White Minn. Cops Ordered Black Man to Get On His Hands & Knees & Then Kicked Him in the Face Causing Brain Injury, Charges Filed

Public Video Kept Secret. From [HERE] and [HERE] and [HERE] A white Minneapolis police officer appeared in court and was briefly jailed Thursday, one day after he was charged with felony assault for kicking a Somali suspect in the face, causing serious injuries.

Officer Christopher Reiter, 36, is charged with third degree assault for kicking Mohamed Osman, 35, in the face when responding to a May 30, 2016, call, breaking Osman’s nasal cavity and causing a traumatic brain injury. Osman is a Somali American. 

The incident was captured on surveillance video, and three other officers at the scene said they did not feel it necessary to kick him in the face, according to charges.

He was on his hands and knees when he was kicked, which caused facial and brain injuries.

3rd degree assault requires a temporary but substantial loss of body function [like a broken arm]. 1st degree assault requires great bodily harm, permanent or protracted loss of use of body function. The prosecutor said the charges may be amended to 1st degree assault depending on Osman's recovery from his injuries.[MORE] 

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said during a news conference that the three other officers who responded to the call “said the situation did not call for a kick in the face.” Freeman, who is white, refused to release the video to the public. (confusingly the media has been showing video from another incident in 2014 in which Reiter kicked a Latino man in his chest at a gas station - more below. Racists love confusion.) 

“In this case, a kick to the face is a use of deadly force, and simply not justified,” Freeman said.

According to charges, Reiter and other officers were called to a south Minneapolis apartment building in the 2900 block of Chicago Av. after a report that Osman had severely beaten his girlfriend.

“He was in his car, he was asked to exit the car. He did. He was told to get on his hands and knees. He did,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. 

 Osman was ordered to the ground and was complying when video shows Reiter “quickly approaching [Osman] and violently kicking him in the face within seconds of [Osman] going to the ground,” the complaint says.

“They want him to go prone and lay on his stomach, and all of a sudden Reiter comes around the corner and kicks him in the face.”

He collapsed to the ground unconscious and bleeding. Osman pleaded guilty to third degree assault in January as part of a plea deal and will be sentenced March 23. At least one other officer, Josh Domek, was reprimanded for his role in the May assault.

Osman said in an interview that the traumatic brain injury has prevented him from working and caring for his children.

Reiter stood beside his attorney, Robert Fowler, who told Judge Fred Karasov that he would be challenging some of the evidence presented against his client during the next hearing, scheduled for April 20. Reiter was booked into jail and released without posting bail with the agreement of Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Debra Lund. Reiter was released from jail on the condition he does not have any contact with Osman.

Outside the courtroom after the hearing, Fowler described Reiter as an “excellent patrol officer.”

In September 2014, Reiter was caught on video kicking a Latino man in the chest in similar fashion.

That video shows Reiter arriving at the gas station after the manager, Shawn Ross, broke up a fight. Reiter got out of the car and pointed at Ross, who got on his knees. Reiter then walked up to Ross and kicked him the chest.

The video is the key evidence in a federal lawsuit Ross filed against the officer and the City of Minneapolis. That case is now scheduled for trial in July.

Reiter is the second officer this year to face felony assault charges. In January officer Efrem Hamilton was charged with second-degree assault and intentional discharge of a firearm for firing at a car full of people during a downtown melee when he was working off duty in November. He too, was fired and is challenging the termination.

Community activist Al Flowers says Reiter is the officer who attacked him in his home in July of 2014.

“He came into my house three years ago and jumped on me,” Flowers said.

He says he was beaten for asking for a warrant when Officer Reiter appeared at his door looking for his daughter.

“‘What are you coming to get her for?’ And when I asked that, I was attacked. I was beaten really bad,” Flowers said.

The case was recently settled out of court for $25,000.

In her tenure, Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau has fired eight officers, according to department records, fewer than her predecessor, Tim Dolan, who terminated 13 cops in the roughly seven years that he ran the department. Harteau, who was appointed in 2012, is in her second three-year term as chief.

Bill McManus, the city’s chief between 2002 and 2006, terminated five officers during his tenure, records show.

That count doesn’t include officers who, like Reiter, have filed a grievance to appeal their dismissal. The tally also doesn’t reflect cops who were fired and then got their jobs back through arbitration, records that officials say are protected under state privacy laws.