Jury says Beating was OK -- No Excess Force in Austin Police Beating of Handcuffed Latino Man Lying Faced Down

 
Hernandez loses civil rights case against officers in videotaped beating. [SEE VIDEO]
A federal jury on Thursday found that an Austin police officer and two former officers did not use excessive force against Ramon Hernandez, whom they were videotaped beating in September 2005.

The six-woman jury in U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Pitman's court deliberated for more than four hours.

After the verdict was read, one-armed hugs and backslaps were shared by officer Christopher Gray, who was suspended for 70 days after the incident, and former officers Joel Follmer, who was fired for his conduct that day, and William Bradley Heilman. Heilman quit the force after the incident and said he has been accepted to Baylor Law School.

"We're pretty excited," Heilman said.

Gray, who was videotaped punching Hernandez 14 times while the man lay facedown in handcuffs, said: "I am going to do my job Monday morning the same way I've always done it, and that is with the safety of Austin's citizens in mind."

Hernandez suffered cuts and bruises in the melee, which started when he fled the scene of a minor Burnet Road car accident. He disclosed during the four-day trial that he has schizophrenia and felt symptoms the day of the wreck and arrest.

He said he was proud he took the case to trial.

"It was a horrific event," the 27-year-old said, "but I survived."

During closing arguments, one of Hernandez's lawyers implored the jury to hold the officers accountable for roughing up Hernandez a block from the car accident, where he had fled with his Bible to pray.

"If what you saw on that video was not a violation of Ramon's civil rights, I don't know what is," Amber Vasquez Bode said. "Ladies, you have the ultimate amount of responsibility to draw the line in the sand and say what is acceptable in our community and what isn't."

The jurors were charged by Pitman to decide whether Gray, Heilman and Follmer used excessive force that was "objectively unreasonable" in light of the facts and circumstances that day.

"These punches weren't gratuitous. They weren't intended to one way or another punish him," Tom Stribling, one of the officers' lawyers, told the jury. "They were used as a technique to keep him from rolling over, which he has admitted he was trying to do."

Hernandez testified that he fled the accident scene, scaled a razor wire fence and knelt in the dirt behind a transmission shop because he was having trouble breathing and processing his thoughts.

When Heilman got there, Hernandez refused commands to stop approaching him, said Heilman, who then used his Taser on Hernandez. Heilman said he deployed the Taser several times, punched Hernandez and hit him with his collapsible baton because Hernandez resisted arrest.

At one point, Heilman said, Hernandez grabbed his gun and tried to pull it from the holster. That's when Gray and Follmer arrived. Gray said he kicked Hernandez in the head, and soon they got him in handcuffs.

Hernandez broke free momentarily, and the melee moved within view of Heilman's squad car camera. From that point Hernandez is shown facedown, screaming and crying, as Gray punched him 14 times in the back, Follmer punched him in the legs and Heilman stood on his neck.

Heilman was accused of using his Taser on Hernandez at that point, which he has denied.

Stribling told the jury that Hernandez suffered no long-term injuries from the use of force, which he said was necessary.

"Sometimes the use of force doesn't look good, and we understand that," Stribling said. "No one can say that they enjoyed watching this videotape, but that is not the question. ... The question is whether this was excessive force." [MORE] and [MORE]