Vanguard Analysis: Video Appears to Contradict Police Account of Picnic Day Event

One of the arresting officers has his badge out when he has the suspect on the ground, but that badge was not visible on the video – it was tucked under his shirt

The Vanguard has received a video of the altercation between plain-clothed police officers and three young men last Saturday at College Park and Russell during Picnic Day.  While the video is only nine seconds in length, when slowed down and viewed frame by frame, the view appears to contradict key portions of the police account.

The Vanguard does not have permission to show the video, but did get authorization to show some key still photos.

We are going to go line by line of the police press release from Monday, April 24, to analyze what happened.

Police Press Release: “On April 22, 2017, at approximately 3:30 P.M., three Davis Police Officers working on Picnic Day were traveling on Russell Blvd in an unmarked police vehicle when the officers encountered a large group of people in the roadway who were blocking traffic.”

While we do not see the lead up, the video itself shows a fairly open roadway at College Park, and where there are clearly a number of people, there are never more than 10 to 15 people visible in the video.

“One officer was wearing police attire with visible badge and the other two were wearing plainclothes, although they had clearly displayed badges on their chests and visible police weapons.”

The video appears to contradict this – there are no visible badges, all three of the officers in the video are wearing plainclothes, and there is no sign of any weapons whatsoever.

“At the time, Russell Blvd was nearly gridlocked due to Picnic Day related traffic and many large parties occurring in the area. Due to the obvious safety hazards the group presented, the officers pulled near the group to take action.”

It is important to understand that we cannot on this video see the drive up of the police vehicle, where Attorney Mark Reichel described in detail that the unmarked van pulled up on the wrong side, the occupants scream profanities to get out of the way, and the police are jamming on the horn “in a harassing way.”

“Before the officers could act, the unmarked police vehicle was surrounded by a large hostile group and several subjects began to yell threats at the police officers in the car. One subject quickly moved to simulate he was pulling a gun on the officers. As the officers exited the car and began to identify themselves as the police, two officers were immediately physically attacked by multiple suspects and beaten on the ground.”

This is NOT what we see on the video.  The video starts with a woman screaming, “Oh my god Angelica, what the f-, get the f- off of her.”

We do not see what precipitated it, but from Mark Reichel’s account, at the point at which the officers exited the vehicle, they had not identified themselves, “Angelica” confronted them with profanities and flipped them off.

At this point, Mr. Reichel explained, the cop puts her in a headlock and “starts punching her.”  He said, “That’s the first thing that happens.”

Officer holds Angelica in a headlock and punches her as Mr. Craver approaches

As far as we can tell this is the start of the physical confrontation.  You can see in the photo above the officer in a gray shirt and shorts has Angelica in a headlock and has either punched or is about to punch her.  In the red shirt and gray shorts is Alexander Craver.  To the right is another plainclothes officer in a blue shirt and a hat who is about to square off with Elijah Williams.  On the left, you see an officer in jeans about to take on Antwoine Perry.

The key thing is, Mr. Craver sees Angelica, a woman he does not know, in a headlock and is unaware that this is an officer doing this to her.  He rushes to intervene.

We can see Mr. Williams standing and watching when, as his attorney describes, he gets “jaw-dropped” by a punch to the jaw, and ends up fighting it out with a man who turns out to be an officer.

Elijah Williams was clearly WATCHING Angelica when he got blindsided on his right. Video shows him STANDING THERE doing nothing and then a plainclothes has started to rip his shirt off of him and attempts to take him down

He was legally standing and watching when he was attacked.

Mr. Craver puts officer in a headlock – officer has no visible badge

Here you can see Mr. Craver has interceded by putting the man who turned out to be the officer into a headlock.  Angelica is on the ground to the left and there is no visible badge on the officer.  You can also see that there is not a huge crowd surrounding these men.

Three one-on-one fights

Here you can clearly see that the struggle is not as described.  The officers are not immediately attacked by multiple suspects and beaten on the ground.  Rather, there are three clearly defined one-on-one skirmishes.

Elijah Williams and the officer wearing a blue shirt and a hat are seen to the left.  Mr. Craver has taken the officer who had Angelica in a headlock to the ground in the middle.  And you see Mr. Perry and the officer in the basketball vest near the far end of the street.

You never see a large or hostile crowd.  Instead you see bystanders not far away causally on their phones or some videoing the incident.

Two of these men, Mr. Craver and Mr. Williams, are charged with assault with a deadly weapon, but there is no sign of any sort of weapon in the video.  Instead, it appears to be a hand to hand fight.

“While on the ground, the officers were kicked, punched in the head, and one officer was struck with a bottle on the side of his head.”

We do not on the video see any evidence of a bottle on the side of the  head.  All we see are one-on-one battles between the men and the officers.  There does appear to be a fourth individual who comes into the skirmish with Mr. Craver – he attempts to kick the officer, misses, and a female pulls him out of there right as the video ends.

“The surrounding crowd was hostile and presented a serious threat to the officers, who were easily identifiable by their displayed badges and attire.”

From what we can see in the video, there is no evidence that the surrounding crowd was hostile – baffled by what was happening, yes, but we could see people standing around watching, with one woman actually, as mentioned, interceding to pull the guy out who tried to kick the officer.

Summary:

What we do not see on the nine seconds of video is how the incident began – how the officers approached the scene, whether they identified themselves as police officers – but in the video and in the stills there is no sign of visible badges or anything to indicate that these are officers.

Mark Reichel told the Vanguard yesterday that he has talked to about six witnesses so far and they all have given similar accounts – that includes Isabel Lynch, who has already spoken to the media.

He said many of them have spoken to the police and he said, when they give the account that he has given to the Vanguard, “they don’t take any more notes and they end the interview.”

In our view, the police account is inconsistent with what we see on the video and, while we do not get all of the pieces to the puzzle, the narrative given by the defendants seems more consistent with what occurs on the video.

—David M. Greenwald reporting



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About The Author

David Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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31 Comments

  1. John Hobbs

    “In our view, the police account is inconsistent with what we see on the video and while we do not get all of the pieces to the puzzle, the narrative given by the defendants seems more consistent with what occurs on the video.”

    Cops are thugs and liars. No news to me. Cops lie as a matter of course. They lie to entrap people. They lie to cover their behinds and they lie under oath. This has become something of a liability since video recording devices have become ubiquitous. While you or I might reason that someone is always recording us, and therefore be on good behavior, these police officers cannot control their conditioned responses. “Control by force. Deny any wrong doing. Deny it more forcefully.” Same old song and dance.

      1. John Hobbs

        I don’t think that anyone can view the well documented and repeated misconduct by cops in almost every city in the USA and really believe that is just a “few bad apples.” It is the tree that is toxic.

        1. Liz Miller

          John,   You are so right!

          Too many people don’t pay attention, don’t want to understand how bad law enforcement ( including prosecutors) is across the country.

          Across the country law enforcement receives the same training, and it isn’t good.

    1. JosephBiello

      @David Greenwald and other Vangaurd readers – John Hobb’s comments are what I would consider the behavior of an internet troll.  I’m aghast by the evidence the Vanguard provides,  which is extremely suggestive of police wrongdoing.  HOWEVER, if we allow comments such as Hobb’s first sentence to begin our discourse, then the Vanguard Comments section will continue to devolve into a flame war with no benefit except to increase polarization in our community.

      This Picnic Day  incident presents a serious challenge for our city, for the University, for Picnic Day, and for the DAVIS Police department (we cannot fix all the departments but we can work with our own).  I think it is gravely important that we do not allow dialogue on this important forum to be controlled (THE FIRST COMMENT) by a prejudiced, sweeping statement of indictment against our public servants (some of whom are flawed).  We have a problem here and we have to have a serious conversation – not a mud slinging.

       

       

       

       

       

      1. JosephBiello

        This town has to come to grips with the fact that it is a UNIVERSITY TOWN, not a sleepy suburb, nor an island utopia, nor a gated senior citizen’s community.   There will be parties and Russell Blvd will be gridlocked during Picnic Day.  It will not always be appropriate for young kids and some people will act like jerks.   We have to figure out what the line of acceptable behavior is – but that has to be consistent with the fact that we can’t arrest everyone for behaving badly, cursing, or flipping the bid on Picnic Day.

        How many times did my college spill out in the street and block Broadway in NYC for hours because of a protest or a party.   How many times did NYC cops turn a blind eye to our childish behavior?

        As a city, I think we are sending mixed signals of what our expectations are.  Has anyone had a serious conversation that starts “we will accept [X] much irresponsible behavior on picnic day”?

        We cannot turn this conversation into the binary shouting match “cops are thugs” versus “cops are dealing with thugs”.   Neither is true.

         

         

         

         

         

      2. Howard P

        Even tho’ John “blew me off”, his history is not that of a “troll”… it takes one to know one, and he’s never attended our meetings… I sense some personal experiences, that sometimes leads one to paint all with one brush…

        That said, uber-generalizations are dangerous… if one looked at violent crime/murder in Chicago, for instance, one could make some very untrue/unfair generalizations for a ‘class’ of people, nationally.

        Have known many police officers, here and elsewhere… one detective showed up at a crime scene (violent murder) and it was obvious his lunch was served by ‘martini’, and he was about 2.5 sheets to the wind… about 90% of police officers I’ve known have been helpful, cooperative with other professional staff, honest (but discrete/careful in wording), and folk that I respect and like.

        Have also known some Davis cops who have done things like pulling over my son for “driving while a teenager”… questioned about a robbery that had occurred earlier that day, where the suspects were described (initially) as black males in their 20’s… both the driver and my son could be described as looking ‘nordic’…

        Broad brushes can be useful when you’re painting a room… no so much when you are talking people and/or professions…

      3. Tia Will

        I think it is gravely important that we do not allow dialogue on this important forum to be controlled (THE FIRST COMMENT) by a prejudiced, sweeping statement of indictment against our public servants (some of whom are flawed)”

        I have a different perspective. I do not believe that the Vanguard should control speech by determining the order of posts which have always been chronologic as received except when flagged for moderation.

        I also do not see that making the first comment “controls” the conversation. I have made many first comments which have simply not been responded to at all. I also do not think that public servants should have a special protection from speech even when derogatory as long as not personally defamatory. I believe that our right to free speech is much more important than any potential blow to the ego of a police officer. After all, if he is not personally involved in lying, why the difficulty in accepting that others might lie ?

  2. John Hobbs

    “he’s never attended our meetings…”

    I’d be happy to bring cookies.

    “I sense some personal experiences,”

    Never been arrested, or handcuffed. I did get some bruised ribs from an LA county deputy’s “pat down” once. I have seen the sharp contrast in the way cops treat me and the way they treat my African-American friends and colleagues. Over the last few years, I have also noticed the lack of professional behavior on the part of most officers. I worked in the public sector for 30+ years with multiple customer contacts every day.  I never used profanity, never used a vehicle as a weapon and can count on one hand the times I raised my voice in frustration or anger. I do find it vexing that a group who spends most of their workday driving around with only the infrequent interruption of a call and who take such a disproportionate helping at the public trough is so contemptuous of their sworn oath.

  3. David Greenwald

    Howard: You are referring to the uniform officer at the top?  He wasn’t part of the altercation.  Uniformed officers came in later and once they arrived the individuals stopped their confrontation.

  4. Tia Will

    A couple of thoughts based on my profession which also has to deal with a public which may be either supportive or hostile :

    1. Correct identification is critical. Just because the police know they are police, does not mean that the public will know if they are in plain clothes. As more women became doctors, we frequently had to face mis-identification as nurses. This meant that we all ways had to wear our badges in plain view, upper portion of our bodies. Ultimately this did not prove sufficient and the hospital chose to place picture IDs on large, brightly color coded backgrounds so it was almost impossible to mis-identify. I would recommend more clearly visible ID’s at all times to prevent this kind of mistake.

    2. Clear professional communication is important. If the first words I heard from a plain clothes officer was shouted obscenity, I doubt my first impression would be that I was dealing with an officer.

    3. Assessment of crowd size is frequently subjective. In an adrenalized situation, I will not recall how many family members or team members were present. I do not believe the discrepancy necessarily means the officers were lying. What was a “large group” to them ?  Five people, ten, 100 ? We simply don’t know and it would be better to not be making assumptions.

    4. It is harder for me to justify their claim of intersection blockage surrounding hostile crowd when so few people are visible in the ( granted limited) photos. But again, once one feels threatened, subjective perceptions may change and not be reflective of objective reality. Again, we should be seeking the actual facts of the case, not attempting to demonize either side.

    1. David Greenwald

      I’m mainly trying to correct a lot of apparent misconceptions as to what happened.  Based on what was first reported, I was surprised to see the video.

      One of your point is very important – if the cops arrived on the scene shouting profanities, that’s going to escalate things when regardless of what happened, there needed to be deescalation.

  5. Dave Hart

    To sum up, at the end of a long day of policing drunken knuckleheads three of our public police officers succumbed to taking the low road in dealing with the public.  Not the DPD’s finest hour.  The ball is now in Chief Pytel’s court.  If he declines to address the weakness of the reaction by his officers, he will lend credence to John Hobbs’ unvarnished assessment at the top of this comments section.  I do long for the day when the police, who are human after all, are capable of saying “I’m sorry.”

    1. Tia Will

      I do long for the day when the police, who are human after all, are capable of saying “I’m sorry.”

      Agreed. What would be truly refreshing would be if everyone involved in this fray were to sit down together, with or without the beer as offered by former President Obama, discuss what happened, apologies and handshakes all the way around.

      1. John Hobbs

        Agreed. What would be truly refreshing would be if everyone involved in this fray were to sit down together, with or without the beer as offered by former President Obama, discuss what happened, apologies and handshakes all the way around.”

        Nice dream. Frankly, I’d have the chief talking with my attorneys after that kind of treatment.

        One of the great things about the internet (and why censorship and moderation are inane)is no one is going to the emergency room for stitches after an online squabble.

         

      2. Jefferson Slater

        sorry to burst your collective bubble, but beers and an apology aren’t going to be enough to address the issues the Davis Police Department has with the young people in town, especially those who are of color.

  6. Dianne C Tobias

    I have been out of town so may have missed, but has Chief Pytel made a statement? It has been a week and I would have thought he would have by now. I have respect for him and his leadership and this is his first ‘test’ I believe.

    1. David Greenwald

      This was the statement he sent me on Tuesday: “We have received video now which shows what happened from the beginning and corroborates the officers statements, including that one of the arrestees lifted up his shirt like he was going to pull a gun. As this has happening the officer got out of his car and went to grab him and was immediately hit in the back of the head and that hit several times, taken to the ground and kicked several times in the head.   The officer did fight back. The other two officers got out of the car and were almost immediately in the scuffle trying to keep the one officer from being attacked.  The suspect that motioned he was pulling a gun was arrested several blocks away.  We did not find a gun on him, but he did have ammunition on him.  We don’t whether he tossed a gun. ”

      This doesn’t resemble what I saw on video.

  7. Robin W.

    From the description of the video and the witness statements, plus the allegations made by the people who were arrested, why would it be sufficient for Chief Pytel to deal with his officers (although he should do that and make a statement, at the minimum)? There is evidence here of physical assaults initiated by the police officers. The DA should be looking at whether criminal charges need to be filed against them.

    I would also love to hear from Chief Pytel why officers would be dispatched on Picnic Day in plain clothes and an unmarked car. I can understand using plainclothes police officers for undercover assignments to try to gather information about criminal enterprises. But isn’t the purpose of having large numbers of officers on the streets on Picnic Day to deter the kinds of behavior we see in excess on Picnic Day?  This fiasco was created by having poorly trained officers, inadequate policies for how officers should interact with citizens, and the absurd decision to send officers out on the street on Picnic Day in plain clothes and an unmarked car.

    1. Howard P

      What “evidence”?  The video has no audio that David has alluded to.  He also appropriately couches it as:

      What we do not see on the nine seconds of video is how the incident began – how the officers approached the scene, whether they identified themselves as police officers – but in the video and in the stills there is no sign of visible badges or anything to indicate that these are officers.

      Yet, you want the DA to investigate whether ‘criminal charges’ against the officers are appropriate… not just a civil claim, but criminal charges… can’t connect those dots… time will tell… it is significant that David was only permitted to show some selected ‘stills’… IMO

      If it was officers behaving badly, it should be dealt with… but as it stands some posters here want to show support for those arrested, and/or investigate the officers… way too early in the game to jump to any conclusions… given the TV coverage, interviewing the ‘suspects’, they are not necessarily in custody… I just don’t know… and, I suspect, you don’t know what really happened, either…

  8. Howard P

    For the record, David, does Mark Reichel represent one or more of those arrested, that you know of?

    Since you’ve already mentioned him as a “source”, that should be a fair question…

  9. Robin W.

    Howard —

    David reported that the videotape shows an officer punching an individual who is standing, watching and doing nothing else.  David also reported an officer putting a woman in a headlock who did not first engage in any physical violence.  In addition, David indicate that there are witness statements that support the fact that the physical altercations were started by the officers.

    Why is that not sufficient to warrant an investigation by the DA to determine whether there was criminal conduct on the part of the police officers?

    You say “time will tell.” How will time tell if no investigation is conducted?

    1. Liz Miller

      Robin,

      District attorneys rely on cops every day to say the right things in court to win their cases.  DA’s don’t want to investigate cops’ criminal behavior, and if they do, it’s a white wash, a pretend investigation.  We see across the country that prosecutors manage to lose practically every case against cops.  The last thing they want to do is alienate law enforcement, the people they depend so heavily upon to make their cases in court.

       

       

  10. Todd Edelman

    Time will tell if any… errors in any press releases are corrected in further press releases.

    At least we know the names of the police officers involved. It’s nice that the DPD released that information.

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