Officers indicted in death of Black man during arrest

Four Louisiana police officers have been indicted on charges of negligent homicide and malfeasance after they used excessive force and a Taser to arrest a mentally ill Black man and then failed to give him medical attention, prosecutors said.

The officers with the Shreveport Police Department — Treona McCarter, Brian Ross, D’Marea Johnson and James LeClare — were charged Friday in connection with the death April 5 of Tommie McGlothen Jr., 44, according to the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office.

The Caddo Parish coroner,

Dr. Todd Thoma, determined that McGlothen’s death “was preventable” because the officers should have known he needed medical treatment, prosecutors said.

Police had three encounters with McGlothen on April 5 and in each of those he “exhibited signs he was a mental patient in need of medical treatment,” the district attorney’s office said.

When the police were called for the third time, it was because McGlothen had blocked a driveway and followed a homeowner inside his house while mumbling incoherently and exhibiting signs of paranoia and emotional disturbance, the district attorney’s office said.

Police officers used Tasers, mace and nightsticks to subdue McGlothen after he fought with the homeowner, prosecutors said. Cell phone video broadcast by a local television station, KSLA, showed officers wrestling McGlothen to the ground, punching him repeatedly and kicking him.

Prosecutors said the officers then placed McGlothen in a patrol cruiser on his head, limiting his ability to breathe.

McGlothen was held in the cruiser, largely unsupervised, for 48 minutes and died at a hospital a short time later, prosecutors said.

The District Attorney’s Office said the officers used excessive force in violation of the Shreveport police’s Taser policy, used excessive physical force that injured McGlothen unnecessarily and failed to take him to a hospital or call for paramedics.

Thoma found that McGlothen was “not a candidate for incarceration” given his medical status, prosecutors said. They said the officers’ actions were “substantial factors” in McGlothen’s death from “excited delirium.”

The officers face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of both counts, prosecutors said.

All four turned themselves in Friday and were released on $20,000 bonds, according to the Caddo Parish Sheriff ’s Office.

Sgt. Michael Carter, president of the Shreveport police officers union, said it was “extremely regretful” that McGlothen died. But he said the officers should not have been charged because they were engaged in a “nasty street fight.”

“They had no choice but to engage with this man who would not stop resisting a lawful arrest,” Carter said. “This incident could not be deescalated.”

Gerald Herbert / Associated Press Pastor Linus Mays leads a prayer in Shreveport on June 10 with the family of Tommie McGlothen Jr., who died in April.