- Originally published in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review March 26, 2005 Copyright 2005 Tribune Review Publishing Company
By Brandon Keat
Former
Rankin police Chief Darryll Briston said Friday that he was the victim,
not the instigator, of a scuffle with a state trooper inside a district
judge's office.
"This was a blatant attack. ... When he started choking me, I thought I
was dead," Briston said. "If this isn't a case of police brutality, I
don't know what is."
State police said Briston elbowed a trooper who tried to keep him from swallowing potential evidence.
Briston,
41, of Penn Hills, is to report to prison in less than two weeks to
begin a three-year term for his federal conviction of stealing $5,885
seized during a drug raid at a Rankin house and falsifying receipts to
cover it up. He now faces additional state charges, including assault
and attempted evidence tampering.
The
scuffle happened during a hearing Thursday before North Versailles
District Judge Robert Barner on charges stemming from accusations that
Briston bullied a bar owner into paying $1,334 for allegedly damaging a
squad car on Oct. 31, 2003, and kept the money for himself.
Briston
showed a receipt that he said proved the police car was repaired in
November 2003, police said. Believing the receipt is fraudulent, the
district attorney's office and state police decided to seize the
receipt as evidence, but Briston repeatedly refused to surrender it,
police said.
Police said Briston
crumpled up the receipt and "inserted it into his mouth in an attempt
to destroy it." Police said they recovered the receipt and informed
Briston he was under arrest. He is accused of then assaulting a trooper
by elbowing him in the neck and chest.
Briston
said he did not put the receipt in his mouth. According to court
documents, Briston accused Trooper John Tamewitz of beginning to choke
him and hit him in the face while he was asking his attorney about the
legality of the prosecution taking the receipt.
"He
picked me up out of the chair and started choking me and threw me to
the ground," Briston said. "This is my defense exhibit. You don't have
the right to just take something off of somebody. There are rules of
criminal procedure."
Briston said he was
taken to UPMC McKeesport hospital and treated for a sprained left arm,
bruised jaw, cut lip and a chest injury. He then was taken to jail. He
was released from jail about 9 a.m. yesterday after posting $10,000
bond.
A hospital spokesman confirmed that Briston was treated there. Barner could not be reached for comment.
Briston,
who was fired as chief in April 2004, said he plans to file a complaint
with the state police internal investigations unit and with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
"They're
violating my civil rights," said Briston, who is black. "I'm not taking
this. That man had no right beating me down in that magistrate's
office"
Briston was ordered to stand trial on the original charges of theft by deception and official oppression.
Briston
said he will fight the charges in both state cases and has appealed the
federal conviction. Last month, he asked an Allegheny County judge to
reinstate him to the chief's job. He said the borough's civil service
commission mishandled the appeal of his firing.
"I plan to go to trial on everything I've been charged with," he said. "I'm fighting everything. I'm fighting to the finish." [
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