Criminologist: UC officer could be charged with lying

The fallout within the University of Cincinnati Police Department continued Thursday as two officers were placed on administrative leave in the wake of the fatal shooting of motorist Sam DuBose.

Officers Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt were put on paid leave as a result of an internal investigation, UC spokeswoman Michele Ralston said.

The suspensions came just hours after former Officer Ray Tensing was arraigned on a murder charge in the July 19 shooting of DuBose, 43. They also followed the public release of Kidd’s body camera footage, in which the officer can be heard corroborating Tensing’s claim that he had been dragged by DuBose’s car.

“Yeah, I saw that,” Kidd said twice.

“They didn’t see anything,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters countered on Thursday. He said his office is looking into whether Kidd or Lindenschmidt should face charges related to their statements after the shooting.

“We promised the family we’d look at what they said and how they said it, but I did urge them to remember that our focus is on the shooting,” Deters said.

Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University criminologist who gathers data on officer arrests, said Kidd appeared to have made a false statement that could warrant a criminal charge.

“I would expect that to be forthcoming,” Stinson said. “It was a false statement. The video evidence doesn’t support it. The elements of a crime are there.”

Both Kidd and Lindenschmidt testified before the grand jury that ultimately decided to indict Tensing on the murder charge, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. By law, Deters cannot discuss grand jury testimony.

In the incident report regarding DuBose’s death, Officer Eric Weibel wrote: “Officer Kidd told me that he witnessed the Honda Accord drag Officer Tensing, and that he witnessed Officer Tensing fire a single shot. It is unclear how much of this incident (Lindenschmidt) witnessed.”

Attempts to reach the officers were unsuccessful Thursday. The Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, the union group that represents UC officers, urged people not to jump to conclusions in the case.

“People who watch an encounter on video using the slow motion setting to determine what happened have a luxury that police on the street don’t,” Chairman Bruce Szilagyi said in a statement posted on the organization’s website. “We make split second decisions. Some are right, some are wrong, but all of our decisions are made with an eye toward protecting the public and ourselves.”

Kidd previously had been involved in the 2010 death of Kelly Brinson, a mentally ill man who died a few days after being restrained and Tasered at the University Hospital, where he’d voluntarily sought medical help. According to a settlement in the case, Kidd and Weibel – who wrote the DuBose report – both were named as defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Brinson’s family.

Footage from Tensing, Kidd and Lindenschmidt’s body cameras have been released to the media. Each offers a different perspective of the deadly traffic stop in Mount Auburn, where DuBose was stopped for not having a front license plate on his car. At one point in the video from Kidd’s camera, he asks Tensing what DuBose was reaching for. Tensing replies, “He kept reaching around. I told him to step out of the car until he could produce a license.”

Shortly after, Tensing can be heard telling a separate officer that he thought he was going to be run over, to which Kidd replies, “Don’t – don’t say anything.”

At another point, Kidd tells an off-camera officer that “Lindenschmidt and I saw it.”

“Did you see him being dragged?” the officer asks. Kidd replies, “Yes.”

None of the videos released thus far appear to show Tensing being dragged. Deters dismissed Tensing’s dragging explanation Wednesday as being fabricated to justify the fatal shooting.

“I think he was making an excuse for a purposeful killing of another person,” Deters said.

Stinson, the criminologist, began tallying officer arrests as part of his doctoral dissertation. He so far has compiled seven years of arrest data, from 2005 to 2011. In that time, more than 6,700 officers faced various charges in the United States.

Of those, 6 percent, or 401 officers, were charged with making a false report or statement. Two percent were charged with destroying or tampering with evidence, and 4 percent were charged with obstruction of justice.

Just shy of 13 percent, or 854 officers, were charged with official misconduct.

Stinson said that while it appears Kidd’s version of events doesn’t match the released video evidence, that doesn’t mean he intentionally lied. Eyewitness reports are notoriously considered unreliable in criminal cases.

“The mind does not always have an exact recollection of what actually happened,” Stinson said. “I suppose that would be a defense that could be raised.”

But he said it’s also possible that the inconsistencies could highlight an oft-overlooked habit of some officers to engage in “creative report writing.” Stinson, a former officer, said he saw it happen many times while he was a cop.

“In some police departments, it seems to be a common practice to make the narrative of the reports correspond with what’s needed for the arrest but not correspond with what really happened on the streets,” said Stinson, who said this case highlights the value of body camera footage. “It seems as if we’ve pulled back the curtain here and exposed a secret practice of some law enforcement officers in some police departments to simply write false reports.”

Reporter Dan Horn contributed to this report.