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CNN Live Saturday
Could Death Of Nathaniel Jones Have Been Avoided?
Aired December 06, 2003 - 14:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Could the beating death of Nathaniel Jones have been avoided? That is the question on the minds of many residences in Cincinnati, Ohio and elsewhere after Jones died this week.
Police union leaders say officer's involved used proper procedure to control Jones after he lunged at them and punched one officer. Cincinnati police got special training after a police shooting of a civilian two years ago. Miami police chief John Timoney joins us now, he can talk about the big picture. Chief Timoney thanks for being with us.
CHIEF JOHN TIMONEY, MIAMI POLICE DEPARTMENT: My pleasure.
MIGUEL: Indeed it is all about pictures because there is, as in some of these incidents that we've seen over the past several years, beginning with Rodney King, a videotape. Before we go to the specific videotape let me ask you what officers on the beat think about these videotapes? If you take them out of context or look at just one snippet, they could make an officer look bad. But do officers want these actions of a suspect on videotape?
TIMONEY: I think they do, I think the evidence has shown by and large they wind up substantiating what an officer says. And so the jury's still out on the use of these things in police cars.
However, no matter how good the videotape is, it really is still one dimensional, what you also need to do is supplement it with eyewitness accounts and the most important of all of this, interviewing the police officer. What was he or she doing, what were they thinking, what were they expecting? What was the rational thought process doing through? How did training kick in? A whole host of things, an officer needs to get his or her side out also.
MIGUEL: All right, well let's go ahead and see if we can get you inside the heads of the officers there that night earlier this week. We want to show some of the videotape here. And there is going to be a segment where Nathaniel Jones kind of lashes out. I think you'll see it coming up here, where he uses one of his arms to kind of -- reaching out, there you go. At that point right there, where he has thrown a punch what is going through the mind of the officer on the receiving end of that?
TIMONEY: It is hard to tell. You can hear clearly the verbal actions orders to back off, stop it. Obviously, he's not stopping. So there -- I would assume, they think they're fighting for their lives. The guy's a big fellow, and he doesn't seem to be reacting either to the verbal commands or the shots with the nightstick to the arms and body.
MIGUEL: And I was going to ask about that, the kinds of blows that are being delivered there. Could those -- I mean, it certainly looks bad to see blows being rained on a suspect, but the location on the body where those blows are coming down on make as big difference.
TIMONEY: Well it does, I mean we train our police officers across America to avoid headshots, if you will, because those can actually kill an individual. So you are looking to get the arms or leg, the extremities to get them to comply with the orders.
There are also over the years particularly over the last decade, the police training in this whole area, and the arsenal weapons, non- lethal weapons available, much better than 30 years ago, as a police officer, there wasn't much. And so you have pepper spray, you have taser guns and of course you have your nightstick.
However, there are certain situations where all the training in the world, all the less than lethal weapons in the world won't get a subject to comply. I'm not saying that's the case here, but every once in a while, the theory and the training run into the harsh realities of the street.
So you may get somebody who's so emotionally disturbed, or on hallucinogenic drugs, or some other kind of mind-altering drugs that it becomes impossible for them to comprehend the attack. You may -- you're a police officer, you may sound rational. They're on the receiving end, hearing the devil talking to them. They think people are out to get them; they're suffering from paranoia. And so these things are really difficult.
MIGUEL: Let me ask you one quick question, we got about 45 seconds left here. There's no way to talk about situations like this without going back to the Rodney King -- without not going back to the Rodney King incident and how had things have changed for training of police officers since that incident.
TIMONEY: Well, it has. I mean that affected police across America. There is a big difference between this case and the case of Rodney King. Rodney King was a guy who was in a suppliant position, offering no resistance where police officers were wailing against him.
Here, clearly, resistant, there was assault on police officers. So it's not really similar, even though the footage may look like Rodney King, the circumstances are not. Rodney King, the guy that is lying down, is offering no resistance. In this case you can see for yourself where the guys is swinging at police officers and he is not paying attention to verbal commands.
MIGUEL: Miami police chief, John Timoney thanks so much for your insight and sharing your experience. We do appreciate it.
TIMONEY: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 6, 2003 - 14:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Could the beating death of Nathaniel Jones have been avoided? That is the question on the minds of many residences in Cincinnati, Ohio and elsewhere after Jones died this week.
Police union leaders say officer's involved used proper procedure to control Jones after he lunged at them and punched one officer. Cincinnati police got special training after a police shooting of a civilian two years ago. Miami police chief John Timoney joins us now, he can talk about the big picture. Chief Timoney thanks for being with us.
CHIEF JOHN TIMONEY, MIAMI POLICE DEPARTMENT: My pleasure.
MIGUEL: Indeed it is all about pictures because there is, as in some of these incidents that we've seen over the past several years, beginning with Rodney King, a videotape. Before we go to the specific videotape let me ask you what officers on the beat think about these videotapes? If you take them out of context or look at just one snippet, they could make an officer look bad. But do officers want these actions of a suspect on videotape?
TIMONEY: I think they do, I think the evidence has shown by and large they wind up substantiating what an officer says. And so the jury's still out on the use of these things in police cars.
However, no matter how good the videotape is, it really is still one dimensional, what you also need to do is supplement it with eyewitness accounts and the most important of all of this, interviewing the police officer. What was he or she doing, what were they thinking, what were they expecting? What was the rational thought process doing through? How did training kick in? A whole host of things, an officer needs to get his or her side out also.
MIGUEL: All right, well let's go ahead and see if we can get you inside the heads of the officers there that night earlier this week. We want to show some of the videotape here. And there is going to be a segment where Nathaniel Jones kind of lashes out. I think you'll see it coming up here, where he uses one of his arms to kind of -- reaching out, there you go. At that point right there, where he has thrown a punch what is going through the mind of the officer on the receiving end of that?
TIMONEY: It is hard to tell. You can hear clearly the verbal actions orders to back off, stop it. Obviously, he's not stopping. So there -- I would assume, they think they're fighting for their lives. The guy's a big fellow, and he doesn't seem to be reacting either to the verbal commands or the shots with the nightstick to the arms and body.
MIGUEL: And I was going to ask about that, the kinds of blows that are being delivered there. Could those -- I mean, it certainly looks bad to see blows being rained on a suspect, but the location on the body where those blows are coming down on make as big difference.
TIMONEY: Well it does, I mean we train our police officers across America to avoid headshots, if you will, because those can actually kill an individual. So you are looking to get the arms or leg, the extremities to get them to comply with the orders.
There are also over the years particularly over the last decade, the police training in this whole area, and the arsenal weapons, non- lethal weapons available, much better than 30 years ago, as a police officer, there wasn't much. And so you have pepper spray, you have taser guns and of course you have your nightstick.
However, there are certain situations where all the training in the world, all the less than lethal weapons in the world won't get a subject to comply. I'm not saying that's the case here, but every once in a while, the theory and the training run into the harsh realities of the street.
So you may get somebody who's so emotionally disturbed, or on hallucinogenic drugs, or some other kind of mind-altering drugs that it becomes impossible for them to comprehend the attack. You may -- you're a police officer, you may sound rational. They're on the receiving end, hearing the devil talking to them. They think people are out to get them; they're suffering from paranoia. And so these things are really difficult.
MIGUEL: Let me ask you one quick question, we got about 45 seconds left here. There's no way to talk about situations like this without going back to the Rodney King -- without not going back to the Rodney King incident and how had things have changed for training of police officers since that incident.
TIMONEY: Well, it has. I mean that affected police across America. There is a big difference between this case and the case of Rodney King. Rodney King was a guy who was in a suppliant position, offering no resistance where police officers were wailing against him.
Here, clearly, resistant, there was assault on police officers. So it's not really similar, even though the footage may look like Rodney King, the circumstances are not. Rodney King, the guy that is lying down, is offering no resistance. In this case you can see for yourself where the guys is swinging at police officers and he is not paying attention to verbal commands.
MIGUEL: Miami police chief, John Timoney thanks so much for your insight and sharing your experience. We do appreciate it.
TIMONEY: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
