Trial for 4 Shreveport Cops Charged w/negligent homicide after Murdering Tommie McGlothen begins Today. Cops Beat Black Man having Mental Episode, Dragged Him to Police Car Like Trash, where He Died

From [HERE] and [MORE] The trial for the four Shreveport police officers accused in the 2020 death of Tommie McGlothen Jr. is set to begin Monday, June 13.

The four officers are: Brian Ross, James LeClare, Treona McCarter, and D’Marea Johnson.

The trial was initially set to begin in December of 2021, but the officers waived their right to a trial by a jury. Now, a judge will decide on the case. The officers are facing charges of negligent homicide and malfeasance in office. It’s alleged that the officers used excessive force against McGlothen and that they failed to provide medical attention to him.

McGlothen died in police custody in April of 2020. KSLA was able to obtain dash cam video of his violent encounter with police.

The police had three encounters with Mr. McGlothen on April 5, and in each of those he “exhibited signs he was a mental patient in need of medical treatment,” the district attorney’s office said.

When the police were called for the third time, it was because Mr. McGlothen had blocked a driveway and followed a homeowner inside his house while mumbling incoherently and exhibiting signs of paranoia and emotional disturbance, the district attorney’s office said.

Police officers used Tasers, mace and nightsticks to subdue Mr. McGlothen, prosecutors said. Cellphone video broadcast by a local television station, KSLA, in June showed officers wrestling Mr. McGlothen to the ground, punching him repeatedly and kicking him.

At one point police bring the man to his feet with his hands handcuffed behind him and he immediately falls or is pushed backward to the ground. 

After getting him up again, they walk him over to the police vehicle, push him against it and his head hits the hood.  

Dash cam video show cops drag him into the cop cruiser like a bag of trash.

Prosecutors said the officers had then placed Mr. McGlothen in a patrol cruiser on his head, limiting his ability to breathe. Mr. McGlothen was held in the cruiser, largely unsupervised, for 48 minutes and died at a hospital a short time later, prosecutors said.

The district attorney’s office said the officers had used excessive force in violation of the Shreveport police’s Taser policy, had used excessive physical force that injured Mr. McGlothen unnecessarily and had failed to take him to a hospital or call for paramedics.

Dr. Thoma found that Mr. McGlothen was “not a candidate for incarceration” given his medical status, prosecutors said. They said the officers’ actions had been “substantial factors” in Mr. McGlothen’s death from “excited delirium.”

The American Medical Association has defined the condition as the sudden death of people “who are combative and in a highly agitated state” and who have exhibited “agitation, excitability, paranoia, aggression and apparent immunity to pain, often associated with stimulant use and certain psychiatric disorders,” the district attorney’s office said.

The officers face up to 10 years in prison if convicted on both counts, prosecutors said. [MORE]