DE SOTO, Mo. — De Soto Police Chief Jeff McCreary calls the surveillance footage of an alleged assault of a handcuffed prisoner in his jail “shocking,” and said he wishes his department’s investigation into the matter would have gone more quickly.
McCreary fired all three officers who were involved in the Sept. 30 assault. Jefferson County Prosecutor Trisha Stefanski charged former Sgt. James Daly and officers Bethany Zarcone and Allayna Campbell based on an investigation by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.
“I was kind of a little bit shocked, what we're talking about here is not an officer under attack or being struck or anything, and we’re using force just to gain a booking photo,” McCreary said. “Our procedure is that if a person is uncooperative, we take everything dangerous off them like a belt, shoes any items that they could use to damage to the cell or hurt themselves, we take them off and place them in a cell until they're in a better state-of-mind so we can complete that booking photo.
“So I’m extremely disappointed that they decided to take that action.”
But at least one of the officers’ attorneys, Scott Rosenblum, said the arrestee was a threat to his client, Sgt. James Daly.
“Obviously, the individual was in an intoxicated condition and noncompliant, creating an extremely dangerous and volatile situation for Mr. Daly,” Rosenblum wrote.
McCreary disagreed.
“I was kind of shocked because really, a booking photo is not even worth that much effort, quite honestly,” McCreary said. “And to take it even further and make it become an excessive use of force is obviously not what we want to see.”
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The surveillance footage shows Daly grabbing the man by the back of his hair after he refuses to look at a camera for a mugshot that Campbell was trying to take.
He then throws the man onto a bench, chokes him and shouts in his face. He and Zarcone continue to push, shove and use force against the man for about two minutes.
At one point, Zarcone knees the man in the groin, and the man can be heard shouting in pain and saying “I’m scared, I’m scared.”
He is eventually thrown to the ground, where the officers wrestle to get his shoes off before dragging him into a jail cell.
Moments later, all three officers can be seen laughing together.
It took two months for McCreary to ask the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department to investigate for any criminal wrongdoing.
Within about 24 hours of the arrival of sheriff’s deputies in November, charges were issued.
McCreary said there were reasons for his department’s delay in seeking an outside investigation.
Daly never submitted a use-of-force report as department policy requires because he was suspended on another matter before he could do so.
That suspension stemmed from a cross he used as a Halloween graveyard decoration he put in his yard with the words, “Here lies Michael Brown, a fat ghetto clown.”
Not having that report, coupled with the search for all pertinent video related to the incident, as well as following the chain of command all took time, McCreary said.
As a result of this incident, he said his department would be looking to streamline its investigations into allegations like this as well as whether supervisors should be reviewing body camera and surveillance footage of their officers more often.
“We probably should have worked faster; there's probably some things we could have done better,” he said. “The result took a little bit longer than some people, including me, wanted, but the result was what we wanted, and that was to make sure that we do not allow that type of behavior to go unchecked.”
The firing of the three officers has left the department with just 15 officers to cover a town of about 6,400 people.
“It’s a huge impact to us, but I think the officers that remain rose to the occasion and are working some overtime and under some difficult circumstances,” McCreary said.
Daly has been charged with third-degree assault, a felony, and two misdemeanor counts of assault. Rosenblum said his client intends to plead not guilty.
Zarcone has been charged with third-degree assault. Her attorney, Gabe Crocker, declined to comment.
Campbell is facing misdemeanor evidence tampering charges.
Her attorney, Travis Noble, said his client deleted photos, but not as part of a cover-up. The arrestee was moving all over, and none of the mugshots turned out to be useful, he said.
"While they were attempting to try and take the picture of him for his mugshot, he continued to move and duck his head so the other officers were trying to hold his head so they could get the picture, but the pictures they got, they weren’t able to use for mugshots so they deleted them," Noble said.
Noble said his client is in "shock" and "disbelief" over what happened.
"This is a young, brand new police officer," he said. "Her entire life she wanted to be a police officer.
"She comes from a long history of law enforcement in her family. She wasn’t assaulting anybody and wasn’t attempting to cover anything up."