Defense: Officers in beating did their best under stress

The defense for three Boynton Beach police officers accused of beating up a suspect and lying about it say the men were doing the best they could in a highly stressful and potentially dangerous situation.

After three days of testimony in the men’s federal trial, witnesses for the prosecution have told jurors that the officers’ per- formance during the August 2014 chase and arrest was less than ideal.

Fellow law enforcement officers walked jurors through video footage of the event and testified that the officers appear to have violated department policies and not followed the training they received.

But on cross-examination, the defense attorneys are trying to whittle away at that damaging testimony.

The defense’s questions focused on getting the experts to acknowledge that the video, shot from a helicopter several hundred feet above, does not show what the officers on the ground were reacting to and the possible dangers they perceived.

After Boynton Beach Sgt. Sedrick Aiken, the department’s former head of training, told the jury about all the negatives, defense attorneys confronted him with any number of scenarios that could have been unfolding on the ground but are not evident on the video.

“It’s possible,” Aiken responded over and over again to the defense questions.

The clear suggestion from the defense: There are toomany unknowns and uncertainties to prove the officers used excessive force and hold the officers

criminally liable.

Officer Michael Brown and former officers Ronald Ryan and Justin Harris have pleaded not guilty to federal charges that they violated Jeffrey Braswell’s civil rights by hitting and kicking him and using a Taser stun gun on him without justification.

They also are charged with falsifying and changing their official reports, days after the incident, when they found out that a Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office helicopter had recorded much of the beating.

Braswell was a passenger in a car that led police on a chase up and down Interstate 95, from Boynton Beach to West Palm Beach and back to Lake Worth, after the driver fled froma traffic stop and someone threw what appeared to be drugs out the window. The car swerve dall over thehighway at speeds that reached 100 mph.

A Boynton Beach police officer, who was trying to stop the fleeing car from getting on to the highway, was struck and injured by the fleeing car and then struck again by another officer’s police cruiser. Hewas seriously hurt but survived.

The officers did not know if they were dealing with armed criminals and had to make split-second decisions to keep themselves and the public safe — based on their best judgment in the moment, Robert Adler, assistant federal public defender, told the jury.

“This wasn’t a traffic stop of a little old lady,” said Adler, who represents Ryan.

Jurors have now watched video of the traffic stop and beating, shot by a Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office helicopter, several times.

The officers arrested Braswell, the front-seat passenger, on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing or resisting arrest without violence. After they found out about the video footage and one of them watched it one week later, they rewrote their reports and added false details to justify their beating of Braswell, prosecutors say.

The defense portrayed the officers’ decision to change their reports as innocent revisions that were made after they’d had about a week to calm downand reflect.

Prosecutors emphasized that the reports were made to look like they had all been completed, as required by department policy, hours after the incident. They were all dated Aug. 20, 2014, though they had been revised and rewritten a number of times a week or so later, experts testified.

Braswell, who was 25 at the time, is not expected to testify in the trial. He pleaded guilty to the nonviolent misdemeanor and was ordered to pay $253 in court costs.

Prosecutors expect to wrap up their side of the case on Friday or Tuesday. The defense has not yet decided whether to call any witnesses, and the case could go to the jury Wednesday.