FBI investigating Charleston Police after brutal beating of local man
"The [police] department had reviewed the body-cam footage and found, 'There was nothing out of the ordinary.' But the FBI looked at it and said, 'What we see is grounds for a federal investigation.'"
By DOUGLAS J HARDING
The FBI recently opened an investigation into the brutal beating of an unarmed local man by officers at the Charleston Police Department, the man’s daughter says.
The beating occurred March 19 in Charleston, and left 51-year-old Darrell “Scottie” Mullins with six broken bones in his face and requiring five days of hospitalization and extensive surgery in one eye, his daughter, Emily Mullins, revealed in a recent thread posted to social media.
“I had held off on making a post because we were concerned that body-cam footage would get deleted or evidence against police officers would be lost,” Ms. Mullins said. “But we received a phone call yesterday from the FBI, who has picked up the case. They are running a federal criminal investigation [into] the officers involved.”
Ms. Mullins said her father was having an episode related to a mental illness when three Charleston Police officers beat and arrested him and charged him with a felony for breaking and entering.
The beating left her father with six broken bones in his face, a concussion, multiple lacerations and knots on his cheek and back of his head, bruising to his lungs and ribs and abrasions on his arms and face. Mr. Mullins also required surgery inserting three metal plates into his face to restore movement to his left eye.
“[Mr. Mullins] was in a bit of a delusional state, and he threw a rock that hit a storefront window—He was experiencing an episode of mental illness,” Ms. Mullins said. “The day before his arrest, we had actually filed papers with the court. If [the police officers] would have taken the time to check anything, they would have known that. What was supposed to happen is the police officers were supposed to get him and transport him to the hospital to be mentally evaluated and then have him committed to a hospital, which did happen after the incident—he was committed. All of this stemmed from the mental illness.”
Ms. Mullins said she and her family learned about the incident when they received a call about her father’s booking following the arrest. After that phone call, she said it has been all but impossible to get any answers about the incident from state and county officials.
“When we called the police department, they did not inform us that my father had been injured. We ended up pulling up his mugshot online, and as soon as I saw it, I was very concerned. We bailed him out immediately and got him to a hospital,” Ms. Mullins said. “We have called now for three weeks to try to get any answers from Charleston Police Department as to if there is any sort of internal investigation. They won’t even so much as release the police report to us or to his lawyer. They said the state isn’t ready to release any information. They didn’t give any reasons, they just said they aren’t prepared to release it. They won’t let us see anything.”
Ms. Mullins said a shift commander from CPD answered her phone call two days after the incident occurred and told her the department had reviewed body-cam footage of her father’s arrest. After many attempts to contact other local officials, she said she reached out to the ACLU and then Mountain State Justice, where she was told federal investigators may need to get involved.
“The shift commander told us two days after the incident that the [police] department had reviewed the body-cam footage and found, 'There was nothing out of the ordinary,’” Ms. Mullins said. “But the FBI looked at it and said, 'What we see is grounds for a federal investigation with the U.S. prosecuting attorney.’"
According to Ms. Mullins, a security guard who saw parts of the altercation said her father did not seem to resist being arrested before he was attacked. The witness also did not see police officers attempt to use any other methods of restraint.
“We actually tracked down a witness ourselves who was a security guard, and he confirmed my father did not seem to be resisting and that there were three officers on the scene. He said he didn’t see all of it, but he knew my dad was badly injured,” Ms. Mullins said. “My father is a small guy—110 pounds—so it doesn’t make sense why he would have any of these injuries. The officers should’ve been able to subdue him. The witness told us he did not see [the officers] use their Tasers or their pepper spray or anything. He also said my father didn’t even appear to be resisting in the first place.”
This is not the first time in recent years that Charleston Police have been involved in a scandal resulting from officers using excessive violence during arrests.
A petition being circulated by local activists calls upon Charleston City Council to, among other measures, “[end] qualified immunity for civil or criminal actions by law enforcement” as well as to, “[require] all law enforcement to take mandatory emotional intelligence tests.”
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