The Des Moines Register reports that the appeal for 31-year-old Mersed Dautovic was filed earlier this month. He'd been convicted in 2012 of using excessive force on Octavius Bonds, an unarmed Black man in September 2008. Dautovic was convicted on two felony charges involving violating the civil rights of Bond and then obstructing justice by lying about it in police reports.
Dautovic finished his federal sentence and was released in January. But a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the sentence in August. The judges said the white cop sentenced to less than two years in prison should serve much longer. Ruling the sentence unreasonably lenient they ordered the case returned to federal district court for resentencing. Guidelines placed the sentence at between 11 and 14 years. [MORE]
Dautovic struck Bonds in the back of the head with a baton after a traffic stop, and needlessly struck Bonds’ back as he lay on the ground. Police struck the 25-year-old Bonds with metal batons 14 times in the head, back, arms and legs. Witnesses stopped along Southeast 14th Street that night saw Bonds splayed out over the roof of his girlfriend’s car as Dautovic and former partner John Mailander struck him with ASP batons, a telescoping metal weapon that federal prosecutor John Courter described as “essentially a mini-crowbar with a handle on it.”
“Those blows were intended merely to punish, not for any legitimate law enforcement purpose,” Courter told jurors during the trial’s closing arguments. “Because at that time, Octavius Bonds was not resisting arrest.” Bonds, suffered bruises, a broken left hand, a fractured right arm and a head gash that required eight staples to close. [MORE]
Authorities said Dautovic and Mailander were working off-duty security watching a south-side Des Moines apartment building when they decided to respond to a radio call about a man with a gun in his yard. Their response was slowed by Erin Evans (driver, girlfriend) and Bonds (passenger), who were traveling in the northbound left lane of Southeast 14th Street in Des Moines and failed to immediately get out of the patrol car’s way. When other officers responded to the emergency call, Dautovic decided to pull Evans over, according to court papers in two criminal cases and a civil lawsuit that Des Moines eventually settled for $500,000.
Jurors were told how a flustered Evans failed to respond to the officers’ commands, turned the car’s ignition off, then on again, then reached for her cellphone to call her mother. She eventually was threatened with pepper spray, pulled from the car by Mailander and “kind of tossed” across the hood of the police car before being handcuffed. Documents say Bonds, who is 6 feet 8 inches tall, was sprayed with pepper spray after he partially climbed out of the car and failed to comply with commands to get back in.
Bonds at some point grabbed Dautovic’s hands while asking him to stop the pepper spray. Both officers then hit Bonds with batons, including roughly 14 blows while he was on the ground curled in a fetal position, according to court documents.
Witness Marie Grove, who saw part of the attack from her Jeep on Southeast 14th, told jurors last week that Evans’ screams were “horrific” and that the officers’ baton blows looked “like they were chopping wood.” [MORE]
Dautovic's attorney, J. Keith Rigg, says Dautovic faces the possibility of returning to prison if the U.S. high court doesn't review the case.