing their duties with honor and integrity every day,” she said. “It is important that when it appears police officers have abused that authority, they are called to answer for their action.”
“We want to thank the FBI and other law enforcement agencies who cooperated in this investigation,” Vance said.
Patrol car videotapes of the incident, introduced at trial, showed the white van that was fleeing police go off the roadway on an Interstate 459 entrance ramp in Hoover, flip over and eject the driver into a drainage ditch. As the man lay motionless, face down and with his hands beneath him, DEWITT is seen on videotape striking him with a baton. DORAN is shown repeatedly punching the man in the head with his fists, and later returning and kicking the man.
The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Posey and Tamarra Matthews-Johnson, and U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Trial Attorney Douglas Kern prosecuted it.