Two University of Missouri-St. Louis police officers sent an African-American student to the hospital Nov. 17, but the university and UMSL police are telling a much different story than the student and several witnesses.
The beaten student, Brian K. Massey, was arrested that Wednesday evening for three misdemeanors – disturbing the peace, trespassing and resisting arrest – and the felony of assaulting a police officer.
Massey is a 46-year-old non-traditional student at UMSL and a DJ on the university’s radio station housed in the Millennium Student Center.
The problem started when Massey was asked to leave the student center because a woman with whom he had had an altercation returned to the station. According to Massey, he and the woman were involved in tumultuous interactions for weeks.
“I didn’t know that she made it to the building yet,” Massey said. “Apparently she came in stumbling, clothes ripped and you could see her undergarments.”
Massey was asked to leave the building because his presence was upsetting the woman, who seemed to be unstable. The two stories begin to diverge at this point.
“UMSL police responded to a call about a female student in extreme distress and encountered a male student whose actions interfered with their ability to address that situation,” said Bob Samples, associate vice chancellor for communications at UMSL.
“Building and radio station officials asked the male student to leave the area. When he refused, two officers were asked to intercede.”
Massey said only a fellow student, the station sports director John Edwards, asked him to leave.
According to Massey, he stepped away from the radio station and began speaking with friends, when he noticed the police. Edwards pointed the police to Massey, and an officer rushed over to Massey and asked him for student and state identification.
Samples said Massey “was not cooperative.”
“In the process of determining his identification, the male student grabbed the right wrist of an officer. The officer advised the male student that he was under arrest for assault,” Samples said.
“The officer placed a handcuff on the male student, but before the second handcuff could be applied the male student attempted to strike an officer. A physical altercation followed before officers could subdue and fully apply the handcuffs. One officer was injured in the incident.”
Massey and several witnesses tell a different story.
“The officer snatched the ID out of my hand,” Massey said. “I asked him not to snatch because it hurts my hand.”
Massey said he suffers from neuropathy, a condition of diabetes, which causes weakness and numbness due to nerve damage.
“He grabs my hand, saying, ‘You’re under arrest for trespassing,’” Massey said.
“I’m telling them to hold on because I can’t move that fast. I was trying to explain that I had neuropathy, but I was trying to do what they said.”
Use of force
According to Massey, he was thrown into a column, kicked in the thigh, hit in his side and at one point his head was against the wall as an officer was hitting the back of his head.
The university claims force was used because Massey was resisting arrest.
Kendah Isom, an UMSL student who witnessed the event, said campus police “handled the situation unprofessionally.”
“The officer grabbed his arms and turned him. The other officer grabbed him and punched him to the side,” Isom said.
“They started kneeing him, and Brian said, ‘I’m not resisting arrest.’ One of the staff members said, ‘You don’t have to hit him anymore,’ and that’s when they stopped”
Two more witnesses told the campus paper The Current accounts that match what Isom and Massey described.
Witnesses said the surrounding crowd was becoming aroused and unsettled by the police officers’ response.
“I said, ‘You guys are only doing that because he’s black,’ and the one officer told me to shut up,” Isom said. “I don’t feel safe on campus.”
No attention was paid to the distraught female student at the radio station. According to the university, the police were originally responding to a call about the female in distress. According to Isom, police only spoke with the woman several hours after Massey was arrested.
Refuses university deal
Following the physical altercation and the arrest, Massey was taken to the hospital, where he stayed for three days. He was then taken to St. Louis County jail, where he stayed in the infirmary and later posted the $500 bail.
Since the incident, Massey’s suspension from school – which forced him to temporarily leave his apartment, which was owned by the university – has been lifted.
The university has suggested that Masssey sign a document that would keep him on probation at the school until December 31, 2011 and that would say that he agrees with the university’s account of the Nov. 17 events.
Massey said he does not plan to sign the document and has since filed an appeal.
UMSL police are conducting an internal investigation as to whether their officers’ actions complied with the department’s Use of Force Policy. Samples said this internal investigation will be forwarded to an outside law enforcement agency “to review and make recommendations related to the findings and process.”
Massey has a court date in late January before St. Louis County Circuit Court.
