‘Socked me in my face’: Prosecutor to review case of Independence officer punching man
Jackson County prosecutors plan to review a 2020 incident during which an Independence police officer punched a man twice during an arrest outside a grocery store.
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office said Tuesday it planned to perform an initial review of the incident, which was captured on surveillance video. The incident was brought to light last month when The Star reported that the City of Independence recently paid out a settlement of more than $82,000 for the man without a lawsuit being filed.
The Jackson County prosecutors’ use of force committee could review the case in the future, but an initial review will occur first, spokesman Mike Mansur said in an email.
The incident occurred on Feb. 1, 2020, when the man entered a Price Chopper store at 4201 South Noland Road and told a manager that someone was trying to kill him. The manager called police to report a disturbance.
After two police officers responded and the man exited the store, an altercation occurred. One officer, David Wehlermann, struck the man twice while arresting him. The first strike appeared targeted to the man’s chest and the second at his face.
Audio recording
Audio captured on a police car’s recording system and obtained by The Star through a public records request provided more details of the arrest.
The man spoke with officers before and after his arrest. At one point before he was put in the police car, he can be heard telling someone: “Don’t touch me.”
“Back up now!” an officer yelled at the man soon after.
“You’re going to beat me up?” the man asked.
Someone told the man he was under arrest. He asked what for, and an officer responded that it was for interfering with police.
“I didn’t interfere with no police,” the man responded.
The man yelled for help as an officer told him to stop resisting. The man then said he was punched in the face and couldn’t breathe. An officer told him: “You’re talking, you’re breathing.”
After he got into the squad car, the man repeatedly told an officer to not hurt him as the officer put on the man’s seat belt. Once the officer closed the door, the man looked around and appeared to say something about officers beating him up, according to nearly 24-minute camera footage from inside the car.
“You see that, right?” the man said to himself. “Oh my god. Please don’t hurt me. Oh my god. He f------ me up.”
“Damn,” he continued, “the f------ police f----- me up. ... He socked me in my face.”
He later said he believed the police were trying to kill him.
Police accountability
The Star is not naming the man, who is Black, because he was experiencing a mental health crisis and was allegedly the victim of police brutality.
At one point in the car, an officer told the man he needed “psychiatric help.”
“No one’s looking for you,” the officer said. “No one cares.”
In a police report Wehlermann, the officer who punched in the man, wrote that the man refused to follow the officers’ commands. Wehlermann wrote that he “grasped” the man’s arm and “escorted him to the ground.”
He did not mention the strikes.
Policing and accountability experts have told The Star that punching someone in the face to gain control of them during an arrest was generally not appropriate.
“The use of force is both a particularly contentious aspect of policing and an exceptionally important component of police-community relations,” said Seth W. Stoughton, a former Florida police officer who teaches law at the University of South Carolina.
Lauren Bonds, legal director for the National Police Accountability Project, said last month that the legal settlement amount was “a pretty sizable settlement for what the officer described as a controlled takedown.”
The Independence Police Department did not previously respond to questions about the incident, the settlement or the employment status of the officers. The department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Independence Mayor Eileen Weir’s office previously also did not respond to a request for comment about the settlement.
The city has paid out several large settlements and legal judgments for incidents involving its police.
In 2018, a jury awarded a man $6.5 million after he was nearly killed when a police officer used a Taser on him.
This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 11:31 AM.
