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February 9, 2010 |
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| July 10, 2006 |
By: Harris Meyer |
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Elizabeth Ritter
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t’s one of the emblematic video images from the protests in Miami during the Free Trade Area of the Americas conference in November 2003.
Coral Gables lawyer Elizabeth Ritter, a woman in her early 40s wearing a red business jacket, black skirt and sling-back high heels, carries a sign while standing in front of a phalanx of helmeted police in black riot gear. She’s angrily asking the cops why they just shot her in the back and legs with their black pellet guns.
Moments later, she’s crouched on the street, cowering behind her sign, her head tucked between her knees. A cop fires a bull’s eye to the top of her head, piercing the sign.
She staggers back to her feet with assistance and defiantly displays her sign and swollen forehead to police, who still aim their weapons at her. Her tattered sign reads: “Fear Totalitarianism.” Then she turns and hobbles away.
Now there’s a new videotape filmed the next morning in a police staging area. The tape, obtained by the Daily Business Review (see below), has not previously been reported.
 On the tape, Broward Sheriff’s Office Capt. John Brooks stands in front of at least 100 cheering officers and asks: “How about yesterday, huh? The chief of police and the undersheriff and the sheriff called me late last night raving about BSO. … No one broke ranks. No one did what they weren’t supposed to do. Everybody did it in a professional manner. … You guys are the best I’ve ever been with.”
Then Sgt. Michael Kallman of the BSO’s counterterrorism unit steps forward to review the previous day’s action and discuss intelligence gathered on demonstrators.
While he’s talking, a voice from off camera asks jokingly, “What about the lady behind the sign? We have intel on her?” The voice sounds like Brooks’. The tent full of cops erupts in laughter, and the white-haired Kallman breaks into a broad smile.
“The good news about being able to watch you guys live on TV is that the lady with the red dress, I don’t know who got her, but it went right through the sign and hit her smack dab in the middle of the head,” Kallman gushes. He embellishes by pointing enthusiastically at the top of his forehead.
From off camera, an officer calls out, “Do we get a piece of her red dress?” That prompted more loud laughter.
After viewing the video clip for the first time last week, Janet McAliley, vice chairwoman of the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel, which studied police conduct during the FTAA conference, said she was “outraged.”
“I’m revolted that police officers from any jurisdiction would have taken such pride and pleasure in injuring a person who was a passive individual on the street with the right to air her opinion,” McAliley said. “She didn’t deserve to be shot. But the Broward Sheriff’s Office congratulated themselves the next day.”
The BSO declined to comment for this article, citing pending litigation in other cases. Neither Kallman nor Brooks returned calls for comment.
Could help other cases
The FTAA summit was held in downtown Miami to hammer out a proposed free trade agreement for 34 Western Hemisphere nations. President Bush and Gov. Jeb Bush were pushing hard to have Miami selected as the headquarters city for the group. Negotiations over the trade pact have stalled.
After more than two years of investigation since the Miami meetings, the Civilian Investigative Panel concluded police used excessive force and failed to adequately protect the First Amendment rights of demonstrators.
But despite hours of graphic videotape of rough police treatment of anti-globalization protesters, the panel issued no findings on the 20 citizen complaints that it investigated.
In its final report last month, the panel said a major reason it couldn’t reach any conclusions was it couldn’t tell which of 40 participating police agencies and which of their 2,500 officers were involved in particular incidents. Only members of the Miami Police Department, the lead law enforcement agency, consistently wore visible identification over their riot gear.
But the Nov. 21, 2003, videotape of BSO commanders obtained from CIP leaves no doubt about which agency was responsible for one controversial shooting. It’s the only publicly disclosed videotape of cops discussing their actions during the weeklong FTAA meeting.
On tape, Kallman and Brooks, a former Miami assistant police chief, lavishly praised their deputies for firing a fusillade of so-called less-than-lethal rounds at Ritter and others in front of Miami Dade College about 5 p.m. the day before.
“I went home, I couldn’t sleep, I was so pumped up about how good you guys were,” Brooks told the deputies. He’s since been promoted to major and is one of Sheriff Ken Jenne’s top 12 commanders.
But Lt. Armando Guzman, the Miami police SWAT commander, and the Civilian Investigative Panel later called the Ritter shooting unjustified.
Lawyers who have filed federal civil rights lawsuits against the city and police for other cases of alleged police misconduct were surprised when told about the tape, which Miami police turned over to CIP. When the content of the video was described to them, they said it could help their cases.
“That’s pretty incendiary,” said Robert D. Brown, a Miami attorney representing Carl Kesser, a documentary filmmaker who was shot in the head by police with a less-than-lethal weapon. “There’s a comparability between the Ritter and Kesser situations.”
One of the plaintiffs’ biggest challenges is proving alleged incidents of misconduct and violations of demonstrators’ constitutional rights resulted from flawed police policies. The lawyers say the BSO video suggests an official policy of encouraging officers to use force unlawfully against peaceful demonstrators and onlookers.
“It’s part of the overall command mentality,” Brown said. “The city of Miami had decided to implement a plan that was constitutionally defective and encouraged exactly what the BSO tape showed.”
The Miami Police Department declined to comment for this article, citing pending litigation. Representatives of both the Miami and Broward departments would not comment on whether they’ve changed any policies since the FTAA conference. They did say they were not aware of any officers being disciplined due to conduct during the FTAA.
In a June 1 letter responding to a request for information about the Ritter shooting, BSO attorney H. Lee Futch wrote, “I don’t believe any firearms were discharged during the event.” BSO refused to say what type of less-than-lethal weapons it deployed.
Miami Police Chief John Timoney, in a December 2004 sworn deposition in the Kesser case, said he personally witnessed the events on the afternoon of Nov. 20, 2003.
“I saw [Ritter] all the time,” Timoney said. “I never saw her get shot.”
Growing frustration
The new video emerges as FTAA foes and civil liberties activists and lawyers express growing frustration that no one has been held publicly accountable for the alleged abuses more than 2 1/2 years after the FTAA events.
Miami political, business and police leaders went into the summit determined to prevent the violence, disruption and property damage that arose during previous international trade conferences in Seattle and Genoa, Italy.
Miami enlisted help from nearly 40 law enforcement agencies. Demonstrators were kept out of some areas to keep them far away from the official meetings. At the same time, many mainstream groups opposed to the FTAA obtained permits for demonstrations and educational events.
Chief Timoney oversaw the operational planning for the FTAA and served as top commander, riding the streets on a bicycle. He and city leaders touted their secret plan as the “Miami model,” featuring an overwhelming police response. The BSO was one of the four largest contingents participating in the policing effort.
While Miami’s political and business leaders were pleased with the outcome, many people complained about the treatment of anti-FTAA demonstrators and bystanders. They say officers unjustly arrested them, used excessive force and unlawfully prevented them from participating in legal demonstrations.
Both CIP and the Miami-Dade County Independent Review Panel, the citizen panel that monitors Miami-Dade police, issued reports identifying wide-ranging problems in police conduct, planning, coordination and training during the FTAA events.
The CIP’s final report said the overwhelming majority of demonstrators were nonviolent but the Miami department “was not prepared to handle the intermingling of peaceful demonstrators with violent protesters.”
The Independent Review Panel report issued in 2004 said its members “strongly condemn and deplore the unrestrained and disproportionate use of force. … Civil rights were trampled and the sociopolitical values we hold most dear were undermined.”
Members of the two panels and civil liberties lawyers say that as far as they know, South Florida police agencies have made little or no policy changes for handling future protests. They lament that police officials have been unresponsive and that the public, elected officials and news media seem to have lost interest.
“It’s been brushed under the rug,” said Fred Frost, president of the South Florida AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions which organized anti-FTAA events. “We have to make sure this never happens again in our country.”
No warning or provocation
Ritter, a Miami native, told the CIP last January that she had no plans to attend the demonstrations until she went to probate court in downtown Miami on Nov. 19 and found it had been closed because of police warnings about anarchists.
That made her angry.
Ritter went to the demonstration with two friends. They parked near the county courthouse, improvised a sign and walked east toward Bayfront Park, where licensed protest events were scheduled.
When they got to Biscayne Boulevard, they couldn’t cross to the park because of congestion and police lines. So she stood, holding her sign, near a small group of people on the west side of the boulevard. Officers in riot gear stood about 15 feet away.
A videotape of the scene shows people milling around. Ritter asks a Miami police spokesman to stop drowning out a TV news interview of a demonstrator by repeatedly announcing on his bullhorn that people were free to demonstrate.
After about 30 minutes, she said, police started marching north on Biscayne without any warning or visible provocation, beating batons on shields and forcing people in the street to move back. At that point, Ritter got separated from her friends.
Police turned a group including Ritter west onto Northeast Third Street. Ritter said officers had the north-south avenues blocked, so the only option was to walk west ahead of the advancing police line.
Police stopped in front of Miami Dade College’s Wolfson campus. A videotape shows Ritter, photographers and others walking west. On the video, there was no sign of a threat to people or property, and no audible police order to disperse. Ritter and Kesser both say they heard no dispersal order.
In his 2004 deposition, Chief Timoney said Ritter and other people on the street received “at least four warnings.”
Ritter says she was near college students on a class assignment and a number of photographers. The students interviewed her and asked her to pose for photos with her sign.
She insists she saw no one throw anything at police or engage in any other provocations. Kesser says the same thing in his lawsuit. The BSO’s Brooks on the next morning said that his officers were pelted with “rocks and chunks of brick.”
“I can’t say that perhaps one person didn’t throw one thing,” Ritter told the Review last month. “But I can tell you there was no fusillade. I would not have stood in the middle of a fusillade giving an interview to the students.”
Suddenly, police opened fire on Ritter and others, peppering them with numerous rounds of less-than-lethal — but still painful — projectiles. Ritter was hit four times in the back and legs perhaps with wooden baton rounds, according to experts. She said the projectiles that struck her were hard black rubber cylinders about an inch and a half across and an inch thick. (The BSO refused to say what weapons it deployed).
On tape, an angry Ritter turned and asked the cops: “Did you shoot me? A lady in a suit who’s been peaceably walking in front of you for half an hour? And you shot me when my back was turned?” She hiked up her skirt to show the cameraman a large welt on the back of her right thigh.
Suddenly, police opened fire with a fresh barrage from about 75 feet away. Several young men cried out in pain and anger. Ritter crouched behind her sign and was hit in the head. On the video, there’s no one near her.
A photographer wearing a gas mask helped her to her feet. She appeared stunned but wasn’t seriously injured. The photographer angrily shouted to police, “You hit her in the face. You hit her in the face.”
Moments later, Kesser also was shot in the head at the same location with a bean-bag projectile that lodged in his right temple. The videotape shows a stunned Kesser, blood streaming down his face.
All this was broadcast that day. Labor and civil libertarians later cited the video as evidence of police mistreatment.
Ritter did not sue or complain to the police department or the Civilian Investigative Panel. But CIP eventually contacted her and took detailed testimony in January. Vice Chairwoman McAliley said Ritter “made a very powerful statement, which backed up the idea that there were peaceful protesters there who were shot at.”
In its final report, the panel found “no discernible justification” for the police to shoot Ritter. It did not identify the police agency whose officers shot her. The panel did not issue a formal finding because Ritter had not filed a complaint, and it only has legal authority to investigate Miami police.
SWAT Cmdr. Guzman, in a deposition last year in Kesser’s case, said Ritter “shouldn’t have been targeted” because she was not posing an imminent threat of serious harm to anyone.
The Miami department’s rules of engagement, which were disseminated to all assisting police agencies, said less-than-lethal weapons were to be used only when “physical threat or harm to property or persons is presented.” The Miami policy is not to use such weapons for crowd control, only to target violent individuals.
But that wasn’t the position taken by BSO commanders the morning after. On tape, Brooks and Kallman lauded deputies for their performance and joked about the Ritter head shot.
Brooks also raved about the BSO’s weapons. Mimicking the rapid-fire sound, he said: “All of a sudden you hear pup pup pup pup pup pup pup. I tell ya, that weapon saved us a lot of injuries.”
Someone in the BSO tent shouted, “Get some!” Then another officer, remembering one of the targets, shouted: “Somewhere there’s a fat boy hurting real bad.” Everyone roared with laughter.
Locker-room antics
After watching the BSO tape for the first time last month, Ritter expressed shock and anger. “I am appalled that [Kallman] obviously reveled in shooting a citizen walking down a public street. The man who shot me in the head shouldn’t be a police officer. And that gentleman shouldn’t be in command of police officers.”
Policing experts not involved in FTAA litigation also were critical when told about Brooks’ and Kallman’s comments.
“This is like the locker room antics of some athletic team,” said Geoffrey P. Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminology professor who specializes in police use of force. “That’s totally inappropriate behavior.”
Earlier on the tape, Kallman expressed a more measured view of the use of force. He reminded deputies that they needed to make distinctions between peaceful protesters and lawbreakers.
“Certainly it’s not the 20,000 people that cause the problem,” he said. “It’s the bad guys that mix in with them that cause the problems. … Certainly you all will recognize the bad element.”
W. Ken Katsaris, a police trainer and former Leon County sheriff, agreed with that emphasis. “You can’t shoot if you are going to jeopardize individuals who aren’t harming anyone,” he said. And less-than-lethal weapons shouldn’t be used at all on people who are retreating, he added.
In his December 2004 deposition, Chief Timoney contended Ritter belonged to a radical protest group and was a legitimate target. He said Ritter “was able to very effectively give cover to the protesters. … It was theater. … I think that was part of the ploy that she looked like this innocent woman.”
Ritter angrily denied Timoney’s accusations, saying he “created a fantasy to somehow justify shooting me.”
Either way, Katsaris said it’s not proper police procedure to fire into a crowd that includes both violent and nonviolent people. Officers must use a dispersal agent such as pepper spray before firing at those who resist. And they first must give a command to disperse.
It also would violate police rules to intentionally shoot Ritter in the head. Miami police officials have testified they and their officers know less-than-lethal rounds can cause serious injury or death.
The BSO policy manual says deputies “will not use impact weapon strikes [including less-than-lethal weapons] to the head, neck or groin areas except in situations where deadly force is justified and there is no other way to protect themselves or others from the imminent threat of great bodily harm or death.” Miami police rules are similar.
Ritter said she believes the head shot was deliberate, particularly since there was no one else near her. “That had to be a carefully aimed shot,” she said.
After watching the videotape of the shooting last week, McAliley agreed. “They aimed for her head.”
Asked whether the BSO has ever reviewed the shootings in front of Miami Dade College, the department’s media relations office sent an e-mail last month saying, “We do not have any FTAA cases being reviewed by internal affairs.” The office said it’s double-checking.
Second head shot
Unlike Ritter, several people and groups with complaints about police conduct during the FTAA conference have filed federal lawsuits claiming civil rights violations.
Kesser’s lawsuit claims his injuries are permanent and have ruined his career and finances. He said the right side of his forehead is paralyzed with no feeling and he has an intermittent twitch in his right eye.
Miami police acknowledge that one of its four SWAT officers in the area probably shot Kesser but don’t know which one, the lawsuit says. SWAT Cmdr. Guzman testified the shooting was “an unfortunate accident, simple as that.” Chief Timoney and his top aides visited Kesser to apologize.
Despite the apology, Kesser has pressed ahead in U.S. District Court in Miami, claiming violations of his rights under the First, Fourth and 14th Amendments. He also included a common law negligence claim. The city has asked Judge Adalberto Jordan to grant summary judgment in its favor. A decision is pending.
Kesser’s attorneys, Brown and Rosalind Matos of the American Civil Liberties Union, argue flawed Miami police policies, practices and training on less-than-lethal weapons and other issues make the city responsible for violating Kesser’s constitutional rights.
The city argues Kesser’s shooting did not violate his constitutional rights because he was not intentionally targeted and there is no evidence of a deficient city policy.
Inferring a policy
Attorneys for Kesser and other plaintiffs said the BSO video could become important evidence in their cases.
“If a commander is applauding the shooting of [a peaceful protester], that shows it’s a policy,” Brown said. “It’s a ratification. They see what happens, they say ‘good work.’ You draw the inference that these officers knew that’s the code of conduct they were working under.”
“Such stationhouse talk would reflect their view of what the law requires and what the law allows in terms of use of force,” agreed Roger Taseff, a Miami lawyer representing a college student who allegedly was repeatedly clubbed from behind by police and suffered serious head injuries. “It reflects on their training or lack of training.”
Still, it could be difficult to make inferences about overall FTAA policing policies based on statements by BSO commanders.
The tape would have the clearest impact if Ritter herself sued. But she didn’t suffer serious injury and thus can’t claim a Fourth Amendment violation of illegal seizure of her person. “If Ritter got hurt, she’d have a great case,” Brown said.
So what does Ritter plan to do, if anything? She said she’s “fearful” about possible repercussions from filing a criminal complaint or state civil action against the police.
“I’m going to have to think about that,” she said. “When they shot me, I asked, ‘Why?’ And I’m still asking the same question. Why were they so angry at me? What did I do to them?”
Harris Meyer can be reached at hmeyer@alm.com or at (305) 347-6617.
Elizabeth Ritter photo by Aixa Montero
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