A Springfield police officer is under criminal investigation after department supervisors ruled he used excessive force against a pedestrian during a stop earlier this year.

The patrol officer, Ryan Stone, has been on paid administrative leave since April 12, amid a misconduct probe into two incidents earlier this year that drew scrutiny from higher-ups in the department.

One of those cases is being reviewed by prosecutors in Linn County, who have agreed to investigate Stone's conduct at the request of the Lane County District Attorney's Office.

In that matter, a Springfield police probe found Stone had wrongly thrown a man to the ground and then used a Taser stun gun against him after first stopping the man — who reportedly suffered a rib injury in the incident — for a minor, pedestrian-related traffic violation on April 7, according to internal-affairs reports written by police Lt. Scott McKee.

The other case involves what police concluded was Stone's unjustified detention and handcuffing of a motorist during a traffic stop in February.

State law in most cases allows police to keep internal-affairs reports secret in police misconduct cases. The Register-Guard obtained copies of documents compiled during the Stone investigation from a third party who forwarded them to the newspaper after Springfield City Prosecutor Matt Cox provided them to local defense attorneys on Aug. 24.

Lane County District Attorney Patty Perlow, meanwhile, confirmed she has a similar notice ready to provide to defense lawyers in the event Stone is identified as a potential witness in a criminal case.

The prosecutors are obliged, according to a longstanding U.S. Supreme Court decision, to disclose to the defense information about a witness who previously has been found to be dishonest. Documented concerns about credibility can seriously hamper, and sometimes end, a police officer's career.

In Stone's case, McKee wrote that in both cases he reviewed, the officer made statements that conflicted with "objective evidence" reviewed as part of the internal investigation.

Notice of potential discipline

The documents provided to The Register-Guard include a notice of potential discipline signed June 6 by Springfield Police Chief Rick Lewis in connection with a Feb. 18 incident in which Stone was found to have broken department policy by handcuffing and detaining a motorist after stopping a vehicle for a turn-signal violation and also reportedly seeing it weaving in a traffic lane.

Stone — a former Eugene police officer who in 2013 received a statewide intoxicated-driving enforcement officer of the year award — wrote in a report about the incident that he had ordered the motorist to exit his vehicle during the stop after the man had become belligerent, and also because he believed there was reason to conduct a DUII investigation, McKee wrote in a report documenting the internal investigation.

Police investigators concluded Stone had violated the man's constitutional rights by ordering him from the vehicle without establishing reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime had occurred, the report states. It also found Stone had no justification for either detaining the man in handcuffs or using his foot to kick the man's feet apart and press a gloved hand against the man's face for not complying with Stone's commands.

Investigators also found that the man did not become belligerent until after he had been ordered from the vehicle and Stone had put hands on him, the report says.

McKee's report also notes that in-car video evidence was key to the probe, and that if it had not been available department investigators "would have been left to make a determination of the lawfulness of officer Stone's decisions and actions on the basis of his written and uttered descriptions vs. those offered by" the motorist.

McKee also wrote that "disturbingly, this objective evidence (reviewed by department supervisors), while supporting (the motorist's) contention he was unlawfully detained, also implicates officer Stone's credibility."

Lewis, in his discipline notice to Stone, wrote that the officer's explanations for why the motorist needed to be handcuffed didn't match what video and audio recordings of the interaction had captured. In the notice, Lewis tells Stone that the officer's actions in the case "have brought discredit upon yourself and the department."

When contacted by telephone for this story, Lewis, who suspended Stone for one day without pay for his conduct during the Feb. 18 incident, declined to discuss Stone's situation beyond confirming that the officer is on administrative leave.

Scott Akins, president of the Springfield Police Association, the labor group that represents department employees, also declined to discuss the two cases. But he acknowledged knowing that Linn County prosecutors are reviewing the April incident. He also pointed out that Lewis' discipline notice to Stone, in relation to the February case, did not find that the officer had violated any department policy on truthfulness.

"Ryan Stone was not dishonest, and he was not disciplined for being dishonest," Akins said.

Prosecutors reviewing conduct

The incident that has led prosecutors to review Stone's conduct for potential criminal charges happened during the early morning hours of April 7. It started when Stone stopped a pedestrian for illegally crossing the street at the intersection of Main Street and the Highway 126 Expressway in the Thurston area, according to McKee's report.

Police department investigators reviewed Stone's police report and his in-car video, and also interviewed the officer about the stop. The investigation concluded Stone had arrested the man for interfering with a police officer and resisting arrest without probable cause, and also that Stone's report of the incident contained "untruthful information" pertaining to the man's alleged conduct, McKee's report says.

The man was lodged in the Springfield Municipal Jail but later released after both charges against him were dropped, according to the report.

Stone had emphasized concern about the possibility that the man would become aggressive or flee during the stop, but investigators "noted a distinct lack of behavior on the part of (the man) which would have led a reasonable officer to hold this same concern," McKee wrote in the report.

Department investigators found that the man had not complied with Stone's instructions to sit down during the stop, but that he had not actively refused to do so. Stone, however, falsely wrote in his account of the incident that the man had "told me he was not going to sit down," which McKee's report describes as being "simply a false statement in an official police report."

Investigators in the police department found the discrepancy significant and characterized the man's comments to Stone as being "confused, meek and even submissive," McKee wrote.

Stone's own in-car video shows that he lunged at the man and grabbed him while the pedestrian was standing with both hands in front of him, according to McKee's report. It describes Stone's use of force as "sudden and forceful" and said the officer first grabbed the man around the neck with his right arm, so that his elbow was in front of the man's chin while his hand was on the man's shoulder. Stone then "rapidly and forcefully threw (the man) in a clockwise and downward motion to the ground" where the man landed on his front side, the report says.

While in jail, the man complained of having broken his ribs, but that self-diagnosis was unconfirmed although bruising was found, the report states. Jail staff told police investigators that the man previously had displayed apparent "mental health-related" behaviors during previous stays in the facility, McKee wrote.

Stone also used his Taser against the man during the incident. A state trooper, Kaleb Anderson, had been patrolling in the area when he saw Stone on the ground with the man. He told police investigators that he'd seen the man use "passive" resistance against Stone while on his hands and knees, and that he'd moved into position to help Stone get the man into handcuffs when Stone deployed the stun gun, McKee wrote.

Anderson told investigators that it "kind of surprised me" when Stone used the Taser without first verbally warning that he would do so, and that it appeared to him that "hands-on defensive tactics" were adequate to deal with the man's resistance, McKee's report says.

A follow-up report from McKee that's included in the documents obtained by The Register-Guard states that police had sustained an excessive-force allegation against Stone pertaining to the man's arrest. It also says that Lane County prosecutors requested review of the investigation if the department concluded that excessive force had been used.

Perlow, in a recent telephone interview, characterized the investigation as "a conflict case" that she asked Linn County prosecutors to review. Richard Wijers, the Linn County prosecutor who is looking into the matter, said his office is conducting additional investigation and that a charging decision should be made "within the next few weeks."