Suit Filed over Omaha Police Gang Attack on Unresisting Latino Man: 10 White Officers Smiling, Watching Beating - on video

From [HERE] Ten Omaha police officers used excessive force when they arrested a Latino man at a hospital last year, according to a federal lawsuit filed this week. Attorneys for Robert Wagner, 36, said he did not resist as officers jumped on his back, hit and kicked him and stunned him with an electroshock gun. Wagner was viciously beaten in the incident which was recorded by a surveillance camera. In the video he is gang tackled by numerous white officers. After he is taken down he is pounced on, kicked and stomped on over and over. After he is subdued and handcuffed police are seen smiling and appear to be amused at their gang activity. One of the police officers said, “that was fun!”  at the end of the encounter with Wagner, the lawsuit contends.

Wagner was arrested May 29, 2011, at Creighton University Medical Center, where he had gone to visit his cousin who had been shot and was dying. At the time a crowd had gathered at the hospital because they believed he had been killed by police. Officers were called to the hospital for crowd control (negro removal).

Officers testified they told Wagner to leave the hospital after he cursed at the sight of City Councilman Ben Gray in the emergency room and called him an “Uncle Tom.” A detective testified that Wagner started to leave, moved just outside the doors, but then turned and cursed at officers and made more "threatening comments" (such as what? as he walked away and complied with their request to leave). So the detective ordered his arrest. [MORE] 

However, Omaha police officer, Danielle Cloudt, testified that she has known Wagner for years. She said she knew him as a “gentle giant” with a calm demeanor. She said she never heard Wagner make any threats. Officer Ruben Soto also said he hadn't heard Wagner make any threats. [MORE] 

Two of the officers involved in the Wagner arrest, Jackie Dolinsky and Aaron Pennington, were fired. An arbitrator overturned Dolinsky’s termination and reinstated her. Pennington’s appeal is pending arbitration. In the video, after Wagner is handcuffed lying face down with an officer on his back, Dolinsky continues to loosely hold and aim her loaded semi-automatic gun at him.

Officer Scott Zymball testified he grabbed Wagner's left wrist. Wagner pulled away and swung with his right arm, striking Zymball in the head, the officer testified.

Other officers pounced. Two Tasers were deployed. One officer said he struck Wagner's leg with a baton as others piled on.

Another officer claimed it took his entire body weight to bring the 6-foot-4, 320-pound Wagner under control.

Dolinsky testified in April that she used a Taser on Wagner, then kicked at his leg when she thought he was trying to reach a knife in her pocket. Wagner was unarmed. 

Sam Walker, a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, called Dolinsky's reinstatement “outrageous.” “There is no legitimate law enforcement purpose for her kicking him,” he said. “I defy people to show me the law enforcement policy that justifies kicking.” [MORE] 

Officer Aaron Pennington testified he thought Wagner pulled at his gun belt. Surveillance camera footage shows Pennington pulling on Wagner's head before delivering punches, kicks and stomps as police worked to handcuff Wagner, who was unarmed. After he is slammed down he clearly is not resisting and under their control - but the attack continued. 

As officers scuffled with Wagner outside, the crowd inside rushed to the lobby doors. Two State Patrol troopers held the doors shut as irate onlookers pounded on the glass.

“I thought for sure that the glass was going to break,” Officer Ruben Soto testified.

Wagner later pleaded no contest to attempted assault (only requires apprehension or fear of an unwanted touching) of Officer Scott Zymball, who is among the defendants in the lawsuit. At the trial in April, several officers said they saw Wagner recoil, ball up his fist and hit Zymball in the back of the head. 

“Like a big haymaker,” Officer Matt Keenan said.

Several times, Wagner's attorney Glenn Shapiro questioned how the officers saw any strike, noting that it's not on a surveillance video.

“You don't see the actual hit (on the video),” Ceglar said. “The jerking away of his arm and the swinging motion is what you see. And you see his hair fly in the air.”

Sautter went a step further. She said Wagner continued to resist. “His legs are kicking, his arms are swinging.”

Even while he was on the ground, Sautter said: “His arms continued to flail and so did his legs.”

Shapiro suggested no such struggling is apparent on the video — or any punch by Wagner. He noted that it does show Kelley pointing up at the video camera and alerting his fellow officers.

“Is it fair to say the other officers kind of scatter at that point?” Shapiro asked.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Kelley said, drawing laughs from Wagner's courtroom supporters.

Shapiro also questioned whether Sautter had any ulterior motive in her testimony — something she denies. Sautter is the sister, and one-time police partner, of Jackie Dolinsky, who was fired along with Aaron Pennington for their actions after Wagner was gang-tackled.

Both Dolinsky and Pennington are appealing their terminations. Prosecutor Jim Masteller asked Sautter if she was testifying in the hope that a Wagner conviction would help her sister get her job back.

“I don't think it has any bearing,” Sautter said.