EXCESSIVE FORCE?
Trenton teen said he was beat down by cops for just walking home, police charged him with assault on officer >>
TRENTON >> Ahkeem Brantley is an honor roll student at Trenton Central High School’s ninth-grade academy. His third-quarter report card shows he has three As and two Bs, including a 94 percent in Algebra I.
His grandmother, Valerie Hickman, says he’s a good kid. He hasn’t given her problems, has never been in trouble with the law, until now, and doesn’t hang out with the wrong crowd. His grandmother freely admits her grandson smokes marijuana from time to time and has sex but downplays that as teens being teens.
Apparently pot smoking is what got Brantley into a jam, according to police.
Brantley, 16, lives with his grandmother in Donnelly Homes, in Trenton’s North Ward, where he’s resided the past four years since his mother died of heart failure.
He was arrested, feet from his grandmother’s doorstep, Monday night and charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault on law enforcement, possession of marijuana under 50 grams and improper behavior. The encounter with city cops was partially captured on video.
Police claim the city teen struck a female officer. Brantley has denied swinging at any of the cops. Police say they found a cigar believed to have marijuana in it when they searched him after his arrest.
Brantley, who is black, has gone on to make a number of explosive allegations in an exclusive interview with The Trentonian inside a conference room at his school.
Donning a headband, a red Nike T-shirt, stylishly ripped blue jeans and black sneakers, with his right arm bandaged up in a baby-blue sling, Brantley claimed cops targeted him without justification.
He said he was slammed to the ground, beaten, maced, had $10 and residence key taken, taunted with racial slurs and threatened by cops who confronted him outside his grandmother’s home. Brantley could not name any of the officers involved in his arrest.
Investigation Launched
Police opened an internal affairs investigation but aren’t saying much about Brantley’s claims, coming weeks into the tenure of new police director Sheilah Coley.
Coley has pledged cooperation between her department and the faithbased community to mend strained relations between police and Trentonians.
Just a day after Coley was introduced, the FBI swooped in and arrested city police officer Drew Inman and former cop Anthony Villanueva as part of a two-year-long investigation that centered on the arrest of a Trenton man who was beaten after giving himself up following a foot chase.
Capt. Stephen Varn declined to elaborate on what prompted the department to review the circumstances of Brantley’s arrest saying only the case was brought to the police force’s attention by somebody outside of the department.
Neither Brantley nor his grandmother has filed complaints with internal affairs, they said in interviews.
“We know internal affairs, their office is down with y’all,” Hickman said. “They all down together. Ain’t no point of going to internal affairs. What we need to do we need to get the FBI in here. We need to get them in here to clean up this mess.”
Varn wouldn’t say whether the department was contacted by the mayor’s office about the case. But he confirmed The Trentonian, which also inquired about the arrest, wasn’t the outside source he was referring to.
Two Sides
Brantley said in an interview he had just gotten back from escorting his girlfriend to her house in another part of Trenton when police officers jumped out of an unmarked black police cruiser and shouted at him to put his hands on his head.
Seconds later, he found himself face down on the ground, struggling with a male and female cop who attempted to handcuff his hands behind his back.
During the encounter, Brantley alleged the female cop hit him in the face and maced him twice, once in the throat, causing him to choke. He said he was having trouble breathing due to the officers’ weight on his chest and the blood oozing from his nose and mouth.
“I said, ‘I give up. I’m just gonna let them arrest me,’” the Trenton teen said.
As Brantley recounted his experience, blood stains were still visible on his phone cover.
“I’m terrified and everything because I can’t see and I got two cops on me. Something about to happen,” he said.
Street crime detectives Chelsea Quinlan and Jorge Mejia were paired together that night.
They were not wearing body cameras, Varn said. Members of the street crime unit are not required to wear body cameras per department policy, the police spokesman said.
It’s unclear whether Brantley’s allegations could prompt Coley to reconsider that policy. Supporters of body cameras have pointed out they help protect cops from false allegations.
Donnelly Homes is equipped with video surveillance. But the only footage currently available of the encounter between Brantley and the cops comes from residents who recorded part of the arrest.
Those clips, which were obtained by The Trentonian, picked up with Brantley already on the ground, as a male and female officer attempted to get his hands behind his back and into handcuffs.
Varn confirmed Quinlan was the female officer who appeared in the video and believed Mejia was the other officer depicted.
The officers had their knees on his back while Brantley repeatedly shouted for help urging bystanders to go get his grandmother. One of the people filming ran over and knocked on Hickman’s door.
Hickman said she rushed out and discovered her grandson pinned on the ground, next to a white Escalade.
She stood in the exact spot where her grandson’s arrest occurred as she provided her account to two Trentonian journalists.
The cops claimed their attention was initially drawn to Brantley because he was “clenching” something in his hands and reaching for his waistband, according to Varn. The detectives claimed Brantley peered over his shoulder and appeared like he was trying to hide something, Varn said.
The detectives stated Brantley didn’t comply with their orders when they stopped him and ordered him to put his hands up, Varn said.
As Detectives Quinlan and Mejia tried to pat frisk the city teen, he twisted away and struck Quinlan in her neck with his elbow, Varn said. That’s when the struggled picked up, and the cameras began rolling.
Brantley said he saw the “Narcs” earlier in the night but ignored them. He denied having pot on him or smoking that night and contended cops targeted him for no reason while he was on his way back home from walking his girlfriend halfway to her home in another part of Trenton.
He admitted he did not willingly give up one of his hands as cops struggled to handcuff him.
“When you’re just being aggressive and telling me to put my hands up and cursin’ at me, this that and the
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