San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has decided not to indict two San Jose police officers whose secretly taped a violent arrest of an unarmed Vietnamese college student last year, sources said.
The widely anticipated decision comes about a week after all criminal charges were dropped against 21-year-old Phuong Ho, who was struck repeatedly with a metal baton and stunned with a TASER.
The district attorney’s office was expected to announce its decision and the reasons behind it at an 11 a.m. news conference.
A cell phone videotape of the arrest became a touch point for those who have sharply questioned whether San Jose police use excessive force during some low-level arrests. And the grainy, two-minute video added to tension between some in the Asian community and police, already frayed over the police shooting of a knife-wielding, violent and mentally ill Vietnamese man earlier in the year.
The case will now go to San Jose police internal affairs investigators and to then Police Chief Rob Davis, who must decide if the officers acted within police policy. And if they did not, he must decide what punishment to levy — from training to termination.
Davis has repeatedly said that his officers should be using the “lowest amount of force” necessary to affect an arrest. Some law enforcement experts who viewed the video said the officers’ force appeared excessive.
The controversial case began Sept. 3 when police responded to a disturbance call that stemmed from a dispute that Ho was having with a roommate. At one point, Ho, a math major from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, picked up a knife and vaguely threatened his roommate for having spilled soap on Ho’s dinner steak.
Ho was in his room and did not have the knife when officers Kenneth Siegel and Steven Payne Jr. arrived. As he tried to follow Siegel into his bedroom, Ho was knocked to the ground in the hallway when he disobeyed the police order not to follow them, their reports show. Then, another roommate began taking a cell phone video of the incident, as Siegel repeatedly struck Ho with a baton, and Payne shocked him with a TASER. Two other officers were on the scene, but reportedly did not use force.
The roommate later sold the video to Ho’s lawyers. The Mercury News posted the video on its site after showing it to police commanders, who immediately launched a criminal investigation. All four officers were placed on administrative leave.
Copyright 2010 San Jose Mercury News