Jury could not reach an unanimous verdict leading to a mistrial.
By Raif Karerat
A federal judge in Alabama has declared a mistrial in the case of a police officer who slammed an elderly Indian grandfather to the ground, leaving him partially paralyzed, after jurors were unable to break a deadlock and reach a decision.
During the course of deliberations, the 12-person jury informed U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala they could not reach a verdict – which must be unanimous. Ultimately, the jury told the judge on four different occasions they could not reach a verdict.
According to the Alabama Media Group, Prosecutor Robert Posey said the U.S. government will try the case against Officer Eric Parker again, who was charged with violating the civil rights under color of law of Sureshbhai Patel.
“We plan to re-try the case and so another jury will get a chance to see this evidence and hear the testimony,” Posey said. “We will let them decide.”
In March, a grand jury indicted Parker on one felony count of using unreasonable force, reported the Washington Post.
The case drew international attention after dashcam footage of the brutal takedown went viral. Following the attack, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley issued an apology to the government of India for the incident. In his apology, the governor described the actions taken by Parker, 26, as “excessive force.”
The incident that left Patel in the hospital transpired earlier this year, in February. Patel, 57, had just arrived in the United States one week prior, and had flown over from the small Indian town of Pij to live with his son, Chirag Patel, in the affluent suburb of Huntsville, Ala..
The elderly Patel was to help his son’s wife care for their new baby, a 17-month-old son, so Chirag could pursue his masters degree in electrical engineering at the University of Alabama.
While the victim was out for a leisurely stroll around his new neighborhood on the morning of February 6, he was approached by two police officers who stated they were responding to a call about a suspicious person.
Unfortunately for the senior Patel, when the officers began questioning him all he could respond with was “no English” and “India” as he pointed to his son’s residence and repeated the house number.
Upon realizing they could not communicate with Patel, the civil servants began to frisk him, which is when they claim he put his hands in his pockets. It was at that point Parker “slammed him to the ground,” recounted Henry F. Sherrod, Patel’s lawyer.
The assault left Patel bleeding profusely, paralyzed, and in need of surgery to fuse two vertebrae.
Parker said he lost his balance when he took Patel down, the Associated Press reported. He said he was worried about his safety, as Patel repeatedly pulled away from him and also reached into his pockets.
“This was an escalated police action based on what Mr. Patel did,” Robert Tuten — Parker’s attorney — said during closing arguments, according to The Post. However, prosecutors argued that Parker intentionally performed a leg sweep to take Patel down.
While Sherrod told Al-Jazeera in February that thinks Sureshbhai Patel was accosted “because he looked brown,” he also believes it could happen to anyone, regardless of race or walk of life.
Regarding why the jury was unable to come to a decision, “That’s one thing that we might never know,” Parker’s attorney, Robert Tuten, said. “Obviously some of them saw things our way and some of them didn’t. At the end of the day, we come back and try it again. We’ll see how that goes.”
While the demographics of the jury have not been reported by the local media, critics of the non-decision are sure to point to Alabama’s less-than-stellar human rights record in dealing with excessive force by police officers, especially in the context of the sometimes glaring divide in the American South.
The issue of police officers assaulting individuals of color without provocation recently came to the forefront of the public consciousness once again when plainclothes Officer James Frascatore blindsided former tennis star James Blake in front of a surveillance camera last week and threw him down into a Manhattan sidewalk after allegedly mistaking him for an identity thief.
Ironically, the unidentified individual police mistook Blake for turned out to be innocent as well, according to CNN.
Blake has subsequently gone public with the officer tackling him, determined to use his star power to address the issue of police brutality.
New York City Bill de Blasio and Bratton, the commissioner, called Blake to apologize. Blake said he appreciated the apologies, but they weren’t enough for him.
“I’ve gotten emails and texts from people that tell me, ‘This happened to me. This happened to my friend, my father, my brother,’ ” he said. “None of them get public apologies. They deserve the same treatment I’m getting.”
The headlines about Blake have unearthed past complaints against Frascatore, who is the defendant in at least four earlier lawsuits alleging excessive use of force.
New York’s mayor, meanwhile, pledged Monday that action will be taken — if not in this particular case, than generally in retraining city police officers on how to interact with the public.
“The challenge is not new; it is decades old,” de Blasio said. “We want to get ahead of the challenge and fix it going forward.”