Eimers internal investigation suspends one officer, reprimands another

 

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

Despite a grand jury absolving 13 Key West Police officers of any criminal action during the arrest and death of Charles Eimers, an internal police investigation released Monday disciplined two of the officers involved and called for review and possible modification of multiple departmental policies.

The eight-page report written by Sgt. Joseph Tripp found several instances of officers not following standard police procedure during the incident that took place on Thanksgiving Day last year. Officer Gary Lee Lovette has been suspended without pay for five days for violating four police department procedures. Officer Henry del Valle was given a written reprimand for two violations.

Ultimately, however, Tripp concluded none of the officers acted in a criminal manner or contributed to Eimers’ death, which the county medical examiner ruled accidental, caused by a weak heart and Eimers’ overall poor physical condition. Police Chief Donnie Lee and Capt. J.R. Torres, who signed off on Tripp’s report, agreed.

“The testimony in this case is that Mr. Eimers was just handcuffed and still struggling when he stopped breathing,” Sgt. Tripp wrote in his report. “There is no evidence of positional asphyxia or that Mr. Eimers stopped breathing due to any airway obstruction. The use of prone restraint on this high-risk traffic stop was proper and determined not to be a contributing cause of Mr. Eimers’ death.”

The internal report does outline the details of the improper conduct by Officers Lovette and del Valle and refers to an earlier disciplinary action taken against Key West Detective Todd Stevens for failing to keep in contact with the Lower Keys Medical Center, where Eimers was taken when he stopped breathing. Eimers died on Dec. 4, 2013, six days after his arrest, but Stevens did not find out and inform police of the death until Dec. 10, 2013.

Officer Lovette was cited for four incidents. The first was for comments he made after the arrest that were recorded on his Taser gun recording device, which he inadvertently left on after drawing the Taser during Eimers’ arrest. Lovette did not fire the Taser, concerned that he might also hit the officers who were in the process of handcuffing Eimers. However, Lovette was “making comments to his coworkers and family members that were lies and exaggerations concerning his actions during the Eimers incident at South Beach,” Tripp wrote in his report.

The Taser recording shows Lovette saying Eimers was “fighting” officers and “beating the s— out of six of us.” He also said, “Me? I dropped like a (deleted) bomb on his head.” Later, he is heard saying, “We just killed someone.”

Lovette’s other violations were for chasing Eimers in his patrol car after being ordered not to by Sgt. Frank Zamora on the police radio and for not using his siren and flashing lights during the chase. Officer del Valle for cited for the same two violations. Key West Police Department policy states that officers must continuously use sirens and lights during a pursuit as a safety precaution.

Lovette was also cited for turning off his in-car video recorder during the pursuit of Eimers despite Sgt. Zamora ordering all officers involved to turn on their recorders.

“As he [Lovette] did not know at that point where the final stop would be, or if Mr. Eimers would turn around and come back in his direction, the decision to terminate the video was, at a minimum, unwise. It also prevented him from being able to record audio at the final stop, which might have been very important,” Tripp said in his report.

Tripp made 10 recommendations for police policy review and modifications based on what he called “concerns” of actions taken by officers during the pursuit and arrest, including a “refresher in prone restraint and recovery” and instructing officers on what constitutes “active pursuit” versus “trying to stop a vehicle.”

Tripp outlined multiple incidents of police officers committing traffic violations such as failing to stop at stop signs, passing in an intersection and running red lights during the chase, although Eimers was only traveling 25 to 30 mph.

Tripp also singled out the failure of almost all patrol car and body camera recording devices during the pursuit and arrest. In addition to Lovette turning off his car recorder, several officers had their body microphones turned off or were not recording for unknown, possibly technical, reasons.

“There is a significant amount of information that might have been captured had these body microphones been recording,” Tripp says in his report.

 

 

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