Arrested S.A. jogger tells of his pain and despair
Black man says he was labeled guilty until proven innocent
SAN ANTONIO — Mathias “Marty” Ometu, a self-described night owl, scrambled to log into work Aug. 25.
About 12:45 p.m., after completing some work, Ometu put a pot of beans on the stove and decided to go for a quick run. Ometu, a frequent jogger, had a 25-minute route through his North Side neighborhood mapped out.
Ometu put on his headphones and left his apartment complex. He noticed a police officer arriving but thought nothing of it.
Then he saw another officer drive up behind him, asking for his name.
Not wanting to be bothered during his jog, he told the officer he didn’t want to provide it.
Soon, another officer, later identified as Richard Serna, arrived. He, too, asked for Ometu’s name. He said Ometu matched the description of a man suspected of choking his ex-wife at a nearby apartment complex.
“I felt targeted,” Ometu said Wednesday. “I felt like I became the victim, when there’s another woman who was out there seeking justice.”
Ometu, a graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio, said he doesn’t know much about Texas law but remembered that he was not required to provide his name unless he was under arrest.
“I continued to deny their requests,” Ometu recalled. “When I refused to provide it, I was placed in handcuffs aggressively to the point where I’m still feeling pain in my wrists.”
At that point, the body-camera footage shows, Serna hopped in his patrol car and called the victim.
For several minutes, he questioned her about her ex-husband: the length of his beard, the color of his shorts, the shade of green of his shirt.
After some time, the woman told officers that her ex-husband had on a green shirt the color of grass and black basketball shorts. She said he had a short, scruffy beard.
Ometu was wearing a neon green T-shirt and white basketball shorts. His beard is full and several inches long.
Artessia “Tess” House, a civil rights attorney for Ometu, questioned why officers didn’t let Ometu go at that point.
“(Police Chief ) William McManus stated that it was important to find out who he was,” House said. “Why? He was no longer a suspect. He hadn’t committed any crime. He was a productive member of society minding his own business.”
When asked why Ometu didn’t provide his name earlier to officers — even if he was within his legal rights — House said: “I don’t believe that that burden shifts upon the innocent. That burden shifts onto the police officers to do what they should have been trained to do and that was to conduct a thorough investigation.”
About 30 minutes after Ometu was detained, Serna told him that the officers planned to transport him to the woman’s apartment. He asked him to get in the patrol car.
The officers began leading Ometu toward the car. Ometu stiffened. He pushed back, slightly. The officers continued pushing him forward, leading him by both arms. Soon, the officers were wrestling him into the car.
“My face hit the top of the roof of the vehicle,” Ometu said. “I was bent forward with two grown men pressing on my back. I was yanked by an officer by my neck.”
In the body-camera footage, Ometu can be heard yelling several times that the officers were choking him. Each time, they told Ometu that they were not.
In total, the struggle lasted about two minutes. Several more officers arrived on scene.
After another 20 minutes, the officers acknowledged Ometu was not the suspect.
Still, the officers decided to take him to municipal court to be identified. There, he was fingerprinted and strip-searched, before being put into what Ometu said was an “unbearably” cold cell.
It wasn’t until 11 p.m. — nearly 10 hours after being stopped by police — that his handcuffs were removed, Ometu said. It was his first chance to get a drink of water and use the restroom.
About 1 or 2 a.m., police officers escorted him to the county jail, Ometu said.
About 6 p.m. Aug. 27, he learned that several friends were outside the jail to bail him out.
“It was one of the greatest feelings in the world,” Ometu said. “Knowing that someone was still watching you, even when you had given up hope.”
But the scars are far from gone. “The impact was significant,” Ometu said. “I felt like I was trapped and held against my will, and there was no end to what I was going through.”