By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

Joplin recently paid $5,000 to a 25-year-old black man to get him to drop any claims against the city and a white police officer who struck him in the face with an open-handed, martial-arts-type blow while the man was handcuffed and being dragged to a jail cell.

The incident took place at the city jail in the early morning hours of April 20 following the arrest of David G. Neal, 1717 Redbud Road, for allegedly ramming a police car with his own car in downtown Joplin and resisting arrest.

The officer involved, Homer Knisley, 31, left employment with the Joplin Police Department on Wednesday. His departure and the discipline of two other officers involved were disclosed Thursday in the wake of investigations by the department’s internal affairs division and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Police Chief Lane Roberts said Friday that Knisley and other officers were reacting to extreme provocation by Neal the night in question.

“But the bottom line is: Even if everything (Knisley) says is true, you don’t punch a guy in handcuffs,” Roberts told the Globe. “There’s no way to justify it.”

The incident at the jail prompted a complaint from Neal’s mother the next day, and the local chapter of the NAACP expressed concerns a few days later, Roberts said. But the Police Department’s internal affairs division already had begun looking into the arrest and jailing of Neal before any complaints were received, he said.

“All of our actions were self-initiated,” Roberts said. “We were not forced to do any of the things we have done.”

He said what was done is that Knisley was taken off patrol immediately and placed on desk duty while the investigation proceeded. Once the internal investigation was completed, the matter was taken before the department’s disciplinary review board and a recommendation was made to him.

Roberts said the board’s recommendation is not a matter of public record since it entails a personnel matter. But he then placed Knisley on paid suspension pending the outcome of a fact-finding hearing, he said. That hearing was scheduled to take place Wednesday, but Roberts said Knisley left employment before the hearing.

The police chief said results of both investigations were turned over to the Jasper County prosecutor’s office, and the prosecutor declined to file charges against the officer. Roberts subsequently released a number of reports Friday related to officers’ use of force in arresting Neal and the incident at the jail.

Roberts also allowed the Globe to view two videos captured by the jail’s surveillance cameras. One video shows Neal arriving outside the jail in an officer’s car and struggling with Knisley, a second officer and a jailer as he is being taken inside. The second video from a camera inside the jail captures the blow in question that Knisley delivered to Neal.

In that video, Neal is seen being dragged from the booking room into an interior room of the jail on the way to lockup.