‘You’ve got cocaine on your tongue.’ CMPD officers didn’t call Medic despite police policy.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, just 12 days after the January death of Harold Easter, announced a major policy change requiring officers to continuously monitor anyone they’ve arrested. Easter had swallowed drugs during his arrest and been left unattended in an interview room, where authorities say he suffered a seizure and heart trouble.
Attention on Easter’s death and the case of five CMPD officers who are facing termination has centered on the amount of time Easter was left alone, repeatedly asking for water while his legs were shackled to the floor.
But police department policy dictates that officers should not have taken Easter to the interview room or jail to start with.
Following Easter’s death, CMPD made changes to four department directives, including policies that govern suspect interview rooms, officers transporting prisoners and officer interactions with people with mental illness or extreme distress.
One policy that has not been changed — and was in effect for years before Easter’s arrest — requires police officers to immediately call for medical help if they know or suspect that someone they’re arresting has swallowed drugs.
A copy of CMPD’s directives, dating back to at least 2017, states three times in separate policy sections that officers must have a suspect evaluated by Medic prior to taking the suspect to jail if they’ve ingested drugs.
According to the policy, “If the person is believed to have swallowed the illegal substance, officers will immediately call Medic and a supervisor. A person who has ingested illegal substances needs to be immediately evaluated by medical personnel before they are transported to jail.”
CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings on Friday said the officers involved in Easter’s death had “intimate knowledge” that Easter had swallowed cocaine during the traffic stop that led to his arrest, and then left him unattended in an interview room for more than 20 minutes.
Jennings has not specified which policy violations led to his decision to recommend the officers be fired. In a news conference, he said: “It’s difficult to watch and to know that had our officers followed our policy that Mr. Easter may be alive today, and had offered more concern for the sanctity of Mr. Easter’s life, we may not be looking at such a tragic outcome.”
Department policy also suggests that officers quickly determine whether someone they’re arresting has swallowed drugs. A search, the policy states, is permissible and there’s probable cause if drugs are involved.
“Exigency is created because of the potential harm to the person and the destruction of evidence,” according to the policy.
It’s unclear whether CMPD officers who arrested Easter searched his mouth for drugs. The officers did search Easter’s car and found cocaine, police records show.
A transcript of officer conversations, released by CMPD on Friday, shows the first officer who interacted with Easter on Jan. 23 saying: “Don’t eat it! He’s eating it!”
When a second officer arrived, according to the document, the first officer told him Easter had been “crushing up” crack cocaine but “stopped.”
“He was crushing up his crack but he didn’t eat it all,” the officer said, according to the transcript.
Later, a third officer says: “You have crack all over your tongue.”
Another officer at the arrest asks Easter: “Lips going numb, ain’t they brother?” As Easter sat in the back of a patrol and said he needed water, another officer said: “Bro, you’ve got cocaine on your tongue ... It’s gonna happen when you try to eat cocaine.”
CMPD officials have not said how much time lapsed between Easter’s arrest and his collapse inside an interview room at the Metro Division station. He was arrested at around 11:40 a.m. Jan. 23. His family has said they were notified later that night Easter was hospitalized. Three days later, he died.
The case against four police officers and a supervisor is pending before Charlotte’s Civil Service Board. The police chief does not have unilateral authority to fire officers, but Jennings has submitted the citation for termination to the board. A date for the hearing or hearings has not been announced.
Charlotte Civil Service Board
The five officers will have a chance to plead their case before the city’s Civil Service Board.
The nine unpaid members of the board hold hearings that are much like trials. They hear from witnesses, from the lawyers for the accused and from a police attorney who represents the department.
A majority vote by the Civil Service Board is required to fire an officer. If the board votes to fire the officers, they can appeal the ruling to a Superior Court judge. But such appeals are rarely successful, says Charlotte lawyer George Laughrun, who has represented more than 100 accused officers.
“If you lose at the hearing, you’ll probably lose before a judge,” Laughrun said.
Under a rule change imposed several years ago, members of the Civil Service board can’t have law enforcement backgrounds or families in law enforcement.
Due to the pandemic, Civil Service Board hearings have been delayed by more than six months, Laughrun said.
The board takes its job seriously, he said.
“We’ve been there for a one-day hearing that went until 10 or 11 at night,” Laughrun said. “They work hard for no pay. And they’re always prepared.”
The hearings are closed to the public unless the accused officer chooses to allow members of the public to sit in.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 4:25 PM.
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