Officers’ conduct caught on tape
Defense: Video reveals ‘animus and prejudice’ against accused killer
As Markeith Loyd moaned from inside an Orlando Police Department interview room in 2017, officers and Orange County deputies cracked jokes, congratulated each other on nabbing the accused cop killer earlier that night and snapped photos of him with their cellphones.
Loyd repeatedly complained about the injuries to his face — he’d eventually lose an eye, a result of a beating delivered by law enforcement during his apprehension earlier that night — and asked for one of his handcuffs to be loosened, explaining it was cutting off his circulation.
“We’re still looking for that key, man,” a deputy responded to one of Loyd’s numerous complaints.
Minutes later, when a detective entered and asked the same deputy for a handcuff key, the deputy immediately reached into his pocket and handed it over.
Video from the interrogation, obtained Tuesday by the Orlando Sentinel, sheds new light on Loyd’s treatment by police after he was arrested Jan. 17, 2017, nine days after authorities say he shot and killed Orlando police Lt. Debra Clayton outside a Walmart on Princeton Street.
Loyd, 44, could face the death
penalty in Clayton’s slaying.
Loyd’s defense lawyer, Terence Lenamon, has asked a judge to allow the video to be shown at his upcoming first-degree murder trial in May. It reveals the “animus and prejudice” against Loyd held by then-Orlando police Chief John Mina and his officers, Lenamon argues.
Loyd was captured after an exhaustive manhunt, crawling out of an abandoned house to a swarm of law enforcement officers. The office of Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Phil Archer later reviewed the officers’ use of force and found it to be “lawful and justified.”
The interrogation video shows Loyd was only given medical treatment after he was in the interview room for about an hour and a half. Prior to questioning, sheriff’s Detective Danny Garcia Pagan wiped Loyd’s face off with paper towels, acknowledging that it was “not going to do much.”
“We’ll get the rest in a little bit,” he added.
Throughout the interview, the audio of which has previously been made public, Loyd complained about his injuries and asked when medical treatment would occur.
“I’m f---ed up right now,” Loyd said early in the interview.
“You’re not that f---ed up, you can talk,” OPD Detective Pete Cadiz said.
Later, Garcia Pagan told Loyd, “What I don’t want is for me to give you respect and for you to treat me like a pup. You can’t even sit up and look at me.”
“Bro, y’all just beat my ass,” Loyd replied. “I don’t even want to hear that s---.”
“Markeith, ain’t nobody in this room beat your ass,” Cadiz replied.
Loyd complained that he was in pain and being questioned “under duress.”
“Those two things aren’t going to change Markeith,” the detective said. “Your pain ain’t going to change any time soon, whether medical attention sees you or not. The duress? Whatever.”
Cadiz later told Loyd he was a “b---- in body armor.”
“You talk all that s--- about how you ain’t going down without a fight and as soon as the officers confront you in the yard, you bow down like a b---- in body armor, so what are you now?” the detective asked Loyd. “You talkin’ all this s--- about how bad ass you are, but when the officers confront you at the house on Lescott, what’d you do? You b----ed out.”
When Loyd complained about the detectives disrespecting him, Garcia Pagan taunted him for wanting “a little freakin’ Band-Aid on your face.”
“That’s a b---- ass move, and you know it,” he told Loyd. “You worried about the little blood coming from your face.”
Cadiz also berated Loyd for shooting Clayton, an officer who worked to “make the community a better place,” calling him a “little goddamn p---y.”
“Yo momma a p---y,” Loyd responded.
“You deserve the respect of any rabid dog on the street,” Cadiz told him.
Minutes later, Cadiz asked a moaning Loyd to open his eyes.
“That was a true angel you put down because you’re a pointless little f---ing dog, OK?” Cadiz said. “My only regret is that you’re breathing right now. You get what you got coming.”
After officers took photos of Loyd’s injuries, the Orlando Fire Department came to treat him. Loyd yelled in pain when a paramedic wiped his eye. After paramedics wrapped Loyd’s head in gauze, officers put him in a white outfit and handcuffs.
Lenamon has argued the detectives’ “disgust for Loyd” is proof the department didn’t comply with its policies and compromised the investigation.
“It is indisputable that this was done in retribution for Loyd having killed Clayton,” Lenamon wrote in the motion.
Loyd’s attorneys plan to argue he was insane when he shot and killed Clayton after she tried to arrest him for murdering his pregnant ex-girlfriend Sade Dixon in December 2016.
A 12-person jury found Loyd guilty of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Dixon and her unborn child, but he avoided the death penalty after the same jury recommended he be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
During the Dixon trial, defense experts testified Loyd suffered from mental illnesses, including a delusional disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder that left him “out of touch with reality.” The convicted killer “truly believed the police wanted to kill him” before his confrontation with Clayton, according to Lenamon.
“That was a true angel you put down because you’re a pointless little f---ing dog, OK? My only regret is that you’re breathing right now. You get what you got coming.” Pete Cadiz, OPD detective