July 22, 2008 10:00 pm
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By Debby Woodin
dwoodin@joplinglobe.com
Former police officer Homer Knisley says he did not use excessive force in the April arrest of David Neal, but he contends the Joplin Police Department lacked training and equipment for dealing with a situation he encountered.
Joplin’s police chief on Tuesday rebutted Knisley’s contention that he did not use excessive force.
Knisley left the department last week after an investigation into Neal’s arrest concluded that Knisley used excessive force by striking Neal while he was in handcuffs, which resulted in injuries that the city paid $5,000 to resolve.
The Globe last week tried to obtain comment from Knisley, but his attorney would not allow an interview.
On Tuesday, Knisley submitted his side of the story in a written statement that is published in today’s edition. He disputes that he used excessive force in the arrest and detention of Neal, 25, on April 20.
Police Chief Lane Roberts on Friday night told Neal’s mother and others gathered at a local church in a previously scheduled community meeting that Knisley likely will be stripped of his law-enforcement certification because of the investigation’s conclusion that he used excessive force by hitting a man in handcuffs. Roberts also said police officers may not react to provocation, even if someone is spitting on them as in the Neal case.
Neal had been drinking and was under the influence of mind-altering drugs, according to his mother, when he resisted officers who arrested him after his vehicle hit a pole. Police say he then rammed his car into a patrol car outside a downtown Joplin bar. Officers repeatedly used a Taser gun to try to gain control of Neal and get him in handcuffs. When he was being taken into the jail, he refused to walk, and spit on and cursed the officers. A videotape shows Knisley using his hand to hit the handcuffed Neal in the face with a martial-arts-type strike.
Knisley writes that he was protecting others and not acting out of provocation.
“I do not feel that my response to the continued assault by David Neal was inappropriate or excessive at all,” Knisley writes in the opening paragraph of his statement. “I used what I believe to be the least amount of force necessary to prevent any continued assaults on myself or others.”
Knisley also contends that he was protecting a jailer and others.
“Homer Knisley is a very nice young man,” Roberts said by telephone from Florida, where he had traveled Tuesday to a conference where he is to learn whether the department has achieved national accreditation. “I think he firmly believes everything he is saying. But after conducting our investigation, we disagree with him.”
Knisley also contends in his letter that the department “lacked training and protective measures to prevent this type of occurrence from happening.”
Roberts said officers know of tactics they can use in that situation. He said one example is that a spitting person’s shirt can be pulled over his face to protect an officer or others.
The incident prompted a complaint from Neal’s mother, and the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People expressed concerns a few days later, Roberts said last week.
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 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 Roberts.
Roberts said the board’s recommendation is not a matter of public record because it involves 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 last Wednesday, but Roberts said Knisley left employment before the hearing.
The case also was investigated outside the department by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Former officer
Homer Knisley, 31, had been with the Joplin Police Department since 2000.
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