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Expert Faults Officer’s Actions

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Times Staff Writer

An expert testified Thursday that former Inglewood Police Officer Jeremy Morse used excessive and unreasonable force when he picked 16-year-old Donovan Jackson off the ground and threw him onto a patrol car in July 2002.

“That’s inappropriate police conduct,” Joe Callanan, a consultant and police trainer, told jurors in the second day of Morse’s retrial after watching a videotape of the incident. “It could leave somebody seriously injured.”

Callanan replaced prosecution expert Sheriff’s Cmdr. Charles Heal, who testified in the first trial last year that Morse’s actions, which were caught on tape by an amateur cameraman and broadcast worldwide, were excessive but only warranted discipline.

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Callanan testified that Morse’s use of force was unnecessary because Jackson was handcuffed and not resisting.

“Where resistance ends, excessive force begins,” said Callanan, who spent more than two decades with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and has testified about 250 times in state and federal court.

The use-of-force expert also told jurors that once Jackson stopped moving, Morse should have ensured that the teenager was breathing. Morse should then have stepped aside because he may have been tired or too involved, Callanan told jurors, and let two other officers carefully take Jackson to the patrol car.

Morse’s defense attorney maintains that his client’s use of force was justified and that he was using an approved tactic called “wedging” to gain control of Jackson, who was resisting. Morse, 26, could be sentenced to three years in prison if he is convicted of assault under the color of authority. A jury deadlocked in the first trial when seven jurors voted to convict and five voted to acquit. The confrontation took place at a gas station in Inglewood on July 6, 2002, after two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies stopped Jackson’s father to question him about expired registration tags on his car. Inglewood police officers arrived and a scuffle ensued between Jackson and officers. Once Jackson was handcuffed, Morse was caught on tape picking him up, heaving him onto the car and punching him in the face.

Inglewood Police Chief Ronald Banks, who fired Morse after the incident, testified that he reviewed internal reports and determined that the officer’s use of force was unnecessary and unreasonable. Inglewood police officers are not trained to forcefully put suspects on patrol cars, he testified. Banks said Jackson did not present a danger once he was handcuffed and lying on the ground.

But Banks said the decision about how much force is necessary is “quite subjective” and that reasonable officers might come to a different conclusion on whether the force Morse used was appropriate. “You are allowed to use the amount of force necessary to meet the resistance,” Banks testified.

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Inglewood Police Officer Mariano Salcedo also took the stand, telling jurors that Morse was standing behind a handcuffed Jackson when the officer yelled, “Let me go! Let me go!” and flinched as if he had been injured. Morse appeared tired and had a painful expression on his face. Defense attorney John Barnett has said that Morse threw the punch after Jackson grabbed his testicles.

Salcedo testified that he told Morse he had control of the suspect and he put his hand across his fellow officer’s body to restrain Morse and to get the suspect in the car.

“You felt that there had been a serious attack by Donovan Jackson even though he’d been handcuffed ... ?” Barnett asked.

“Yes, sir,” Salcedo responded.

Barnett is scheduled to cross-examine Callanan this morning in the courthouse near Los Angeles International Airport.

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