Officers cleared in Loyd arrest
Actions reviewed in beating, kicking accused cop-killer
Four Orlando Police Department officers involved in the 2017 arrest of Markeith Loyd who punched, kicked and hit the accused cop-killer with their rifle muzzles did not use excessive force, a report from an internal investigation obtained by the Orlando Sentinel said.
The report, written by OPD Internal Affairs Section Investigator April
McConnell, completed in January and released Wednesday in response to a public record request, recommends that the officers be exonerated of violating OPD’s policy governing the use of force during arrests.
“It was determined that their actions were reasonable in their attempt to apprehend and effectively gain control of the suspect they deemed resisting during a lawful arrest,” McConnell wrote.
Loyd’s defense attorney, Terence Lenamon, said Wednesday he wasn’t surprised by the agency’s findings, because an OPD
sergeant had already approved of the officers’ use of force in a March 2017 report. A deputy chief sent that report to Internal Affairs for additional review.
“There’s no surprise they’re going to cover up this horrendous act and hope the public will ignore it because Mr. Loyd is an accused cop killer,” Lenamon said.
Loyd was wanted for the Dec. 13, 2016, killing of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon, when Lt. Debra Clayton attempted to arrest him outside a Walmart on Princeton Street Jan. 9, 2017. Police say Loyd then killed the officer in a shootout. He’s facing a first-degree murder charge in her killing.
The violence sparked a massive manhunt that ended with Loyd’s arrest at an abandoned house on Lescot Lane in Carver Shores. Helicopter footage of Loyd’s capture showed a crowd of officers kicking him in the head after he tossed two guns into the grass and crawled from the house to the street on his belly.
Loyd lost an eye as a result of his injuries.
In determining whether policy was violated, McConnell relied on interviews with the officers — who all said they feared Loyd was a danger to themselves or others — and statements they wrote days after the arrest, as well as on the determination by the Brevard-Seminole State Attorney’s Office that their use of force was legal and justified.
The report released Wednesday focused on Orlando officers Sgt. James Parker, Sgt. Anthony Mongelluzzo and two other officers whose names were redacted from the report. The Police Department cited an exemption for undercover officers in justifying the redactions.
In her report, McConnell wrote that the officers described being briefed daily on Loyd’s alleged crimes prior to his capture, which “played a large role in their decisions made on the night of the arrest.” McConnell described their techniques as “intensified … to apprehend and arrest a violent fugitive in a nighttime (low light) situation.”
Loyd’s recent history “indicated his willingness to commit violence” and “do whatever was necessary, even use force, to avoid capture,” McConnell wrote.
McConnell’s report shows two sergeants, Wesley Whited and David Haddock, defended the officers’ actions. Whited wrote the March 2017 report, which described the use of force during Loyd’s arrest as reasonable. Haddock, in a May 2017 interview with Detective Rene Ingoglia, reviewed footage of Loyd’s arrest and defended each technique used.
When the video showed Parker kick Loyd in the face, Haddock said Loyd’s actions prior to the arrest put Parker “in a position where he felt that if he didn’t take immediate action to try and change the mindset of the offender” Loyd might go for a weapon hidden on his body.
When Parker delivered “muzzle strikes” to Loyd’s back, Haddock said that too was appropriate, as Parker believed Loyd was going for a weapon. Haddock described Parker’s next move, a punch to Loyd’s face, also as appropriate “under intensified techniques which would be generally used when an offender uses aggressive resistance.”
Haddock also approved of every technique by Mongelluzzo and the other two officers, which included punches and muzzle strikes and kicks to Loyd’s back and face. The officers, all focused on different aspects of Loyd’s actions, appeared to be under a lot of stress, Haddock said, “because you don’t see that all of them are seeing the same thing.”
“And that tells me that the stress level was pretty high because under human performance when stress is high you start to funnel in on your vision and you can’t see the big picture,” he told Ingoglia.
He said Loyd appeared to be moving “very unnatural,” because he wasn’t using his legs as he crawled. While the thermal camera focused on Loyd showed he had tossed aside two guns, Haddock said Loyd’s unusual movements may have indicated to officers that “he was concealing something or hiding something beneath him.”
Loyd was also looking at the officers, which was concerning because he could have been eyeing a moment to attack, Haddock said.
The fact that Loyd was wearing body armor was also was worrisome, Haddock said, because that generally indicates “that the person is ready for a gunfight and they’re prepared for a gunfight which means they’re armed.”
Haddock told Ingoglia that Loyd “was captured, he did not surrender.”
The review by the Seminole-Brevard State Attorney’s Office cited Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which allows people to use deadly force in response to a reasonable fear of death or great harm, in finding Orlando police didn’t break the law by striking Loyd during his arrest.
“After carefully examining the report and evidence, I have determined that the use of force used during the arrest of Markeith Loyd was lawful and justified under the provisions of Florida Statutes, and no further action will be taken by this office,” State Attorney Phil Archer said at the time.
Archer’s second-in-command, Chief Assistant State Attorney Stacey Straub Salmons, wrote that several factors justified officers’ fear he might still be planning to ambush them, including that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and crawled through the area where he’d tossed the guns.
The finding that the force was justified came despite the misgivings of some law enforcement officials at the scene. FDLE Special Agent Jeffrey Duncan said officers “dog pile[d]” Loyd after he crawled to the street and his head got “stomped.” Orange County sheriff’s Sgt. Bruce Vail described officers “screaming and yelling” at Loyd and “taking out frustration” in “a bit of a mob scene.”
Loyd, 44, who was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for killing Dixon, is awaiting trial in Clayton’s killing. He faces the possibility of the death penalty in that case.
Lenamon, Loyd’s lawyer, said he’s filed motions in court to acquire missing radio transmissions and complete video footage from the night of Loyd’s apprehension, as well as cellphone records from the officers involved.
“There are a number of things that transpired in the investigation that were ignored or overlooked,” he said. “… They’re counting on the fact that society may frown a little on what happened, but the bottom line is he’s accused of killing a cop so we’re going to give a pass to the Orlando Police Department once again so they’re not held accountable.”