Lying New Orleans Officers charged in Black man's beating death say they never hit him

From [HERE] The two New Orleans police officers charged in the 2005 beating death of a Treme man denied Thursday that they ever struck the man.

Officers Melvin Williams and Matthew Dean Moore both testified in federal court that they rushed 48-year-old Raymond Robair to Charity Hospital because he was in pain and they believed he had swallowed cocaine.

The officers said Robair tried to flee from the cops and his shoe flew off, causing him to crash to the sidewalk.

Williams, an 18-year police veteran, faces a federal civil-rights charge for allegedly beating Robair to death. He and Moore each face an obstruction charge for allegedly writing a false report, while Moore also is charged with lying to the FBI.

The events of the morning of July 30, 2005, are greatly in dispute. The officers say they never struck or kicked Robair. But four neighborhood residents have testified that Williams kicked and beat him, though details of their accounts have differed.

The dispute doesn't end there. Doctors and a nurse at Charity Hospital claim the officers dumped Robair at the hospital and were cagey about identifying themselves, or offering details about the man's condition. The doctor who worked on Robair said he never spoke to the cops. But the officers testified they spent roughly 25 to 30 minutes at the hospital, talked to that doctor and watched staffers try to revive Robair.

Even the cause of Robair's death has been debated. All agree Robair died from a heart attack as a result of a lacerated spleen. But the pathologist who conducted the autopsy for the Orleans Parish coroner's office said the death was not a homicide; Robair, he said, died from a blunt injury to the left side of the chest due to an accidental fall.

A different veteran pathologist, testifying for the government, said the opposite: The totality of Robair's injuries -- the fractured ribs in two places, the severe hemorrhaging and lacerated spleen -- make it a clear-cut homicide, he said.

In the third full day of testimony, Moore and Williams, gave their first full public accounting of events.

Moore was just 77 days out of the police academy, and working under Williams, a field training officer. A community policing grant allowed the officers to pick up an overtime shift doing "proactive" patrols in high-crime areas, Moore said.

With Williams behind the wheel that Saturday, the car swung onto the 1500 block of Dumaine Street, where several people were gathered. Williams said he saw Robair on the street, hunched over, his hands up towards his torso. Robair was moving quickly -- not walking, but not running -- and Williams said he thought "maybe a deal went down."

The car came to a halt and the officers jumped out.Robair allegedly moved towards Williams, then darted away and towards Moore.

He "tried to do a shuffle move like he was trying to run by me," Moore said. "One of his shoes came off and he went down to the street. I immediately got on top of him."

Williams said Robair tripped and fell "like a ton of bricks."

Robair's hands were hidden underneath his body and a brief struggle ensued as Moore tried to handcuff him, the officers said.

Moore re-enacted the scene in front of the jury, with his attorney standing in as Robair and tumbling to the floor. Moore leaped atop him. The interaction "happened so fast," Moore said.

The officers both testified that they put Robair up against the hood of the cruiser.

"As soon as we put him on the police car, his whole front of his body slumped onto the police car," Moore testified. "He was moaning and groaning at the time."

Nearby, Moore allegedly found a bag of powder cocaine that appeared to be wet with saliva.

"I put two and two together," Williams said, and suggested that Robair may have swallowed the drugs. The pair rushed him to the hospital.

Moore and Williams both testified that neither of them slammed, struck, kicked or punched Robair.

"There was no fight," Moore said. "There was no use of force used in this incident."

Several alleged eyewitnesses say the police stop occurred very differently. Four men testified earlier this week that Williams kicked Robair and beat him with a baton, though their accounts differed on details.

On Thursday, prosecutors pressed Moore on inconsistencies in his story, which he told at different points to internal investigators, a NOPD detective and an FBI agent.

In a 2006 interview with the NOPD's Public Integrity Bureau, Moore said he thought a "drug rip," or theft, had just taken place and that Robair was running with people behind him.

He clarified his comments on the witness stand, saying Robair was coming toward him at a "rapid pace."

The police report on the incident, written by Williams, said officers first saw Robair stumbling in the street and holding his chest. Moore said Thursday that the report was not inaccurate, but that it represented Williams' observations, not his.

Moore denied ever telling an FBI agent that he wrote the face sheet of the police report. Williams never submitted to an FBI interview.

Moore did acknowledge failing to document the trip to Charity Hospital on a NOPD log. He also admitted not radioing a dispatcher upon leaving the hospital.

Moore, a former hockey player for the minor-league New Orleans Brass, said he was a rookie cop at the time and unclear about many NOPD policies.

Earlier Thursday, a former pathologist for the Orleans Parish coroner's office said his autopsy found Robair died as a result of a fall.

"A fall on that left arm, up against the chest, could produce indentation of the chest in such a way that the entire injury ... resulted from falling on the left arm on a hard surface," said Dr. Paul McGarry.

McGarry noted that Robair had cirrhosis, which causes the spleen to enlarge.

Defense attorney Frank DeSalvo questioned McGarry: Had he ever considered this a homicide?

"I didn't," McGarry said. "And I still don't."

McGarry's testimony differed wildly from that of Dr. Kris Sperry, chief medical examiner for the state of Georgia, who conducted a second autopsy of Robair at the request of Robair's family.

Sperry, who testified Wednesday, found that blunt trauma, likely a kick to the chest, caused Robair's spleen to rupture. Sperry also said he found massive hemorrhaging and bruising, consistent with baton strikes or kicks. There's no way Robair could have suffered his injuries in a fall to the street, Sperry said, due to the force needed to rupture the spleen and the widespread nature of the injuries.

Prosecutors repeatedly pounded on the shortcomings of McGarry's autopsy, noting he never examined Robair's spleen. McGarry also failed to examine Robair from the waist down and take photos during the autopsy.

Federal prosecutor Jared Fishman objected to McGarry's qualifications as an expert. Fishman had McGarry admit he was fired from Coroner Frank Minyard's office last year, not long after a death classification that was later overturned by Minyard.

Fishman also brought up three additional McGarry autopsies -- all deaths of people in the custody of law enforcement -- that have been called into question by other medical professionals.

"Whenever I do a case of an in-custody death, my findings are always challenged," McGarry responded. "I expect that. I welcome that. But it doesn't mean everything I do is wrong."

Minyard is likely to testify in the case, possibly today.