APD Chief Stan Knee has declined to discipline any of the nine officers involved in the arrest of 33-year-old Michael Clark, who died minutes after police took him into custody on Sept. 26. According to police, Knee reviewed the work of Internal Affairs investigators and, “after careful review,” Knee (along with others along the officers’ chain of command) agreed that the case be “cleared” and that no discipline be meted out for any infraction of department policy or procedure. The IA investigation was also presented to the Citizen Review Panel for review; after an emotional public hearing earlier this month, the panel similarly declined to recommend disciplinary action against any of the officers involved in Clark’s arrest.
On Sept. 26, police working APD’s Southeast Area Command responded to a call for service, and found Clark in an altercation. According to police, Clark was “displaying behavior that was violent and irrational.” He was initially cooperative and got into the back seat of a patrol car to answer some questions, but once they tried to handcuff him, he refused, and would not leave the car. After more than an hour, the nine officers assembled formulated a plan to call EMS to the scene, pull Clark out of the car, and then use a Taser to subdue him. After striking Clark with three shots from a Taser, police were able to get him into custody; minutes later he went into “medical distress” and died a short time later at the hospital.
This article appears in March 31 • 2006.