By James Pinkerton
Houston Chronicle
HOUSTON - Another surveillance tape released Thursday shows apparent excessive force by a Houston police officer on a handcuffed suspect, underscoring the position of civil rights activists who say police brutality in the city is widespread.
Community activist Quanell X on Thursday played a video recording made in a Memorial Hermann Hospital waiting room in June 2008 showing a man being handcuffed and then hit twice with a baton and knocked down by an officer with no apparent provocation.
The most recent video has gotten the attention of Mayor Annise Parker, who issued a statement Thursday saying police abuse will not be tolerated and that Police Chief Charles McClelland will be asked to explain police training and the internal affairs process.
Last week, surveillance video surfaced showing seven Houston police officers allegedly beating burglary suspect Chad Holley last March. The officers were quickly suspended by McClelland after a copy of the video was sent to him, and four officers were indicted by a grand jury last June.
The more recently released video was shown Thursday in a meeting room of The Community of Faith Church on the city’s northside. James Dixon, a pastor at the church, said this and other incidents constitute a “state of emergency.” Flanked by more than a dozen pastors, activists and City Council Member Jolanda “Jo” Jones, he urged public officials to attend a town hall meeting next week at the church where another tape would be shown.
“This is a fire that is burning that must be put out, and justice is the only way to do that,” Dixon said.
Quanell X said Houston has a systemic problem with police brutality, excessive use of force and violating the rights of young black men in particular.
“So many brothers for decades have alleged police misconduct and brutality, but there was never a tape,” he said. “But God has blessed us with technological advances where tapes are rolling out now one after another.”
A statement issued from the HPD public affairs office Thursday said when officials obtain a copy of the tape, they will review it and the case files to “determine the facts.”
“We will conduct an investigation, and any additional comments will be made in accordance with our normal investigative procedures,” the statement said.
His account
At the news conference Thursday, Houston resident Henry Lee Madge, 27, said he was punched repeatedly by a police officer who approached him in a hospital waiting room June, 22, 2008. Madge said he was watching a religious broadcast from his church on a laptop computer while at the hospital with his son, who was being treated for appendicitis.
A hospital employee, who could be seen on the tape, asked him to turn the broadcast down. Madge said he lowered the volume, but the worker began to question his presence in the facility and a police officer, identified as B.L. Hall, arrived.
“Out of the blue, a cop comes from behind me screaming and yelling,’' said Madge, who said the officer ordered him in a profanity-laced tirade to place his hands behind his back or be hit on the head with the metal baton he was carrying.
After Madge was handcuffed, the police officer can be seen leading him from the room. The two stopped for a moment, and Hall appears to hit Madge twice in the head with his baton, wrestle him to the floor, and then hit him again. He had a knee on Madge’s back and another on his head.
Madge said he spent three weeks in jail because he could not post bond and lost his job. He said he came forward this week after viewing the Chad Holley beating video.
Harris County records show that Madge was charged on June 22, 2008, with resisting arrest. Prosecutors alleged Madge had rammed his shoulder into Hall’s chest. The case was dismissed for insufficient evidence Aug. 20, 2008, on a motion brought by prosecutors, who told the judge after watching the video and talking to witnesses the charges could not be proven.
A database of sustained internal affairs complaints by current HPD officers shows that Hall was found to have violated police procedure after Madge filed a complaint against the officer. Punishments handed down by HPD aren’t included in the database. The complaint was one of at least a dozen HPD upheld against Hall including at least six complaints of misconduct and three accidents that were his fault.
Madge, according to court records, was charged last July with misdemeanor assault after he allegedly knocked a man unconscious by hitting him in the head several times following an argument during a flag football game in Houston. That case is pending.
Changes pledged
Parker, in her statement, pledged to make unspecified changes to a citizen’s review committee that many activists insist is a rubber stamp for punishments handed down by HPD.
“We are reviewing this video and continuing to gather information about this incident. I reiterate that police abuse will not be tolerated. Those who feel they have been a victim at the hands of Houston police should do exactly what this young man did and file a complaint with the Houston Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division,’' Parker said.
A spokeswoman for Memorial Hermann, which hired off-duty Houston police officers to work as security officers, did not provide a response from the hospital.