MT Cops Have Hands Full (w/Dirtbag Woman) in Bar Arrest
Ken (NY)
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Dateline: Missoula, Montana - 2/24/2001
Missoula police officers went to the Oxford Bar early Thursday
evening, prepared to arrest a man wanted on manslaughter charges in
Nevada.
What they weren't prepared for was the irate woman accompanying the
fugitive.
According to court documents filed Friday by Deputy Missoula County
Attorney Jennifer Johnson, police officer Ed Gydas was sent to the
Oxford at 337 N. Higgins Ave. to try to find a man who had threatened
a tow truck driver. While at the Ox, a woman identifying herself as
"Jessica Hunter" informed Gydas that a man named Timothy Pettett,
wanted for voluntary manslaughter in Nevada, was in the bar.
When Gydas and officer Ken Wickman approached Pettett to verify his
identification, the same woman, who was later identified as
22-year-old Merilee Watne of Missoula, lunged past the officers and
grabbed Pettett by the neck. As Watne was pulled away she "began to
thrash around and scream obscenities at the officers."
When Watne was informed she was under arrest, she spit in both
Wickman's and Gydas' faces and continued to fight.
Watne was subdued and taken to the Missoula County Detention Facility
where she continued to misidentify herself and tell law enforcement
officials she was a juvenile. Under jail policy, all juveniles
arrested on alcohol charges must undergo a medical evaluation at the
hospital. Since Watne's blood alcohol level was 0.164, she was
transported to St. Patrick Hospital.
When handcuffs were removed from Watne at the hospital, she jumped up
on a desk and dove through a window that separates the emergency room
and the waiting room, shoving a hospital employee aside on her way
through. As Watne tried to run from the hospital, Wickman tackled her.
Watne again became combative and yelled obscenities at police officers
and people in the waiting room. She also tried to kick a St. Pat's
security officer in the head.
Once Watne was properly identified, authorities learned that she was
already out on bail and awaiting trial on a felony assault charge for
allegedly biting Missoula police officer Josh Clark in the leg during
a downtown street melee at the Hells Angels motorcycle club gathering
last July. Her trial date for the prior assault charge is set for
March.
On Friday, Watne had an array of other charges added to her court
docket stemming from the Thursday incidents at the Oxford and St.
Patrick Hospital. A subdued Watne, appearing via video camera in
Missoula Justice Court on Friday, was charged with eight misdemeanor
counts and a felony escape charge. The misdemeanor charges were two
each for obstructing a police officer, assault with a bodily fluid and
disorderly conduct and one each for resisting arrest and assault.
Justice of the Peace John Odlin set Watne's bail at $25,000 and
ordered her once again to stay out of bars and not consume alcohol.
Pettett, the initial subject of interest of the police, was
incarcerated in the Missoula County Detention Facility on a voluntary
manslaughter warrant out of Nevada and a drug possession charge out of
Oregon.
MISSOULA(MONTANA)MISSOULIAN
Ken (NY)
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Fear & Rights on Trial
NYPD internal case eyes stop-and-frisk
By WILLIAM RASHBAUM and JOHN MARZULLI
Daily News Staff Writers
A little-noticed internal trial of two street crime unit cops
accused of threatening a Brooklyn man during a
stop-and-frisk has sparked a dramatic call for police to
better respect the rights of citizens.
The call came from Officer George Toussaint, who is acting as the
Police Department prosecutor in the departmental trial of Lt.
Kevin Cantwell and Officer Steven Driscoll.
In closing arguments recently, Toussaint said New Yorkers are
afraid to speak up for their rights when they are approached by
cops for fear they'll be locked up.
"There is an attitude that you cannot question the authority when
they [cops] tell you to let them search you," he said. "If you dare
refuse it, your Fourth Amendment right, then you have to go
through the system."
Toussaint said the department "must make it perfectly clear that
you cannot violate constitutional rights."
On Jan. 23, 1997, Cantwell, Driscoll and Officer Michael
Cummings — who was not charged — leaped out of an
unmarked car in Brooklyn to stop James Desir, who they
suspected was carrying a gun.
Desir, 26, a former Marine who at the time was on the waiting list
to become a cop, claims Cantwell became violently abusive after
he asked the cop for identification.
"The lieutenant grabbed me around the throat, threw me against a
metal fence and said he would kill me," Desir testified two weeks
ago.
Desir was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest —
charges prosecutors said could have been resolved with a desk
appearance ticket.
But Desir said the cops spitefully made him appear in Criminal
Court before he got the desk appearance ticket because he
threatened to file a complaint.
The district attorney's office has since dismissed the charges
against Desir.
The charges mirror others leveled against unit members in
February after the shooting of Amadou Diallo. Cops fired 41
bullets at Diallo, striking him 19 times.
The administrative hearing also showed different interpretations of
the legal standard needed to stop a civilian.
"Does merely having a shirt untucked, standing on a street corner
waiting for a light to change and appearing to have a bulge in the
waistband give you probable cause to stop and frisk?" Toussaint
asked Cummings.
"Yes," Cummings said, "at least to stop and question as to the
bulge and his demeanor."
The bulge turned out to be a wallet.
Lawyers for the cops insist the stop was justified.
Desir attends John Jay College of Criminal Justice. His NYPD
application was rejected.
If found guilty, Cantwell could lose 20 days pay and Driscoll five
days. A decision is expected in a few weeks.
--
- Outlaw Frog Raper -
Schenectady Copwatch
(518) 356-4238