Detroit Officers Charged in Black Motorist’s Death

Two white policemen were charged Monday with murder in the widely witnessed Nov. 5 beating death of a black motorist, a case that has prompted comparisons to the 1991 Los Angeles police attack on Rodney G. King.

Two more officers--including the black supervisor at the scene--were charged with manslaughter and assault. But there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges against three other police officers who had been among seven originally suspended in the case, authorities said.

The charges were filed by Wayne County Prosecutor John O’Hair, who said he didn’t consider the beating death of Malice Wayne Green, 35, to be racially motivated.

But NAACP leaders disagreed and were hoping to head off an expected defense request that the trial be moved out of Detroit. Some police officers voiced doubt that the defendants could get a fair trial here because of what one called the “prejudicial” comments of city leaders.

“That is preposterous. This is a community that is eminently fair,” replied Joanne Watson, executive director of the Detroit chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

The transfer of the trial of white Los Angeles police officers in the videotaped beating of black motorist King to suburban Simi Valley and the subsequent selection of a jury without any black members was a central reason the officers were acquitted on most charges, many believe.

Green died of head injuries after being struck repeatedly with heavy police flashlights, according to the preliminary police investigation. The beating occurred when police approached Green in his car outside a suspected crack house on Detroit’s west side.

At least seven police officers, four emergency medical crew members and several bystanders witnessed the attack on Green, who was unarmed and sitting behind the wheel of a car at the time. The reason for the violence is in dispute, and O’Hair declined to discuss the particulars of the incident.

Charged with second-degree murder were 52-year-old Larry Nevers, a 24-year police veteran, and his partner, Walter Budzyn, 42, an officer for 19 years. They appeared nervous and grim as they stood for arraignment. They were freed on personal bond of $100,000 each. Both declined comment.

“I’d like to, but I’ve been advised not to,” said Nevers.

They could get life in prison if convicted. Second-degree murder is an unlawful killing with malice and without legal excuse or justification. Unlike a first-degree murder charge, prosecutors needn’t prove a specific intent to kill.

Charged with involuntary manslaughter and willful neglect of duty was Sgt. Freddie Douglas, the ranking officer and the only black among seven officers at the scene. O’Hair said Douglas, who arrived after Nevers and Budzyn called for backup help, “intentionally failed to take appropriate action” to stop the attack. Douglas, a 19-year police veteran, was freed on $25,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

The alleged role of Douglas in the incident prompted O’Hair and some black leaders to downplay the racial aspects of the case and has caused anguish in Detroit’s black community.

“Why didn’t he (Douglas) just get out of the car and say, ‘Hey, stop that!’ ” asked Henderson Chandler, a Green family friend. The Rev. Horace Sheffield of Detroit said: “I wouldn’t say that easily that it was a racist act.”

But the NAACP’s Watson said: “You cannot remove the fact that (Green) was an Afro-American male from all the other factors in this case.”

A fourth officer, Robert Lessnau, was charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm, punishable by up to 10 years. O’Hair said the blows struck by Lessnau didn’t contribute to Green’s death. He was released on $10,000 bond.

O’Hair said the investigation showed that three other police officers who were suspended by Police Chief Stanley Knox the day after Green’s death did not take part in the beating and could not have “reasonably interceded.” But they remain suspended pending an internal police review.

The carefully drawn warrants were in contrast to angry public condemnations of the officers by Knox and Mayor Coleman Young, who are both black, and the quick suspensions of all seven officers without pay at the time of Green’s death.

Though their condemnations may have been intended to head off civil unrest of the sort that greeted the King verdicts, police and others criticized Young for commenting that Green was “literally murdered by police.”

Young, whose 18 years in office have seen Detroit’s police force transformed from heavily white to 54% black, was more restrained Monday. He said authorities were moving with “deliberate speed” and that “the system is working.”

But Tom Schneider, the president of the Detroit Police Officers Assn., said the fact that three suspended officers weren’t criminally charged underscored that they were wrongly “condemned, tried and found guilty by our so-called civic leaders.”

“We are concerned that the officers charged may not be able to receive a fair trial in Wayne County,” Schneider said.

Since Green’s death, nightly vigils have been held at the beating site in a rundown neighborhood, and a local artist has painted a mural of Green’s likeness on a nearby wall. Green’s family has filed a $61-million lawsuit against the City of Detroit.

The killing also prompted Knox to order a review of the records of all 3,850 members of the police force to look for potentially violent officers. Nevers and Budzyn were known to some residents of the 3rd Precinct as “Starsky and Hutch,” for the television cops, and had been named in 25 citizen complaints and five lawsuits.

Other officers and family friends are disputing the initial account of the Green beating as unprovoked, however, saying that he resisted furiously and appeared to be trying to reach for one officer’s gun. Green had a minor drug record, and the plainclothed Nevers and Budzyn were attempting to question him as a drug suspect, police said.

The police union has also blamed “chronic understaffing” for creating a high level of stress among street officers. Detroit’s fiscal problems have forced the city to slash its police force by more than 25% in the last five years.