A video of cops violating tasering policy continues to spark controversy. The incident was recorded about four months ago (on August 8). The Cincinnati Police Department received a call from a woman (Angela Brown) requesting assistance in evicting her sons from her apartment. When officers arrived at the Clifton Heights home at around 3:30 p.m., the brothers (Richard Coleman, 24, and James Crawley, 25) were reportedly sitting across from one another and playing it cool, until they were asked to inform the officers on what was going on.
Tensions quickly rose as one of the young men sprung to his feet and got a bit hyper as he claimed that he actually lived in the residence and attempted to explain the matter from his point of view. When the officer told him to sit back down, though, he refused and began to argue with the officer about his rights.
The second brother would eventually come to his feet as well, and before long, chaos began to ensue as Brown continuously shouted for Coleman and Crawley to be removed. “Arrest these motherf**kers, they are no good – get them out of my house!” she could be heard saying, before Crawley begins to openly express dismay over Brown calling the cops on them.
Matters then escalated when officer Richard Sullivan pulled out a taser and began threatening to use it. Coleman stood before Sullivan and his brother, but eventually moves, at which point Crawley complies with the order to put his hands behind his back.
Coleman then goes for his phone and seemingly lifts it up to film the altercation, as Crawley is sent to the ground with a shock from the taser. As he cries out in anguish the officers begin to argue with Coleman, who remains reluctant to comply with their orders for him to get on the ground. Seeing him withstand several shocks from the taser, the officers finally resort to tackling Coleman, and skirmish ensues.
Officer Sullivan and his partner Lawrence Johnson have been under investigation for failure to incorporate de-escalation tactics from their training and for potentially violating the CPD's official use of force policy by failing to state that the brothers were under arrest before drawing the taser.
Coleman and Crawley would file a grievance with the Citizen Complaint Authority, but the Fraternal Order of Police motioned to block any interviewing of the officers until the two men were prosecuted. The move has reportedly set off a feud between the union's president, Dan Hils, and City Manager Harry Black, with Black and the city of Cincinnati losing the dispute when Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters sided with the union and imposed a restraining order against the city to prevent the questioning of Sullivan and Johnson until Coleman and Crawley have been put through the full legal process for trespassing, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer.
