BALTIMORE — “You asked for it. I warned you.” That's what a Baltimore County police officer told a man in his custody after assaulting him, according to a grand jury indictment filed this week in Baltimore City.
Corporal Zachary Small is charged with assault, reckless endangerment, excessive force, and misconduct in office after an incident that happened on September 27.
According to the indictment, it all started when the suspect escaped from police custody at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Several city police officers, county police officers, and a couple of Hopkins security guards were helping make the exchange back into county police custody on the 400 block of N. Washington St. That's when the alleged assault happened.
The following account is according to the indictment:
The man in custody was handcuffed and had his legs shackled in the back of a patrol car. He started banging his head on the back window, telling officers he couldn't breathe. Corporal Small responded, "You break that f—-ng window you're gonna get the whole can of pepper spray."
The man continued saying he could not breathe, to which Cpl. Small responded, 'I don't care.’ The man said the AC was not on, repeating, 'I cannot breathe. Please don't kill me like this.’ Cpl. Small opened the back door and pepper sprayed the man's face nine times, then shut the door. Police department policy requires officers to offer a prisoner water and a towel as soon as possible after pepper spraying them.
The man began to gasp and choke and call out for help, kicking the back of the door to get officers’ attention. Cpl. Small pulled him out of the car and threw him on the ground. He then grabbed his hair by the roots and yanked his head back and forth. That's when he told the man, 'You asked for it. Just remember this. I warned you.'
Dr. Danita Tolson, president of the Baltimore County NAACP, and Ryan Coleman, president of the Randallstown NAACP were both shown the body camera footage by the county police chief.
"We have a really good relationship with Baltimore County Police, with Chief McCullough. And he did inform us of the situation a while ago in the form of transparency and trying to work together on facilitating better relationships with the police. He was very disturbed by it. One of the good things in this incident - they initiated the investigation,” Coleman said. He said the video was about 45 minutes.
“The guy was already in handcuffs on his hands and his feet. What was the purpose of the pepper spray?” Dr. Tolson asked.
"It’s just concerning because obviously, he was handcuffed and he was in their custody,” Coleman said. When asked if the man was resisting, Coleman said, “I wouldn’t say he was resisting. I would say he wasn’t following certain commands when he was in the car, I would say that.”
There were more than 10 officers around at the time. Two other county officers were charged with misconduct - Justin Graham-Moore, and Jacob Roos.
“Hopefully somebody in the future will be brave enough to step up to the plate and say, 'no, this is not right,' regardless of seniority or who's the supervisor. It shouldn't matter - right is right,” Dr. Tolson said.
She says, in the video, one officer tried to intervene after the man was pepper sprayed. "At this particular time, an African-American officer comes over to try to assist and open the door so the guy can get some air, I suppose. And the Caucasian officer looks at the other officer to tell him to back off.”
“You would have to see the video,” Coleman tells us. "I don't know if it's clear-cut. I mean, some officers came over, said some things. It wasn't all just like, nobody was paying attention at all. Some people came over and said words, I don’t want to go into exactly what they said or didn’t say. Hopefully when the video comes out, and the case moves forward, some of that stuff will come out.”
We filed a Public Information Act request with county police to obtain the body camera footage, but the request was denied because the video is part of an active criminal investigation.
On the day of the incident, the victim in this case was arrested for a string of armed robberies at fast-food restaurants throughout Baltimore County over the summer. The attorney representing him on those charges, Edwin MacVaugh with Towson Legal, responded to WMAR-2 News' request for comment by saying: "I visit Mr. Russell in the Baltimore County Detention Center and will mention your contact during my next visit."
All three county officers in this case are currently suspended, according to the Baltimore County Police Department.
An attorney for Corporal Small tells WMAR-2 News, “My client is a twenty year veteran of the Baltimore County Police Department. Before that he served his country honorably in the army as a military police officer for six years. Like all citizens, Officer Small is entitled to the presumption of innocence I would ask everyone to reserve judgment until the facts come out at trial. When they do, we are confident that he will be fully exonerated."
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates is planning to hold a news conference next week. The office declined to comment on the case today.