Cop charged in incident at May protest

Fort Lauderdale officer accused of shoving a kneeling woman

Steven Pohorence, the embattled Fort Lauderdale police officer accused of shoving a kneeling protester during a Black Lives Matters protest, has been charged with battery.

The Broward State Attorney’s Office filed the charge in response the May 31 incident in which Pohorence shoved Jada Servance as she knelt on the ground during a tense exchange between officers and demonstrators. According to her attorney, Servance suffered neck and shoulder injuries.

The charging documents allege that Pohorence committed battery by “actually and intentionally touching or striking” Servance against her will.

Pohorence’s attorney, Michael Dutko, said the video might not tell the whole story.

“Everyone needs to understand that there’s more going on in any police-citizen encounter than is depicted in a snippet of a video,” Dutko said. “Lets get all the facts and review them and see where we stand.”

The battery charge is a first-degree misdemeanor, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail.

Joseph Madalon, the family attorney representing Jada Servance, the injured protester, said he spoke with Servance’s mother, Danielle Casey, on Tuesday afternoon and she called the charges a good start. “The family is pleased to see that justice is being initiated. But a misdemeanor feels like it’s less than it should be,” he said.

Under Florida statues, the only other option would have been a felony

battery charge, which would carry a tougher sentence.

Madalon said the state attorney’s office interviewed the family after the protest but they were not aware of the nature of the charges before they were announced Tuesday afternoon.

The charge against Pohorence followed newly surfaced bodycam footage that show him pushing his knee into the necks of two men while arresting them this past year.

The two encounters were troubling enough to be referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for investigation and the Broward State Attorney’s Office for possible criminal charges.

Records show that Pohorence has used force on 94 people in less than four years on the job — 77% of them black.

Fourteen of the incidents were violent arrests, confrontations that ended with him or other officers punching or using stun guns on people who resisted,.

Pohorence has drawn his gun on people 51 times. Eighty-eight percent of those people were black, according to an analysis of police records by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

In every single use of force, Internal Affairs investigators from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department found Steven Pohorence’s actions consistent with department policy.

Last week it became clear that the Fort Lauderdale Police Department was not routinely examining every officer’s body camera footage unless supervisors deemed it necessary. Police experts say the practice violated basic policing principles.

A court date for Pohorence has yet to be scheduled.