Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley on Thursday defended an officer who’s shown on body camera footage pressing a handgun against the head of 24-year-old Jaemaun Joyner, as he was restrained on the ground in May.
Worley offered the defense of the officer at an unrelated press conference, saying the officer was “out there doing his job” and suggesting the officer was fighting for his life.
“If you’ve ever been fighting with a guy who has a gun, and he’s trying to free his hands, then you try to do whatever you can to get him in custody,” Worley said. “I can’t say much more than that. But I’ve been in that position the officer was in: You’re scared, you’re fighting for your life because you don’t know what he’s going to do.”
Defense attorneys for Joyner, who was arrested in Baltimore’s Broadway East neighborhood, say police used an “unacceptable” level of force against him and called the officers’ actions an “act of terrorism on a human being” in an interview Thursday.
“They wanted to put an exclamation point on their use of force. Not only is it excessive, but they wanted to imprint a mark of fear in his mind,” said attorney Tony Garcia, who’s representing Joyner. “That is unacceptable. That cannot be allowed to happen.”
The Baltimore Police Department said the incident is under investigation. Its Special Investigations Response Team began to investigate “immediately” and an internal investigation is ongoing, police spokeswoman Lindsey Eldridge said in a statement. The department also referred the incident to the State’s Attorney’s Office for review, she said.
None of the officers, according to Eldridge, are suspended.
Joyner’s attorneys, who said he’s considering a civil lawsuit, also argued police didn’t have reason to detain Joyner because he did not match the description of an armed robbery suspect that prompted the police interaction.
Body camera footage that Garcia shared with The Baltimore Sun shows two officers arriving to the East Oliver Street corner where Joyner and another person already were detained by police. An officer holding Joyner’s arms says “Put him in cuffs,” as Joyner can be heard asking, “What’d I do?”
Before Joyner is handcuffed, he breaks away from the officer holding his arms. He’s tackled to the ground within seconds by four officers.
While on the ground, officers grab his arms and legs, shouting at him to “stop reaching.”
“I ain’t reaching for nothing,” Joyner replies.
One officer puts his knee on Joyner’s abdomen while his hand is around Joyner’s throat. Joyner can be heard saying he can’t breathe, and the officer removes his knee shortly afterward.
While Joyner is still restrained by officers, he accuses them of putting something in his pocket. A fifth officer kneeling by Joyner’s head, who defense attorneys identified as Detective Connor Johnson, then puts his hand on Joyner’s throat. With his other hand, he presses his firearm to Joyner’s temple, keeping it there for more than five seconds.
Police then turn Joyner onto his stomach and handcuff him. The entire interaction from when the officers arrive on the corner where he is restrained to when he is handcuffed lasts just over one minute.
Joyner was charged May 23 with handgun offenses and drug possession. Police said in charging documents they recovered a handgun with eight rounds from Joyner, along with a bag containing a “powder substance” they say was heroin.
Prosecutors dismissed those criminal charges Monday, according to Garcia and his co-counsel, Jessica Rubin and Hunter Pruette, who said they received body camera footage Friday in discovery. His trial had been scheduled for Thursday, Rubin said.
The charges were dismissed “for further investigation,” said James Bentley, a spokesman for the State’s Attorney’s Office, on Thursday. He said “the matter is currently under review” in response to questions about whether the state’s attorney had concerns about the manner of arrest and whether it was evaluating the case for potential criminal charges against the officers.
Garcia said he would not be claiming that police put anything in Joyner’s pocket. He also pushed back against Worley’s description that the officer was fighting for his life in the interaction.
During a news conference this morning at City Police headquarters about the takedown of an East Baltimore drug trafficking organization, Police Commissioner Richard Worley also defended an officer who placed a gun to a man’s head during an arrest in May. Mayor Brandon Scott is on right. (Barbara Haddock Taylor/Staff)
Holding up a screenshot of the body camera footage, showing officers’ hands on Joyner’s stomach and throat, a gun to his temple, Garcia said, “I don’t see an officer fighting for his life.”
“I see an officer inflicting a mark of fear,” Garcia said. “He is informing this individual that he can kill him if he wishes.”
The statement of probable cause, written by Detective Phill Polanco, omits mention of Johnson pressing his service weapon against Joyner’s temple.
It describes that officers “conducted a forcible takedown” as Joyner attempted to flee on foot. One of the detectives, Christian Agard, “observed Mr. Joyner reaching for his right pocket and advised detectives on scene. This detective observed what appears to be a handgun in Mr. Joyner’s right pants pocket,” the documents said, describing that another detective, Austin Gutridge, retrieved a handgun. It then describes that Gutridge, Agard and Nevin Nolte, another detective, placed Joyner in handcuffs.
The charging documents also state that the armed robbery investigation is ongoing, which Pruette, one of Joyner’s attorneys, said leaves out that the victim in the case came to the scene and said Joyner was not the perpetrator. Had the case moved forward, Rubin said, she would have argued the arrest was made without probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Joyner wore a different colored shirt and did not match the height description of the armed robbery suspect, his attorneys said.
Johnson and two other officers present at Joyner’s arrest, Austin Gutridge and Nevin Nolte, were previously investigated alongside two additional officers who shot and killed a 40-year-old man in June 2023. The man, Darryl Gamble, fired at officers and was the “initial aggressor,” according to the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office.
Investigators from the Attorney General’s Office, who review civilian fatalities connected to police actions, said the five officers fired 51 rounds at Gamble, who fired more than 30. Prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against any of the officers in the fatal shooting.
Joyner’s mother, Rhonda McCain, told The Sun that Joyner has always been the “Daddy” of the family and holds in a lot. Since the May arrest, he hasn’t shared much, she said, but “I see his hurt.”
McCain said she’s haunted by the fear in her son’s eyes on the video and by how close he was to being shot.
“I could have been making funeral arrangements,” she said.
Joyner was on East Oliver Street that day to visit a sidewalk memorial for someone he knew who had been killed, his attorneys said. In the body camera footage, a cluster of blue balloons tied to a street pole float in the background.
Baltimore Sun reporter Dan Belson contributed to this article.
Originally Published: July 18, 2024 at 4:01 p.m.